Female Health is Often Overlooked—We Need to Advocate for Ourselves
Fun fact: There was a male contraceptive pill, but research was discontinued due to side effects like weight gain, acne, mood swings, and changes in libido.
Sound familiar? Yep—those are literally the same side effects women have been dealing with for decades on birth control. But apparently, when it happens to men, it's unacceptable.
We live in a world where female health is treated like we're just slightly smaller men, and honestly? That's dangerous.
The Tale of the Anemia Arc
At 18, fresh out of high school, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I was ready to take on the world.
Except… I was always tired. Pale. Wondering why my friends and family had so much energy while I felt like a Victorian child dying of consumption.
I had big dreams—but absolutely no stamina to chase them. People labeled me lazy. Unmotivated. And eventually, I believed them.
One day, after another round of being told I needed to “just try harder,” I finally went to the doctor, got my blood work done, and—ta-da!—I was anemic.
But instead of taking it seriously, the doctor shrugged and said, “Just manage your mood better.”
Me, being a naive dumbass 10 years ago, trusted that advice.
Fast forward 10 years:
The weakness never left.
Every time I stood up, my vision did the whole fade-to-black cinematic effect like I was about to unlock a tragic backstory.
Showering felt like a triathlon event. Just standing under the water had me gasping like I'd just scaled Everest.
And then came the final straw: I lost my appetite. I was too tired to chew.
But the real punchline? I was somehow gaining weight from not eating. Explain that, science.
At this point, I had two options:
Accept my fate as a permanently exhausted pigeon.
Go feral and demand better care.
This time, I advocated for myself. I marched in, demanded more blood work, and guess what? Iron deficiency anemia.
So, I got an iron infusion—and suddenly, my life went from a grayscale indie film about suffering to a full-blown Disney montage.
The moment that iron hit, I swear flowers started blooming in my wake. Birds were chirping just for me. The sky was bluer, the air smelled fresher, and for the first time in years, I didn’t just exist—I lived.
I had energy. Motivation. A will to live that wasn’t powered by caffeine and sheer spite.
And all I could think was—was I robbed of 10 years of my life?
💀 The True Cost of Medical Misogyny
Here’s the thing: I am not special. This happens to so many women, across so many conditions.
Medical research has long treated men as the default model and women as some weird, niche variation. You know, like a deluxe edition that nobody bothered to read the manual for.
🔬 The result? Women are more likely to be:
Dismissed as “hysterical” or “overreacting.”
Misdiagnosed or left undiagnosed for years.
Told their very real symptoms are “just anxiety.”
💉 The consequences?
Heart attacks in women go undiagnosed because their symptoms don’t match the “male standard.”
Autoimmune diseases, which disproportionately affect women, take years to get properly diagnosed.
Conditions like endometriosis are brushed off as “bad period pain” even when people are passing out from agony.
A scoping review (fancy way of saying a big, detailed study) confirms that women are underrepresented in medical research, leading to massive gaps in treatment and care. (Surprised? Neither am I.)
Another study found that women are consistently diagnosed later than men for the exact same conditions. Turns out, gender bias in medicine isn’t just annoying—it’s deadly.
Final Crack : Be Your Own Hero
The world will tell you to wait patiently. That you’re probably fine. That it’s all in your head.
Do not listen.
I lost 10 years to a condition that could have been treated if I’d been taken seriously sooner.
Don’t let the system rob you too.
Speak up. Push back. Demand better.
Your health is worth fighting for.
