Advocating For Your Best Health

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Do you ever feel like the medical care and family response to your health goals are lacking? For certain, there are situations where women get better care than men and there are times when men get better medical care than women. By and large however, studies are based on men and some dysfunctions that only females face are sparsely or no where to be found in research literature. How are we to make sound decisions about our body without adequate information? How can we expect our healthcare practitioners to adequately guide us without this information? We need to be our own best advocates. We need to teach our daughters to do the same.

It is all too often that female issues are negated by medical professionals. I think  back to my own childhood and recall being told by an MD to “act more like a girl, get a Barbie Doll and give up on sports.” In college the ligamentous laxity (looseness) resulted in a greater workload on my postural muscles to hold me together. I had severe back and hip pain and was told it was in my head because my range of motion was totally fine. I had to learn on my own that staying strong meant less pain and eventually no pain. I sprained my ankles over and over due to the same condition. NO one pointed out that this lead to dysfunction all the way up to my core and left me at a higher risk for new sprains and other injuries. NO one guided me in a PROPER return to exercise post partum.  If this is my life, I can’t imagine how many others have suffered the same or worse.
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Fast forward to marriage and kids…. I distinctly recall several times when I REALLY needed a break and didn't get one. I felt bad for my husband to have to do more than he already was doing.  I felt like I wasn’t doing my part if I took a break and felt like it was my duty to "suck it up". I felt like I was failing, not that my body was right and needed a break. Some of what we need to do to ensure adequate healthcare is to start by valuing ourselves enough to take a break before bad gets worse. Set boundaries. It is OK to do so! If we marginalize our own symptoms, how will someone else take them seriously?

How do you fight this marginalization of symptoms and concerns?
1-value your intuition
2- Use a new strategy to convey your concerns (writing them down isn’t always enough.
3- encourage your daughters to listen to their body from a young age
4- Categorize your concerns
5- Seek out medical professionals that will listen
6- set boundaries and stick with it
Do you want a handout to help strategize your conversations with medical professionals? Do you want to know a bit about how many medical professionals process the information you provide and how/why they ask certain questions? Come to Women’s Wellness Night, March 29th at 7pm at the Tannery where you will receive specific strategies and tools to help to ensure you get the care you deserve. RSVP today!  www.facebook.com/events/521778148344830/