Sorry, Mrs. D, but I couldn't sift through the entire "chocolate" thread. It figures you would've already brought that up.

wild_cat, I have no idea how you should go about getting help but an imbalance of any electrolyte can be dangerous. And, yes, if you have do have a parathyroid problem, whatever it is caused by, it can fluctuate electrolyte levels.

Thanks, Rach, for your info. I find it very sad that I can spot a UK patient. Your doctors seem to go from zero to psycho in one appointment. The US docs at least wait two appointments to do that! This labeling of women with "hysteria" or functional disorders prompted this bit of writing. Sort of sums up how I feel about unscientific doctoring. If you don't like sarcasm, satire or metaphor, you won't like it.

I hope this gives you a laugh, wid_cat.



A century ago and beyond – although it seems like only yesterday – doctors seriously thought that women were essentially hysterical. The word uterus, which is “hustera” in Greek, translates to the word “hysteria.” Back then, a woman’s uterus was said to migrate around her body. Like doctors now think emotions do. Any new health symptom a woman had was said to have been caused by hysteria, by her uterus affecting whatever part of the body it had migrated to. One theorized etiology of this migration, as deduced by some unknown male doctors, was a lack of intercourse. Or a lack of housework. You’d think that a woman’s monthly bloodletting would’ve purged her of any hysteria.

Unscientific poppycock has roots in the ancient, fictitious country of Prejudicia, which was flanked by the bogus country of Chauvanistica – once momentarily occupied by erroneous Egoistan – and has the proneness to migrate all over the world like a flu pandemic. Or all over a woman’s body. No one usually dies of BS but it can stink for days. Or centuries.

The word “penis” is taken from the Latin word for “tail.” Some think it may be the Latin word “phallus,” as in phallic symbol, but that has been used to describe similar images and not the actual body part itself. It’s also associated with “male potency” and phallic symbols such as tall buildings, riding on the back of a nuclear missile and hoards of other hysterical comparisons. Also well known is the timeless assertion that getting some tail is proclaimed as divine while hysteria is noted as godawful.

Female patients all over the world have many tales to tell of this sort of unscientific doctoring. But now that doctors know this part of the female anatomy is, in fact, not migrating, one has to assume that the only thing hysterical about us women, in addition to how we’re often doctored, is giving birth to the tales in the first place.

Womenopause: If you don’t think sexism is alive and well, you’re not paying attention. There’s no advantage to either sex in keeping it alive, especially not while doctoring. Don’t think it still exists? How many TV ads have male, authority figure voice-overs, often telling women why a product is useful and how to use it? Awareness is the first step towards eradicating sexism. The second step might involve a symbolic big stick.