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It's insane to me that the people who are pro-forced birth also labor tirelessly to make sure it's as painful and awful as possible for women. No family leave, healthcare doesn't cover what's needed, doctors fighting and shaming you for asking for basic medical care, "The stories I’ve heard include women who have been refused care for months for everything from a hernia to a serious and painful dental emergency because they were pregnant. This seems to be the default: Unless something is threatening your life, many health care providers simply won’t treat pregnant women even for otherwise treatable conditions that cause a tremendous amount of pain." Yup, this. I've never felt safe having a child in America. It truly feels like so many conservatives out there are waiting for you to die. Would really enjoy hearing a story about mother dying in childbirth. As if a preventable death is somehow good?

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As a pediatrician, I occasionally refer patients to gynecology for iuds and never realized how painful insertion could be until one of the medical students I worked with told me her iud insertion was excruciating painful. That is something that is rarely discussed in the medical literature. Thanks for sharing your experience.

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Just wait until menopause :) I imagine that makes every woman "of a certain age" laugh. But really if you didn't know that as a woman, you were a second class citizen before that, you will then.

Most of the information out there on menopause is false. Whole medical books will pretend you don't get symptoms until 50 and so won't need any treatment until then. So they will go on and on about starting hormones at 50. But most women's severe symptoms will start in either early or late peri-menopause, so generally they could start at ANY time in one's 40s (for some in their 30s, for some it actually is not until their 50s). Then doctors don't seem to know anything about menopause, one doctor started discussing men having hot flashes instead of taking my symptoms seriously. Another doctor said hot flashes don't start until your last period. Not true. Then the treatments all have their downsides including cancer risk, but the alternative may be suffering years of symptoms that entirely destroy your quality of life. This is what most women have been led to believe they should do because almost no research has been done on menopause in TWENTY YEARS, due to one study showing bad results for certain hormones for certain women. There is speculation on certain hormone combinations being less risky for cancer, but no research is really done because oh well women getting cancer because they are trying to treat their horrific symptoms, ho hum. There is almost no research on perimenopause, which is the sympomatic period before menopause. The internet will push all sorts of garbage non-pharmaceutical cures for menopause symptoms that don't work, for which there is little research, in mainstream publications even, because oh well women. And many women will develop sexual symptoms as well, but almost none of them will be told to seek treatment in completely safe (for most women) vaginal estrogen. Because 50 year old men having sex is par for the course, bring on the viagra, but as a woman, you might as well accept your sexual days are over. Oh you didn't expect them to be over at 40 something? Oh well.

I just was like in literal disbelief for a year at the complete lack of knowledge from doctors, in books, in research etc. about menopause and perimenopause. Don't any doctors understand anything about this thing every woman who lives beyond 44 or so will go through?

I got the IUD in my late 30s too, it hurt a ton, I took a ton of OTC painkillers, plus alcohol, good old alcohol, when the doctors won't give you any real painkillers, there's always alcohol!!! Like it was the 19th century and we're just drinking away our medical pain. Medical advancements must not be for women.

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