Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Women's Chronic Illnesses are commonly Misdiagnosed as Psychological Issues

23 Mar 2023 · 1 min

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Aaron Hartman, MD (speaker) discusses the chronic underdiagnosis and dismissal of many women's health complaints, noting that conditions often labeled psychological—mast cell activation syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, mold illness, chronic fatigue, and fibromyalgia—are real, chronic illnesses influenced by factors like hypermobility, environmental exposures, and gut issues. He reports that about 70% of his practice are women with chronic health issues who have often been dismissed by multiple doctors.

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I wanted to talk about this topic briefly about under diagnosing and dismissing a lot of people's symptoms. This is something I see routinely in my clinic, and I think it's really interesting. It's finally coming to public consciousness. The Washington Post is now talking about heart disease and IUDs and how these can affect women's health. But there's a lot of things like mast cell activation syndrome, things like chronic Lyme disease, mold illness, things like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia that we're still diagnosing as psychologic issues with women, and they're actually not. These are actually chronic illnesses that a lot of things like hypermobility, environmental issues, gut issues can play into. So I think, you know, it's a great thing to talk about when it pops up, just to let people know that there is hope. And we actually are starting to realize that a lot of these things we kind of been minimizing are actually real issues, particularly in women. And this is something we need to really think about as well, because 70% of my practice are women with chronic health issues, ranging from autoimmune problems, chronic Lyme mold disease, mast cell activation, and they've seen multiple doctors who've dismissed them.