Reason enough for Mirjam Kaijer of the Voices for Women Foundation to start a petition. In it, she advocates for gender-specific assistance and for further research on unexplained health problems in women.
Many women with the same experiences
Kaijer is a former nurse and now works as a medical journalist. She walked for ten years with unexplained complaints that her doctors couldn’t find anything. She was told she was “part of the menopause”. After a long internet search, someone online suggested that Mirjam probably had parathyroid gland tumor. This was later investigated and confirmed by her own doctors. When Kaijer opened a hotline, she got a lot of reactions from other women who have had the same experiences.
Kaijer thought it was time for the politicians to learn about it as well and therefore started a petition. It was handed over by her and other women to Minister Ernst Kuipers (Public Health, Welfare and Sport) last week.
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The awareness sheets read, among other things: “women are twice as likely to have depression” and “an anxiety disorder has turned out to be cancer”.
Wrong diagnoses
This kind of misdiagnosis needs to be addressed, says Kaijer. “We need to be aware that there are still old ideas about women’s health. We are still too easily labeled as stress, burnout, tension, anxiety and depression. When women are hormonally unbalanced, the body gets angry. The mind is too often. out of balance, so you have to rule out if it has a physical cause in case of mental problems “.
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Parool columnist and journalist Roos Schlikker (47) also acknowledges that women often receive unwarranted psychological diagnoses. Thirteen years ago she first suffered from a fit of dizziness, which became more and more common. At her peak, she had up to 20 seizures per month. “My doctor gave me some soothing pills. Later this year he came back and I was told it was a breakdown. But it didn’t feel like that at all.”
sense of guilt
The complaints did not go away, which also affected her mental health. “You start to doubt yourself a lot. I have a sense of guilt and I am fine. It is psychologically very exhausting. I am fortunate to be an assertive journalist and to be able to read a medical report. There I saw symptoms that I also had. a neurologist and determined that it was a vestibular migraine. ”
This form of migraine is also known as balance migraines. This is when someone has bouts of dizziness that occur suddenly for no reason. Other symptoms can include headaches, nausea, vomiting, eye spots, and sensitivity to light and sound.
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Be aware of the difference between men and women
General practitioner and researcher at Radboudumc Tim Olde Hartman conducted research on the different medical approaches used by men and women.
It is not clear why this approach differs in practice. “I think it’s important that doctors are aware of the differences between male and female bodies and that they are aware that as a doctor we tend to do things differently with men than women.”
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The numbers don’t lie either: Women are 50% more likely to have heart disease with a heart condition first wrong diagnosis. When someone is misdiagnosed, that person has a 70% higher risk of dying. This shows why it is important to gain more knowledge in the field of the female body, says cardiologist Janneke Wittekoek. “The medicine is aimed at the average man. Women are excluded from the studies. The reason is claimed that the female body is more complicated due to the hormonal cycle.”
Lack of knowledge
But taking little or no account of the characteristics of the female body, there is a lack of knowledge, according to Wittekoek. You see this as the main reason women and men are approached differently in healthcare.
Wittekoek agrees with family doctor Olde Hartman’s opinion: Doctors should receive additional training to become aware of gender differences in complaints. But this should not be limited to the study of medicine: «From primary school in the books of biology it should be made clear what these biological differences are. For example, that women are more sensitive to stress and can therefore have a heart attack more quickly. “
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Petition “More research on women’s (unexplained) health problems”
The Voices for Women foundation petition calls for further research into women’s health problems, related to periods and hormones, examining both physical and psychological ailments.
In addition, the foundation also wants specialized centers where specially trained doctors work. This increases the chance that women will receive correct diagnoses and be treated better.
Mirjam Kaijer advises women to take control on their own. “It’s your body. Think carefully about the consequences if you are prescribed medications. Keep in mind that we still don’t know enough about the female body. If the conclusion is burnout or stress, keep thinking carefully that it is another one as well. health workers is: be careful with words. Say more often that people still don’t know enough about the female body, there is still too little knowledge. The male body is the norm, while the female body otherwise gets sick. “
the petition it now has around 44,000 signatures and can still be signed. When it meets the requirements, it will be placed on the agenda of the Chamber of Deputies.
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