Thread by @speakingabtpain

1/ A very compelling story about how #Women's #Pain & especially #Black women's pain is dismissed and disregarded by the healthcare system.

today.com/health/implici…

2/ The story begins with a woman with sickle cell & her horrifying experience in the hospital. It also discusses pain from syndrome's unique to women, like endometriosis or fibroids.

3/ Pain is a feminist issue. #PainToo must be believed. First, there is the dismissal of women's accounts of their own bodies, tracing to a history of dismissal of symptoms due to absurd misconceived views of #Hysteria in women. Trans folks get the same treatment, or worse.

4/ But beyond gender, there are sex differences between males and females that affect diagnosis and treatment. Our understanding of many conditions comes from lab testing of animals. Only in 2016 did @NIH begin requiring testing #female animals.

5/ There's a lot we still don't understand about pain, especially #ChronicPain, including why it becomes chronic. At least in animals, ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CELLS are involved in chronicity: in males, it's glial cells; in females, T cells.

6/ #Pain is a #RaceAndEquity issue. There are studies showing that the pain of POC is rated lower on a pain scale consistently by 2-3 points by clincians. But more recent studies using FMRI imaging of the brain to visualize pain show that BIPOC people likely experience more pain

7/ This is not surprising - we've seen #COVID19 shine a glaring light on #SocialDeterminantsOfHealth and its disproportionate impact on POC. Pain is no different.

8/ And, as the article references, because of the way we have waged the war on drugs disproportionately against communities of color, POC are more often dismissed as drug-seeking.

9/ At the intersection of #PainAsAFeministIssue and #PainAsARaceEquityIssue are #WomenOfColor, like those interviewed for this article.