If Our Pain Were Believed With Samantha Reid

There is a huge gender gap in those that experience pain and how pain is treated. More than 51 million people in the United States – more than 20 percent of adults – live with chronic pain, but 70 percent of pain sufferers are women.

To make matters worse, women and nonbinary people, particularly women and nonbinary people of color, are treated poorly by the medical system. Our pain is ignored. Our needs are unmet. Our diagnoses are late. We are gaslit by doctors and in turn we distrust them. When we are met with skepticism or denial, told that our symptoms are all in our head, we are less likely to go back to a doctor, often only seeking care in crisis and leaving us much sicker and with poorer outcomes.

Our system isn’t set up to care about our pain and therefore our system isn’t set up to care about us. It’s all so bleak.

So today, we’re digging in and talking about it because only in having persistent and open conversation about how big of a pain our pain really is will we realize that we are not alone, it’s not all in our heads, and feel empowered enough to demand change. We weren’t made to suffer.

Joining to discuss is Samantha Reid, digital strategist at a progressive think tank, and sick person who happens to know a thing or two about pain.

Check out this episode’s landing page at MsMagazine.com for a full transcript and more.

For more, follow:

@SammmReid

@KendallCiesemier

@Ms_Magazine