A misdiagnosis can cost you your life. Fifty-year-old construction worker Vasanti Kumari (name changed), from a small village near Haryana, kept taking painkillers for joint pain. She had been taking them since she was 30. Some doctors told her the pain was genetic, while others told her it was due to overexertion. Yet another doctor believed the chronic pain was due to the lack of proper nutrition.
None of them could accurately identify the reason. Kumari became overweight, developed acid reflux and began to fall sick frequently. Down the line, even routine activities became a challenge. One day she was finally taken to a hospital, unable to breathe. It was found that her gastrointestinal system was badly inflamed and her kidneys were malfunctioning.
She was in the hospital for 23 days after which she collapsed and died. Only later did the doctor discover that she had rheumatoid arthritis, a degenerative autoimmune disease, that causes excruciating joint pain. “It has been observed that women, compared to men, often fall prey to a misdiagnosis. The average duration for the right diagnosis comes only four years later.
This is true of more than 700 diseases. In case of cancer, it takes two-and-a-half years on an average for it to be diagnosed,” says Dr Arati Joshi, Family Physician, Healthspring, Mumbai. One of the main reasons for this phenomenon is a patient’s common inability to monitor and lucidly explain the symptoms to a doctor. “Patients are vague about their problems, while others beat around the bush if it’s a taboo subject. Others avoid seeking medical opinion for the fear of being given too many medicines. It’s also the case sometimes that doctors are unable to give patients the kind of time they need,” says Joshi.
Heart Disease: Women have a 50 per cent higher chance of getting an incorrect initial diagnosis in this respect. Even after a heart attack, the correct reason is sometimes not deciphered.
Stroke: Women are about 30 per cent more likely than men to have symptoms of a stroke misdiagnosed. They’re sent home from the emergency, which could have an irrevocable impact. Even if you’re diagnosed correctly, women are less likely to receive clot-busting drugs than men.
Autoimmune dieases: It takes an average of five doctors and nearly four years to get an accurate autoimmune diagnosis, and women make up a whopping 75 per cent of autoimmune disease sufferers. The tricky part is that symptoms like fatigue, mood changes, and pain are signs of countless conditions, including autoimmune ones, and often prompt a wait-and-see approach.
Endometriosis and polycystic ovavarian diseases: Both these conditions often go undetected. Women are told that painful periods, irregular periods, and skin and hair changes are the signs of a normal period cycle and don’t require treatment. Eventually, many of these women come back with dreadful complications.
Sleep Apnea: Until recently, sleep specialists thought that for every woman out there with sleep apnea, a disorder that increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart failure, and stroke, there were nine or 10 men with it. That’s not true. Thanks to research in the early ’90s that looked at both men and women, it is now clear that the real ratio is two to three men for every woman with the condition.
Ovarian and breast cancer: One might think that with heightened awareness and advanced technology, incidences of breast cancer may have gone down however, 30 percent of breast cancer cases are still misdiagnosed.