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Imagine no longer! It is real and it is called endometriosis, and it affects up to one in 10 women and often gets written off as "some woman being a drama queen about regular old cramps." This attitude is so bad that it takes eight to 12 years on average from getting endometriosis to getting it diagnosed.

This isn't limited to "women's health" conditions, either. People (men and women) are conditioned to think of women as worrywarts and hypochondriacs, making a big deal about every little cough, so that women have to complain twice as much about something to be taken half as seriously. It's almost as if they asked you, "On a scale of one to 10, how much does it hurt?" and if you say "eight," they'll privately go, "That's probably a four on the woman scale."

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This exact thing happened to my mom, who went into the doctor with abdominal pain and was told to rest and sent home repeatedly. When it got so bad that she couldn't take it anymore, she went back in to the doctor, who grudgingly ordered an ultrasound. The technician took one look and said, "Holy crap," and got her into surgery immediately to remove a gallbladder that was about to rupture. Later, the doctor told my mom that he didn't realize how bad it was, and that she "should have complained more".