How to Get Doctors to Take Your Pain Seriously and Actually Listen
There’s a well-documented gender gap in medicine, but whatever your background, here’s how to be heard in medical appointments
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Make the most of your medical appointments with our expert tips so doctors take your pain seriously and your care moved forward. Photo: Unsplash
It can often be hard to get your doctor to take your pain seriously as it’s a symptom that’s typically invisible and always subjective. Additionally, medical misogyny around pain and chronic illness care, especially for women, is real and documented. But clinical decisions are not random, and it is possible to get your doctor to listen.
The first thing to note is that doctors are trained to look for specific signals that justify investigation, referral, and treatment. Many patients are never told what those signals are. As a woman of Middle Eastern heritage navigating chronic illness in the UK, I have experienced how easily pain can be minimised or dismissed. And, I am not alone.
The UK government recently pledged to improve women’s experiences in the NHS, including ‘misogynistic practices around pain relief’ in their Renewed Health Strategy, which centres women’s voices. But that’s a long road. In the meantime, I’ve learned that how you present information in appointments can make it much harder for your doctor to dismiss your pain.
When you spend decades in and out of medical appointments as I have with my chronic pain and progressive conditions, you start to see patterns in how the system actually works, what information clinicians respond to, and what gets quietly sidelined. Here are seven things that consistently make a difference when you’re trying to get your doctor to take your pain seriously.
1. Describe Functional Impact, Not Just Pain
Pain is subjective, so focus on how the pain is impacting your daily activities, for example writing, working, sleeping, cooking, or exercise, for example. Photo: Unsplash
This is the single most effective change you can make about how you describe your symptoms. The word ‘severe’ can mean little in a medical appointment, whereas describing a practical loss of function relays to your doctor an objective understanding of how that pain is impacting you daily.
Clinicians assess risk and urgency based on what symptoms are stopping you from doing. That is what drives decisions about scans, referrals, medication changes, and urgency.
Instead of saying you have bad neck pain, explain your daily realities. For example, you cannot turn your head without pain or injury when driving anymore, have stopped being able to look down to read a book, or cannot sit at a desk for more than 20 minutes without the symptoms flaring.
Nicole Notar
Founder of Endo Excision for All and CEO of Vindicara
Patient advocate and endometriosis sufferer, Nicole Notar, the founder of charity, Endo Excision for All, says, ‘We must paint the full picture of how our pain affects our lives. A scale of 1-10 does not say “I missed 5 days of school this month”, or “I called in sick to work a week per month this year”, or “I missed my brother's wedding because of my period”.
‘Doctors need to hear how the debilitating pain is disrupting your life to truly take it seriously.’
Be specific about consequences, too. If pain is stopping you from going to school, working, commuting, cooking, caring for your children or yourself, seeing friends, or leaving the house, share that information clearly. Functional decline is clinically significant for doctors.
It’s also important to mention any changes. For example, if your pelvic pain used to be only during your period and is now before, during, and after, and that shift has been happening for the past three months, those data points are important. Patterns over time often matter more than a single bad day.
2. Share Clearly if Pain Disrupts Your Sleep
Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep because of pain and other symptions is clinically significant, especially if there has been a change in recent times. Photo: Unsplash
In clinical practice, pain that interferes with sleep is often taken seriously. In fact, a study on The Importance of Sleep for People in Chronic Pain found that between 72-75% of people with chronic pain experience sleep disturbances.
So, if pain wakes you from sleep, stops you from falling asleep, or leaves you feeling tired in the daytime, say so directly when speaking to your doctor. Over the years, I have learned this is one of the details doctors tend to pause at.
Sleep disruption compounds fatigue, mood changes, and your coping capacity. Naming it helps clinicians understand the wider impact, not just the pain itself.
Nicole adds, ‘Pain disrupting sleep tells the doctor that the severity of symptoms isn't occasional or manageable. They're constant and affect basic human needs.’
If you can, jot down when you wake and how often. Even rough notes are useful.
3. Keep a Structured Pain Log
Jot down notes ahead of your appointment. Keeping a log of pain and other symptoms or sleep changes can be helpful during doctor’s appointments, especially if stress of anxiety can bring you brain fog. Photo: Unsplash
After hundreds of medical appointments during my 25 years of managing chronic pain, I know that trying to summarise months of symptoms on the spot rarely goes well. Pain, stress, brain fog, anxiety, and time pressure can easily scramble your memory.
Patient advocate Nicole adds, ‘Your documentation of symptoms becomes your own form of self-protection. It's easy to forget as we go day to day and the flares pass.
‘Writing these down and relaying to the doctor, it helps providers pick up patterns that we can miss as our symptoms become our new normal. It also helps us not forget the key symptoms we need to report during a rushed, nerve-wracking appointment.
Here is what I record in the days or weeks before an appointment (download our free print-at-home pain log for easy documentation):
Date of symptom or pain
Time, or simply morning, afternoon, evening, night
Location of pain, whether it radiates, and where to
Type, such as sharp, dull, throbbing, stinging, burning
Duration
What I tried to calm it, like a heat pad, ice pack, stretching, massage gun, or medication
Whether it helped
What triggered it, such as driving, writing, sitting at a desk, lifting my arms to dry my hair, stress, or injury
Impact, for example, I could not drive, I was too fatigued to cook, I needed recovery days after a social event, or my sleep was broken
This turns your experience into observable patterns. Even one or two weeks of notes gives a doctor far more to work with than “it’s been bad lately”. Don’t feel you have to fill in or log all of this info; just do what you can manage. Keeping a log imperfectly is better than not doing it at all.
4. Ask for a Plan, Not Just Reassurance
Being mindful to ask for the next steps can help move your healthcare along. Photo: Unsplash
Over time, I have learned that appointments can end with sympathy but no action, which doesn’t move things forward for you. One doctor told me in my early 30s that I should just accept my pain levels, which wasn’t acceptable when we hadn’t tried everything we could for incremental improvements that would make a difference to how well I could live. Some of my suspected conditions hadn’t even been diagnosed, so I was not yet at the point of knowing my quality of life was the best it could be.
If a doctor’s appointment about your pain is coming to an end without a clear plan, ask what they think might be going on and what the next steps are. If no investigation is planned now, ask your doctor what changes should prompt a review.
Nicole advises, ‘We all know the frustration that comes with leaving an appointment feeling like you received no answers. We need to remember to directly ask the provider about the next steps, whether that's a referral, medication trial, or management direction. The plan needs to be clear, and as patients, it's on us to ask.’
If you have queried or discussed a particular test, referral or access to a specialised local unit is declined, asking for the reasoning to be documented in your medical notes is fair and your right. It creates clarity about the clinical decision and builds a clear medical history and paper trail.
You can be calm, polite, and still be direct. All of those things can co-exist when you are self-advocating.
And remember, with long-term pain, it is common to reach a plateau with one clinician. Different doctors have different specialisms and thresholds for investigation.
Seeking a second opinion is not dramatic. It is part of managing a complex health condition over time and a patient's right, both in the NHS and private medical care.
5. Bring a Trusted Support Person to Appointments
You can ask a trusted loved one of friend to accompany you to a medical appointment. Photo: Unsplash
For years I attended appointments alone. When I hit a wall during my endometriosis care, I brought both my parents and saw an instant leap in the quality of care (and listening) I received.
I now always bring my husband. Having the moral support is soothing, and knowing there is a witness to the appointment and someone to back me up if stress or brainfog gets in the way of my being able to communicate clearly in the session has proved transformative.
As an independent and strong woman, I should be able to attend alone and get the same results, and I would be happy to do so if misogyny in medical settings weren’t so prevalent. Sadly, this is the reality for many women like me.
It’s not just happening to patients, as noted in the Government’s recent Renewed Health Strategy. According to a 2021 British Medical Association (BMA) survey of 2,458 UK doctors, 91% of women doctors reported experiencing sexism in the medical profession, and 70% said their clinical ability had been undervalued because of their gender.
This is a system problem in healthcare, so having a trusted person in your appointment also means they can take notes, help you remember what was said, and provide emotional grounding when discussions are stressful.
I usually give a copy of my notes or pain log to my husband, and we discuss beforehand what our hopes and objectives are for next steps, so if I become upset or struggle to advocate for myself during an appointment, he can step in and help me or offer prompts.
When pain has been minimised in the past, having someone else present your concerns or firmly push back on biased interactions can shift the dynamic in subtle but important ways.
6. Put Concerns in Writing When Needed
Reporting poor care can not only help you, but others who follow. Photo: Unsplash
When care standards fall below what you reasonably expect, written communication ensures concerns are formally acknowledged and recorded. It can be tiring, but over time, I have seen that written complaints are one of the few ways patients can prompt reflection and meaningful change to their care, or more widely within systems.
Nicole says, ‘Putting things in writing creates a paper trail for you to keep your provider accountable for their “game plan”. This helps prevent providers from shifting gears in your next appointment because they don't remember what they originally suggested to you.’
You can do this via your NHS practice or hospital’s PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Services) or a GP practice manager. Each medical setting usually has a set complaints process for exactly this reason, and following it is the quickest path to useful progress. You can also speak with your local MP (find yours here).
Here are a couple of times I felt compelled to complain, and doing so led to better care:
• A GP initially thought my respiratory symptoms were anxiety-related. I knew something physical was wrong. When symptoms continued, further investigation at a hospital found a significant infection that needed treatment. Raising concerns helped shift the focus onto my physical health instead of a biased assumption about my mood. A note was also placed on my medical file so GPs had a low threshold for antibiotic treatment moving forward.
• After an appointment with a surgeon who left me feeling dismissed, my husband, who was present, supported me in raising concerns. My care was then transferred to a consultant whose attitude was more helpful, and their expertise was a much better fit, which made a substantial difference to positive steps forward in my pain managment.
7. The Bottom Line On What I’ve Learned About Getting My Pain to Be Taken Seriously
I have been in hospital for more than a dozen operations (pictured here in 2018 post hip surgery) and learned some important lessons on the way. Photo: Punteha van Terheyden/Living In Pain
After decades of navigating chronic pain, injuries, and autonomic dysfunction, I have learned that being heard in healthcare is not just about how much you hurt. It is about how clearly you can communicate what that pain is doing to your life and stand firm when something isn’t right in medical settings.
Preparing ahead of a medical appointment is not about being difficult. It is about translating your lived experience into a language that doctors and the systems they are bound by can understand.
When you do that, the chances of appropriate investigation, referral, and support increase.
Chronic pain suffer, and patient advocate Nicole agrees: ‘Appointments can be rushed and nerve-wracking. Preparing a list of symptoms to report and questions to ask, helps keep the appointment efficient and makes the most of the limited time you have with your provider.’
If you have had difficulty accessing medical support whilst Living In Pain, that it is not your fault. Unfortunately, many healthcare pathways and systems are not built to deal with the chronic issues you are living with.
You deserve care that takes your suffering seriously.
Nicole adds, ‘As both a patient and an advocate, this list will save patients so much time and frustration by equipping patients with exactly what they need to say, report, and follow up on, putting them in the best position possible to translate their symptoms into true, helpful care navigation. That being said, we still need to push for a healthcare system where patients don't have to work this hard just to be taken seriously.’
Next, delve into the things that I rely on daily as a disabled person in pain and find the most useful.
