Doctors blamed her ringing ears and vision problems on being 'fat' for years. One visit with her husband got her an MRI on the spot

Usually, when a patient visits the doctor, they trust that they will receive a cure for their ailments and won’t be left disappointed. But a woman who goes by the moniker @lifeaccordingtokp felt beyond just disappointment every time she visited a doctor over the past two decades or so. In a July 11, 2026, Instagram video, she recalled an incident that still evokes rage within her soul. For years, her symptoms were incessantly dismissed by the doctor as effects of obesity, but everything changed when her husband accompanied her. She was immediately assisted for medical tests. The video has since garnered 1.1 million views and over 121,000 likes.

Sheer disregard of signs

The woman described that she has been experiencing strange symptoms in her body for quite some time. From bizarre ringing in her ears to her vision suddenly dimming and falling into comatose sleep anywhere, the symptoms have been clear and diverse. Every year when she visited her doctor for the regular checkup, she was told that it was because she was “fat.” Some doctors told her that it was happening because she, as a mom, was tired. She tried to explain that she had been having these symptoms even before she got her kids, but the doctors kept on dismissing the signs.

The case of medical misogyny

Then one day, her husband of one year accompanied her to the doctor’s appointment. All of a sudden, the doctor’s attitude seemed to change. "He's like, we should run some tests. We should do some blood work. We should get an MRI," the woman recalled. But it wasn’t the condition that was more painful but rather the way she was handled as a female patient in a male-dominated healthcare world. "All of a sudden, this person who has not been with me on this whole journey has not been, does not know what's going on, does not know, chimes in. And now we know something's wrong. The rage I feel when I stop and think about it," the woman said.

Medical gaslighting

She is not the only woman who experienced medical gaslighting from doctors. According to the SHE Media Medical Gaslighting survey, 72% of respondents experienced medical gaslighting. Signs of medical gaslighting included being stereotyped, feeling misunderstood, being dismissed, and being blamed by your doctor. Similarly, another report by Mira Care suggested that 72% of millennial females felt gaslighted by a medical professional.

One reason behind this medical gaslighting, as The Origin pointed out, is epistemic injustice, or the tendency to discredit or dismiss someone’s lived experience. The website cited that 42% of the women felt unsupported, 21% disbelieved, and 45% said that their symptoms were just everyday stress.

Now single women need a man to go to the doctor

Viewers were just as enraged at the woman and shared that most women have gone through the same scenario. @studiococobates commented, “I’m single, so I think I’m just going to rent a guy from the gym to escort me to all my doc appointments now.” @myintegrativetherapist shared an anger emoji and exclaimed, “It still makes my blood boil every time a doctor looks to my husband to confirm what I’m saying is true!”

You can follow @lifeaccordingtokp on Instagram for personal storytimes and video logs.

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