'Your Pain Is Normal', 'It's Just Stress': When Doctors Dismiss Symptoms But It's Not In Your Head

Take the case of 67-year-old Ritu Sharma. She experienced chest pain while walking, which eased on sitting down. This is seen as a classic heart symptom. Angiography confirmed blocked arteries for which she underwent angioplasty and returned home expecting relief from the distressing pain. Instead, the pain stayed. She went back to her cardiologist and was told, “It’s nothing. You are simply stressing too much.” Soon, her family told her the same thing, 'don’t take stress, it will be fine.' Today, two years later, the pain is exactly how it was before surgery.Or 21-year-old Simran Shukla, who approached a gynecologist in Noida for painful periods. The doctor laughed and told her painful periods are normal. She even joked that pregnancy would

solve her problem. Simran left humiliated and unheard and two years later, another doctor finally listened and diagnosed her with endometriosis. Her pain was never normal, it was only ignored. Add weight to the equation and the dismissal becomes almost automatic. If you are overweight, many symptoms like fatigue, pain, breathlessness, joint issues are reduced to a six-word prescription: lose weight and everything will improve. Tests don’t show anything? Then it must be stress or lifestyle or overthinking.This experience has a name now: medical gaslighting. Broadly, medical gaslighting happens when healthcare professionals dismiss, minimise or psychologise a patient’s symptoms without adequate investigation. And while it can happen to anyone, studies repeatedly show that women experience it far more often. Women’s symptoms are more likely to be blamed on stress, anxiety, weight, hormones, or low pain tolerance. The uncomfortable truth behind this is that medical research has historically prioritised male bodies, leaving women under-studied and under-diagnosed.To be fair, doctors will tell you this isn’t always negligence. OPDs are overcrowded and some patients do imagine illnesses due to anxiety. They are convinced something is wrong despite normal reports. And many doctors feel that at this time, reassurance is sometimes necessary. But even doctors admit this: if a patient keeps returning with the same unresolved complaint, it deserves a deeper dive not dismissal. Because the sad reality is that many serious illnesses don’t scream in the early stages. They show up as vague pain, persistent discomfort or a gut feeling that something isn’t right. I remember visiting a cancer care hospital in Lajpat Nagar in 2018. In the chemotherapy ward, I met a senior couple. The husband lay on the bed receiving IV medication while the wife stood quietly by his side. She told me there were no dramatic warning signs. He just felt something was wrong. Every visit to ECHS ended the same way, "Mishra, you are fine, it’s in your mind." Eventually, he went to a private hospital and his instinct saved his life. He was diagnosed with cancer and immediately began treatment. What stayed with me was her quiet disbelief how he knew and why no one listened.

So what should patients do if they feel unheard? Pulmonologist Dr Arjun Khanna explains his side, "A lot of times what happens is because the doctor is trained to understand which symptoms are important and relevant to the complaints of the patient, doctor will pay more attention to those symptoms. In a busy OPD, I think the patients also need to understand that everyone's time is precious and rather than harping around points which are not relevant to the complaint, they need to be more specific with their complaints. What this does is it is more time efficient. And the doctor actually would then ask you the right set of leading questions rather than going haywire and doing investigations left, right and center to kind of pinpoint at a disease. So it is very, very important for the patients to understand that in a limited time slot, if they don't confuse the doctor, if they actually tell what are the relevant problems, that will be very important. However, if the patient does think that if a problem is important and the doctor is not probably thinking it to be important, they can always question, they can always counter question as to why this problem is, according to the patient, if it's important, why the doctor is not paying any attention to it. So I think it's all about good communication. The channel should be open both ways, rather than holding grudges or holding back."Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Trust patterns not reassurances. If a symptom persists or worsens, it deserves attention.
• Ask questions. What has been ruled out and what hasn't? What are the next steps?
• Seek a second or even a third opinion. It’s not disrespectful only responsible.
• Document your symptoms - their duration, triggers and frequency.
• Find doctors who listen because empathy is not optional in healthcare.

Your pain is not a personality flaw. Your discomfort is not drama. And your intuition about your own body is not something to be brushed aside. Sometimes, listening a little harder can make all the difference.