Aston sought medical help after her symptoms—which included severe migraines, abdominal pain, joint dislocations, easy bruising, iron deficiency, fainting, tachycardia, and multiple injuries—began in 2015, per the New Zealand Herald. She was referred to Auckland Hospital, where a doctor accused her of causing her own illness. Because of his accusations, Aston was placed on psychiatric watch.
Research suggests women are often much more likely to be misdiagnosed than men. A 2009 study of patients with heart disease symptoms found 31.3 per cent of middle-aged women “received a mental health condition as the most certain diagnosis”, compared to just 15.6 per cent of their male counterparts. Additionally, a 2020 study found that as many as 75.2 per cent of patients with endometriosis—a painful disorder that affects the tissue of the uterus—had been misdiagnosed after they started experiencing endometriosis symptoms. Among those women, nearly 50 per cent were told they had a “mental health problem”.
Please don’t put this on the er, as you pointed out she made it for years with these symptoms. The sad truth is that unless it’s causing a true emergency cancer is a slow killer that a primary care doctor should find and manage. If an obese woman over 30 is checking into the ER she is absolutely getting her heart checked for emergencies - eg heart attack. Unless it’s causing hypoxia, fluid overload heart failure is managed out patient.
Oh I’m not putting this on the ER. he’s the only one that took her seriously when she showed up there and saw her iron levels and history and freaked out. If she hadn’t gone there (because she blacked out and crashed her car at a gas station) she would still be getting diet plans.
They checked her heart at that time.
But PS, she’d been at the ER getting iron transfusions before this and they never checked her heart.