It has been thought for a long time that women didn’t have heart disease and only in more recent years have questions appeared. Many physicians even believed that women who complained of pain in the neck, back and jaw, stomach pains and nausea were head jobs.
Some of the symptoms differed from what men manifested and so women were ignored.

Men tended to have heart attacks at a younger age so there was more drama and got lots more attention. It wasn’t until maybe the last fifteen years or so that women were beginning to be recognized as actually having heart attacks and their symptoms finally recognized. Early on all heart studies were done on men. Women were not included in the research so they had no idea they had different symptoms than men. Even today the heart disease is the number one killer of women, even greater than breast cancer.

It seems that medicine has long ignored doing studies on women for many aspects of medicine except for breast cancer. That became a rallying cry, maybe because there was so much outrage mainly from women. Even female reproductive organs were spotlighted
— can I not make a joke here? I’d better not. But that seemed to be the extent of it –breasts and reproductive organs. Women have been medically ignored, especially for heart disease, at the cost of their lives. Not sure of all the reasons except that researchers were, by and large, men. Perhaps they thought what was good for men could be applied to women, except in the case of heart disease where they didn’t even give them the crumbs of research. Years ago, I heard many doctors say that women just didn’t have heart attacks.

To this day, heart disease for women can be missed. Typical clogging of arteries does not always appear for women in the same way even with the most sophisticated of testing. Due to different physiology between men and women, the arteries give a different appearance but the standard may still be judged through male research. There can also be different reactions to medications that are not noted. So, we have to make sure we are our own advocates. If you feel you have been shuffled aside but know what your body is telling you is serious, research it yourself and think about choosing another doctor.

COPYRIGHT 2025 Frances Metzman

Share your thoughts below!