Woman Says She Lost 76 Pounds So Doctors Would Stop Blaming Everything On Her Weight, Starts A Discussion On Diagnostic Overshadowing

As if going to doctors wasn’t stressful enough already, some people are struggling particularly hard to get their health complaints heard by the doctors. An anonymous 5’6″ woman had to lose weight, going from 210 lbs all the way to 135, simply to be sufficiently diagnosed and cared for.

“It took me a year to lose it all, but what finally pushed me to lose the weight was because every single thing I went to a doctor for, it got blamed on my weight,” the woman wrote in a lengthy post on Reddit where she shared how doctors assumed her weight was to blame for severe cramps, sleepiness, numbness, memory and balance problems, and other alarming symptoms.

The thread which amassed 49.2k upvotes resonated with many people online, who said insufficient diagnostic and delayed care due to health professionals assuming that weight is to blame for patients’ ill health is really a thing. Let’s see what others had to share in the illuminating thread below and be sure to share your own experiences in the comment section.