So, something I see (and say) a lot is that fat/plus size folks should be able to go to the doctor to get medical treatment and not have everything be made about their weight. And I hear a lot of pushback to that- “Shouldn’t doctors bring that up? A doctor is SUPPOSED to care about your health!”
So I figured I would give y’all an example of what I mean when I say “I want to be able to get medical treatment and have it not be made about my weight.”
I’ve been to the doctor for breast pain twice in my life. Once when I was in my first year of college, and once during my last year of grad school. The two experiences were vastly different.
First time around, I go in because I’m having pain in my left breast. I don’t feel anything, but something hurts. I sit down in the doctor’s office, in she comes. I tell her what’s going on. And right away she hits me with “Well, maybe losing some weight would help.” Didn’t examine my breast. Didn’t ask me much else. Just spent the next ten minutes telling me that it probably had something to do with me being fat and then sent me on my way. I learned basically nothing, just that I “probably” didn’t have fucking breast cancer.
Second time. I’m in grad school, and this time I actually feel a lump, so of course I panic. I go to the doctor. She has me take off my shirt and all that, and then asks me some questions. When did it start? Is the pain worse or better than when I called about it? Can I still feel the lump? Has this happened before? I answer, she gives my boob a few good pokes and all that. Checks the other for good measure. And then gives me answers.
She tells me I have fiberous breasts, which is normal. Tells me it was probably a cyst, since that happens sometimes and, given my symptoms and the exam, it seems to be gone now. I tell her I get those in other places a lot and she nods and says “Yeah, probably a cyst.” She tells me to keep an eye out and call her if I feel any more lumps- even if it is just another cyst, she wants to make sure. She says I could go for a mammogram but because I’m only 24 and the symptoms are subsiding it isn’t needed, in her opinion, but she would be happy to set one up for me to put my mind at ease. Then she shakes my hand and leaves. We spent about 30 minutes together.
This is what I mean when I say “I want medical treatment without it being made about my weight.” The first doctor assumed, right away, that the problem was because I am fat. And because she assumed that, she didn’t check me, didn’t ask me questions she should have. There are horror stories out there about people who had treatable illnesses that later killed them because they weren’t caught in time.
“Shouldn’t doctors care about your health?” well, only one of these doctors actually seemed to. The one who did her job, who checked me out, who gave me answers and not only made sure I didn’t have something serious going on, but who put my mind at ease about my health. Who gave me signs to look out for and things to DO if this ever happens again. The other… The other lectured me about my body size and then shooed me out of her office without saying the words “lump” or “exam”. That, to me at least, doesn’t sound like caring about my health. The words “health” and “body size” are not synonomous and, in this case, my size didn’t have anything to do with it. There was no reason to bring it up because it wasn’t part of my medical concern.
I want to be able to walk into a doctor’s office and say “I have a problem” and have the doctor go “Okay, let me take a look at your problem”. I’m lucky and privileged that I have managed to find doctors who do that- who address my issues and history and ME as a whole person. But I’ve also had a lot of experiences with doctors who respond to “I have a problem” with “Well try losing weight”, no matter what the problem is. And that’s not okay. That KILLS people. And that’s why quality medical care for fat/plus size people is such an issue.
If one more doctor ever says “maybe you’re just unfit” to me, I’m going to go full Joker
That was the BS last time I spoke to a doctor, and they were having a go about my weight, and I was like, look, food is complicated, and my joint pain got a lot worse last year, and it’s really hard for me to exercise
And you know, I got the usual “well, it sounds to me like you’re just unfit”
So, like, I did push myself to try to do more exercise because I wanted to go to a LARP event and I knew that that would be a pretty huge shock to my system if I didn’t, so I tried to pick yoga back up, and my joints literally could not hold my body up
But I was like, well, maybe last time I did yoga, I had been doing more exercise, and I was lighter, so maybe that’s a factor…
Then I try glucosamine tablets, the swelling in my joints goes down, and guess who can do the exact same yoga routine again and does it just fine, despite months of no exercise???
It’s never that I’m unfit, I know what being unfit feels like, and, like, shockingly, I’m not a tiny baby who can’t cope with a normal amount of being winded/muscle aches
If I’m saying to a medical professional “this hurts too much to do”, it’s not because I’m winging, it’s because my joints are visibly twice the size they should be and cannot take that much weight or bend like that any more!
If I want to whine, I’ll whine to my friends. Or my mom. Or strangers on the internet.
I’m not going to make a doctor’s appointment in order to whine to a medical professional. Who has the goddamn time or money for that
See, I love that I don’t have to pay for doctors appointments, it’s great
But sometimes it means my doctors chasing me down when I don’t even want to be talking to them
I have to have a yearly check-up for one of my pills, but with COVID, I’ve been doing it online, because I have a blood pressure monitor at home. I send in my blood pressure, weight, etc and then they go “yeah, your blood pressure is normal, here are the pills”
Last time I did this, my doctor fucking booked me an appointment to talk about my weight - a thing that I did not want to talk about and that my check up was not about - and then when I rang back to be like “I’m not coming to this appointment, we’re still in the middle of a pandemic and it’s unnecessary”, my doctor refused to let it go without referring me to a weight loss service, and that’s when I was like “I have autism, ADHD and chronic pain, the latter of which is why I have gained weight over the past six months, a normal weight loss service isn’t going to help, they literally told me so themselves the last time you got on this”
And that’s when the unfit comment came out
Anyway, I’m being hounded because GP surgeries get paid for referring you to services like that, so… Yeah, different system but money still fucks it up
If one more doctor ever says “maybe you’re just unfit” to me, I’m going to go full Joker
That was the BS last time I spoke to a doctor, and they were having a go about my weight, and I was like, look, food is complicated, and my joint pain got a lot worse last year, and it’s really hard for me to exercise
And you know, I got the usual “well, it sounds to me like you’re just unfit”
So, like, I did push myself to try to do more exercise because I wanted to go to a LARP event and I knew that that would be a pretty huge shock to my system if I didn’t, so I tried to pick yoga back up, and my joints literally could not hold my body up
But I was like, well, maybe last time I did yoga, I had been doing more exercise, and I was lighter, so maybe that’s a factor…
Then I try glucosamine tablets, the swelling in my joints goes down, and guess who can do the exact same yoga routine again and does it just fine, despite months of no exercise???
It’s never that I’m unfit, I know what being unfit feels like, and, like, shockingly, I’m not a tiny baby who can’t cope with a normal amount of being winded/muscle aches
If I’m saying to a medical professional “this hurts too much to do”, it’s not because I’m winging, it’s because my joints are visibly twice the size they should be and cannot take that much weight or bend like that any more!
Shout out to the RN who, upon diagnosing me with postural orthostatic hypotension, did not follow through to maybe figuring out I have POTS?
Shout out to the many doctors who have looked at my perpetually weird blood pressure and my inability to thermoregulate and my weight gain and everything and decided “ah, well, we can’t do anything about that”.
Shout out to all the doctor who, after being told I was dizzy all the time, said “ah, it’s a shame we can’t do anything about that”.
Shout out to the doctor who, when I showed up to his office with a cane, diagnosed me with agoraphobia and told me I was too pretty to be depressed.
My mom (the one I chose, not the one I was born to) is a doctor. One of my very best friends is a doctor. I still don’t trust doctors as far as I can throw them. Some of them are great. Most of them are ableist fucks, and most of them fully deserve your distrust.
Shout out to the surgeon who wrote fatphobic garbage in Ryn’s medical record (that I don’t even know the extent of because Emi knew it would make me too upset) and gave them a halfass hernia repair after removing their tumor. (AS A FUCKING TEENAGER)
Shout out to the doctors (PLURAL) who Ryn went to about “hey this seems weird” with their surgery scar who just told them to lose weight about it.
Shout out to the dietician their mom took them to at age six to get them to lose weight (and shout out to mom the nurse too).
Shout out, even, to my own doctor who I have always liked and respected, when I went to see her about possible acid reflux who said “well weight loss is on the list of things we usually suggest” immediately after I had told her about my experiences with Ryn AND my issues with making myself eat regularly (yay executive function and grief). At least she sounded fucking apologetic about it.
Like, I cannot speak highly enough of the people at Children’s Seattle, including the pharmacist who also raged about medical fatphobia with me, and Ryn’s surgeon, who filled me in on stuff about what had happened the first time that neither of us had known about. And like Birdie, I count Emi as one of my dearest friends, and I know she too is carrying the responsibility forward.
But also, the system is stacked against good care for fat people.
So, something I see (and say) a lot is that fat/plus size folks should be able to go to the doctor to get medical treatment and not have everything be made about their weight. And I hear a lot of pushback to that- “Shouldn’t doctors bring that up? A doctor is SUPPOSED to care about your health!”
So I figured I would give y’all an example of what I mean when I say “I want to be able to get medical treatment and have it not be made about my weight.”
I’ve been to the doctor for breast pain twice in my life. Once when I was in my first year of college, and once during my last year of grad school. The two experiences were vastly different.
First time around, I go in because I’m having pain in my left breast. I don’t feel anything, but something hurts. I sit down in the doctor’s office, in she comes. I tell her what’s going on. And right away she hits me with “Well, maybe losing some weight would help.” Didn’t examine my breast. Didn’t ask me much else. Just spent the next ten minutes telling me that it probably had something to do with me being fat and then sent me on my way. I learned basically nothing, just that I “probably” didn’t have fucking breast cancer.
Second time. I’m in grad school, and this time I actually feel a lump, so of course I panic. I go to the doctor. She has me take off my shirt and all that, and then asks me some questions. When did it start? Is the pain worse or better than when I called about it? Can I still feel the lump? Has this happened before? I answer, she gives my boob a few good pokes and all that. Checks the other for good measure. And then gives me answers.
She tells me I have fiberous breasts, which is normal. Tells me it was probably a cyst, since that happens sometimes and, given my symptoms and the exam, it seems to be gone now. I tell her I get those in other places a lot and she nods and says “Yeah, probably a cyst.” She tells me to keep an eye out and call her if I feel any more lumps- even if it is just another cyst, she wants to make sure. She says I could go for a mammogram but because I’m only 24 and the symptoms are subsiding it isn’t needed, in her opinion, but she would be happy to set one up for me to put my mind at ease. Then she shakes my hand and leaves. We spent about 30 minutes together.
This is what I mean when I say “I want medical treatment without it being made about my weight.” The first doctor assumed, right away, that the problem was because I am fat. And because she assumed that, she didn’t check me, didn’t ask me questions she should have. There are horror stories out there about people who had treatable illnesses that later killed them because they weren’t caught in time.
“Shouldn’t doctors care about your health?” well, only one of these doctors actually seemed to. The one who did her job, who checked me out, who gave me answers and not only made sure I didn’t have something serious going on, but who put my mind at ease about my health. Who gave me signs to look out for and things to DO if this ever happens again. The other… The other lectured me about my body size and then shooed me out of her office without saying the words “lump” or “exam”. That, to me at least, doesn’t sound like caring about my health. The words “health” and “body size” are not synonomous and, in this case, my size didn’t have anything to do with it. There was no reason to bring it up because it wasn’t part of my medical concern.
I want to be able to walk into a doctor’s office and say “I have a problem” and have the doctor go “Okay, let me take a look at your problem”. I’m lucky and privileged that I have managed to find doctors who do that- who address my issues and history and ME as a whole person. But I’ve also had a lot of experiences with doctors who respond to “I have a problem” with “Well try losing weight”, no matter what the problem is. And that’s not okay. That KILLS people. And that’s why quality medical care for fat/plus size people is such an issue.
