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I had a head injury last year so I went to the hospital because I felt off and a non black doctor barely let me finish my retelling of the accident before she told me that I’ll be fine in just 2-3 days. She said I could resume school and that it wasn’t a severe concussion....
... even though I told her that I felt dizzy and that I had pain over my eyes she said that my head was just “shaken up.” I went to school the next day and started to experience severe headaches, confusion, and memory loss. I was really worried but I didn’t say anything bc...
She told me that I should be back to normal after a few days. But by the second day in school I was barely able to finish sentences, or even comprehend what my teachers were saying. At that point I was so scared I starting crying in class and my dad had to pick me up
I was upset because teachers and friends were like “what’s wrong with you and I genuinely did not know and I felt like I was being lazy and I wasn’t working hard enough. We ended up going to another doctor who was extremely understanding and she told me that I actually...
had a severe (grade 3) concussion and that going back to my normal routine had actually worsened the symptoms... ofc I cried again because I was upset but also relieved to know that someone finally saw the severity of what I was experiencing... I’m saying all this to show that...
The medical profession can too often misdiagnose black patients because of the belief that we have “thicker skin” or that we have a higher pain tolerance which is simply not true. My symptoms were real and no matter how hard I tried to plead with the first doctor she continued...
To assure me that I would be fine in a few days. My concussion lasted for at least a month. And it took weeks after that for me to fully feel like myself again. The stereotype that black ppl, especially black women, are strong and feel no pain has a detrimental...
And lasting impact on the medical field and has been proven to cause more harm and death in the black community. This was not the first time I experienced medical discrimination and it certainly won’t be the last...
I just made this thread to let ppl know that for black girls and women, our pain is real, we are not overreacting, and we deserve the same medical attention as anyone else. If you made it this far thanks for reading and there are plenty of other black ppl with similar stories
