“Your Labs Are Normal” — Medical Gaslighting and Women

Have you ever left a doctor’s appointment feeling unheard, dismissed, or told that your symptoms were “just stress”?

You’re not imagining it — and you’re definitely not alone.

In this first episode of Shift Happens: Hormones Unfiltered, we’re diving into a topic that resonates with so many women: gaslighting in women’s healthcare, especially when it comes to hormones, perimenopause, and midlife symptoms.

Hosted by Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and Functional Medicine Provider, Johanna Lancaster, and a National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Melissa Gaskin, this conversation explores why so many women are told their labs are “normal” while they’re still struggling with fatigue, anxiety, sleep disruption, brain fog, and hormone shifts.

We discuss the systemic gaps in women’s healthcare, why hormone symptoms are often minimized, and how women can begin advocating for themselves when something doesn’t feel right.

Because your symptoms deserve attention — not dismissal.

“Your labs are normal.”
“It’s just stress.”
“That’s part of getting older.”

If you’ve heard these phrases and left an appointment feeling dismissed, this episode is for you.

In this powerful conversation, we unpack the very real issue of gaslighting in women’s healthcare — why it happens, how it impacts outcomes, and what needs to change.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What medical gaslighting actually is
• Why women — especially in midlife — are more vulnerable to it
• The limitations of “normal” lab ranges
• The role of bias in clinical care
• How to advocate for yourself in appointments
• What providers can do better

Being dismissed is not healthcare.

You deserve to:
✔ Be heard
✔ Be taken seriously
✔ Get real answers

This episode is both validation and empowerment — for patients and providers alike.

Key Takeaway

If you feel like something is off in your body, your experience is valid. Hormone shifts in midlife are real, complex, and often misunderstood — but you deserve providers who listen and support you.

Work With Us

If you’re navigating perimenopause, menopause, or unexplained hormone symptoms, we offer a unique approach that combines clinical hormone care with personalized health coaching.

Together we support women with:

✨ Functional medicine hormone insight
 ✨ Root-cause testing and individualized care
 ✨ Sustainable lifestyle and nervous system support
 ✨ Coaching for lasting health behavior change

👉 Learn more or book a consultation:
https://www.omniyou.me/

https://www.melissagaskin.com/

Connect With Us

Follow along for more conversations about hormone health, midlife wellness, and advocating for your body.

https://www.instagram.com/omniyouhealth/
https://www.instagram.com/melissagaskin.pursuezen/

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More women deserve to hear these conversations.

Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not replace personalized medical advice. Always consult your healthcare provider regarding your individual health needs.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Shift Happens, Hormones and Filters, the show where we decode the wild, wonderful and occasionally WTF moments of perimenopause, menopause, and everything in between. We're your host. I'm Johanna Lancaster, a women's health nurse practitioner and functional medicine provider at OmniU, specializing in empowering women to understand the root cause of your hormone imbalance and helping you feel like yourself again.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And I'm Melissa Gaskin, a National Board certified health and wellness coach at Pursu's End, supporting clients through sustainable lifestyle changes for root cause healing. Together, we are your Science Meets Soul, Clinical Meets Real Life, Hormone Dream Team.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Around here, nothing is off limits. Hot flashes, mood swings, sleep that disappears like your favorite pair of jeans? Yeah, we're talking about all of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Our mission is simple: cut through the noise, ditch the chains, and help you understand what's actually happening in your body with zero judgment and a lot of laughs.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Yeah, so whether you're shifting, pausing, or wondering why your hormones feel like they're on a group text without you, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Grab your tea, your electrolytes, and your secret midlife snack, no judgment, and let's get into today's episode. So welcome to our podcast today. Today we're talking all about women's health care and the dismissal that most women experience at some point in their lives in a healthcare facility. Um we're gonna talk about the stats, the history, and then what you can do about it. So some actions that you can take with you right away. So keep listening. Exactly. So, Johanna, you had a experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

You want to share a little bit about it? Yes, I can share that. I that was um a few years ago when I was going through perimenopause and I was starting to have some symptoms, irregular periods, you know, all the bloating, um, heavy periods, not sleeping well, anxious, and and all these things. And I went, I had a women's wellness visit with an OBG WAN, um, and he was a middle-aged male, you know, white hair, kind of um been in the job forever, and and very rigid views of of what uh is right and wrong. So I came to him and said, I explained my symptoms and said, This is what I'm experiencing, and can you help me? And he really um literally looked at me and said, Wow, honey, that's just menopause. Welcome to menopause. I'm like, What how dare you, you know? First of all, you're a man, you have no idea what this feels like, and to be in this condescending manner telling me it's fine, honey. Um, yeah, and then that that uh visit went downhill from there, and I told him that I'm using some bioidentical progesterone, and it has been helping me if he would be willing to prescribe that, and that kind of blew a fuse in him, and he's you know, went off the rails and yelled at me, literally full full-on yelled at me, telling me that causes cancer, and you caused all your irregular periods like that. That's you did that, you know, blaming me for um my irregular periods on my very low dose progesterone. So, and then we had a women's exam that was felt felt pretty much like physical abuse, and after that I left literally in tears and felt so humiliated and and unheard, of course, and just um abused in some sort of fashion. And um, this very story I have heard uh over a hundred times from women that tell me this exact same thing happened to them, um, with female practitioners also, which to me is shocking, right? We're all women, we should be on each other's sides and and um be at least if you don't have the training in menopause and and you don't know about these tests, then at least be empathetic and say, I feel you, and I'm sorry you're experiencing that. What can I do to help you? Uh you know, I would that would be better than saying no, this doesn't exist, or this is normal, or um you've done this, you know, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:44

There's this like blame, accusation, dismissal, guilt, abuse that all happened in a short, you know, well women's check kind of you know, appointment.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah. And I even I even because I was already a nurse practitioner, I knew all the recent studies and I quoted some for him and I said, you know, the study by so-and-so 2020 proved this and this. Um, and we now have data on on the safe use of bioidentical hormones and how effective they are, also. And this guy was just completely like, no, that's not true. They cause cancer, and not willing to hear it, not willing to learn anything new, and the story goes on. Yeah, it's sad that that's more of the norm these days.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

And women are just kind of sitting at it and don't know what to do. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah. We have this, um, we have uh just a few stats here for you to uh to further underline how common this is. You know, in the in the US primary care, only 22% of women with significant heart flashes had those symptoms even documented in a medical record. So they went to their doctor and mentioned these symptoms, they weren't even heard, you know, nobody even put this into their notes. Around 40% of women say that they were misdiagnosed during perimenopause, often told, oh, it's just anxiety or just depression, and then they were given, you know, an antidepressant or a medication. Um we have about 75% of women that talk to their clinicians about menopause symptoms, but over a third say that they received no care or very poor care. Um, it it goes on and on. We have so much data on these. Uh, nearly one in five women who seek help receive no treatment or support at all after medical visit. And um yeah, it it's just uh it just keeps going with these. We we have a whole list here.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

But it's beyond the perimenopause menopausal symptoms, too. It's endometriosis, it's PCOS that oftentimes women go in because there's this they've researched on their own, they know something feels off, but they don't know what it is. And I mean, I've had clients that it's taken a decade or more for them to even get an answer as to this is what's going on, this is what we need to do. And it's like, well, if you would have caught that in year one instead of year 10 plus, it would have been a different story for their health and vitality in that decade. So absolutely. Yeah, so it kind of brings me to a book I recently read, um, Unwell Women by Eleanor Clegghorn. And it talks, it goes back to, you know, today we call it a hysterectomy, but it really came from this concept of this hysteria around women and this this thought process that it's this emotional connection and women were institutionalized historically. And um, like in ancient Greece, it was women were blamed for having a wandering womb, you know, and and there's just so much misinformation because we were never studied. Majority of medical knowledge has been done up until the late 20th century on men, and their hormones are very different, you know. It's it's a daily reset essentially for them. And women, it's not, and so we're so yeah, we're cyclical, we're complex, and so it we really just haven't had the clinical trials or the research for over 100 years, like men have.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And so there's a disconnect in information that's filtered through these tenured physicians, and you know, um well, we're just hysterical, take your antidepressant and shut up, right? Um that we still call it that, right? That to me irks me so much, absolutely still called a hysterectomy today, 2026.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah, and then even in this book, it talks about how autoimmune diseases and um fibromyalgia, very various things like that primarily uh impact women, but yet there's like this disbelief in the medical realm that those are real or that they're legit. Um, and so yeah, it just it goes on and on as like the psychological issue for women um in a very negative light versus versus let's listen, let's get answers, let's do further research, let's be open to current research that's ongoing. Yeah. Um and I think that's so important with women's health.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yeah. I think the the the one piece you mentioned with the the chronic conditions or complex conditions, not just in women's health, right? We can also have other complex uh autoimmune conditions, thyroid, um, fibromyalgia, you know, chronic fatigue syndrome, all these complex things that are completely undiagnosed, misdiagnosed for for decades, and women are just kind of left out there with uh, you know, take an antidepressant or birth control pill and nothing.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

And the added layer to that too is like women start questioning their own symptoms. Like am I really feeling this? Because there aren't they aren't heard, and so then they internalize it, and then that's like a cascade of other chronic issues, right? Um, that shifts your cell, that shifts your your emotional health on all these things. But if we would have listened and provided that support with the current research, it would be a different story. And these women would feel like, oh, there is action I can take, instead of I guess I'll just live with it and then continue to have this impact of chronic stress because of these thoughts of, well, I guess this isn't real, I guess this is just me.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

This is normal.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

And we know especially emotional stress can can really mess up your adrenal glands, but yeah, that's a whole nother topic. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

So, what do we what do we do about it here?

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah. I I think the the number one thing is that we have so much information available to us now that really educate yourself. You know, read read the latest studies, have Chat GPT or AI summarize the latest evidence out there in um hormone replacement therapy, the latest evidence on how to treat heart flashes, how to sleep better, and then take this information to your practitioner and and ask them can we do blood work? Can I test my hormones? Can we please look at a thyroid and adrenal hormones too? And not just your standard, you know, TSH and you know, FSH. We want the full picture.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Absolutely. And from like a lifestyle perspective, is really reflect and get internal with are you doing all the things? Are you actually implementing what you maybe found online as this will help my hormones if I eat less processed food, or this will help my hormones if I get quality sleep at night, and what does my sleep routine look like? And then are you actually implementing? Because that's a big piece. And oftentimes, but oftentimes you go into a doctor's office and those types of lifestyle questions are not asked because they don't have the time, they don't necessarily desire to go into that conversation. Um, and it's it's so compartmentalized. And so, and maybe at most they'll give you like a you know, here's how to eat healthier little handout sheet or something along those lines. But there's so many things that are there's so many foods that are beneficial for your hormones or beneficial for any type of inflammatory concerns in your body or women's health cycle concerns, and there's herbs, and there's you know, there's so much you can do and so much information that you can find. And so I think that's a huge takeaway is you're in charge also of the daily, but then you're also in charge of when you go into your doctor's office, and if you go back to that doctor, and it's okay to find a new provider if they aren't the best fit for you and they can't answer those questions or they're not willing to order the test or the you know specific um things that you're requesting, you know.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Um they don't listen and and you know they deny you the testing and and they flat out give you wrong information, it's time to find a new practitioner. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's a wrap. Yeah, that's it. Um these these are our our advice to you. Go find find a practitioner who will listen to you and and help you uncover what's happening to you, and then um really find a personalized uh plan for you. And um, we've got a really exciting episode coming up next time where we're gonna talk about the new food pyramid and our take on that in from a functional perspective. What's new, what's different to the old models, and and what's maybe questionable and what's great about it. So we'll we'll take a deep dive into that. Yep. See you next time. See you next time. All right, friends, that's a wrap for today's episode of Shift Happens, Hormones Unfiltered. If your hormones are shifting and you want actual support instead of late night Googling, we've got you.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Together we offer a blend of clinical care and coaching that helps you understand your body, regulate your nervous system, and actually feel like yourself again.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

If you're looking for personalized hormone testing, functional medicine guidance, or support navigating parameters and menopause, and you want accountability, habit change health, and find the tools to go with it, how are you talking about the program?

SPEAKER_01 14:44

We work with women who are ready for roof and a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

You can Laura know how to work with us like 1500.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Okay, now that's today.