I reckon she's in her 40s, just not much use. I used to have terrible pain when my flow was heavy in addition to cramps - really embarrassing as I never knew when it would happen so I'd end up bending double in pain in public! All she could do was ask if I'd ever been abused as a child and did I have 'hangups' about my body image - she wouldn't believe it was physical pain. Then I bled continuously for a year which involved a couple of hospital appointments - at one of these, the gynaecologist asked if my symptoms were making it difficult to conceive - I said I was single and couldn't even think about relationships while I had all this going on and she said 'why are you bothering us then, if you're not trying to start a family'.
And yes, I do know I should have complained - but I was so devastated, I couldn't face it. I did keep pushing for something to be done though, as I couldn't face being like that for the rest of my life - eventually I had a D&C which dealt with the bleeding and they found a number of other issues, not all of which were fixable, including one which was causing the pain when I had a clot, which they could deal with. Fortunately, there was a last minute change and I had a different gynaecologist for the op - he was brilliant, very caring and helpful and couldn't have been kinder telling me what was wrong and how far they had been able to sort it. But when I went back for my post-op checkup, the nurse assumed I was there for a pregnancy checkup...really tactful
So now I tend to avoid doctors and hospitals unless totally unavoidable.
