Why Do Women Pay for the Pain of IUDs?
There's now a painless birth control option for men but not women. Why?
Having written an entire book on the difference in how we view pain in men vs. in women, aka #ThePainGap, I thought it was impossible to shock me further about how we generally accept women’s discomfort over men’s.
But then came ADAM™. The “male IUD” is actually a hydrogel that is inserted inside through a quick injection but done in less than 30 minutes in an outpatient setting using local anesthesia.
Yes, you read that right. Male birth control is available and can be inserted relatively quickly and painlessly. For men. Not for women. Excuse me while I go jump off a bridge.
It is so beyond infuriating that that women have been/ are still suffering in excruciating pain for such a common procedure that we are just offered ibuprofen for. What’s even more enraging is that women have been speaking out about their horrific and traumatic experiences.
During the research for my book, I spoke with hundreds of women who had stories of their pain and symptoms being ignored at dangerous or even deadly levels. Why do we not believe women about the severity of their pain? Why is our cultural tolerance for women's suffering so high?
It is not just “in our heads.” We are not being “hysterical.” Across the spectrum, our medical concerns are dismissed more often than men's. And guess what? The research backs us.
Women and Black adults wait 11 minutes longer to be seen in the emergency room for chest pain, according to a 2022 Journal of the American Heart Association (JAMA) study. A 2021 study published by the Journal of Pain entitled, "Gender biases in estimation of others' pain," confirms what many women already know: Patient's pain responses may be perceived differently by others based on their gender.
The study found that when male and female patients expressed the same amount of pain, observers viewed female patients' pain as less intense and more likely to benefit from psychotherapy, versus medication as compared to men's pain, exposing a significant patient gender bias that can lead to disparities in treatment.
With women’s reproductive rights under full attack in America, the IUD is a birth control option that more women are turning towards. Twenty percent of women relied on an IUD between 2015 and 2019, up from the 8 percent who used one between 2006 and 2010.
Yet a survey published in 2023 found that only 4 percent of trained physicians in the United States offered an injection of a local anesthetic, but almost 80 percent of trained doctors offered over-the-counter painkillers, like ibuprofen, which have been shown to be less effective.
Why? Why is an IUD insertion for women still so excruciatingly painful despite being so common? Why is the relatively new male IUD so painless and fast?
We must stop the medical gaslighting of women and start taking their pain seriously. We must believe women about their bodies. It’s the first and one of the most crucial steps in closing the dangerous pain gap in women’s health.