6 hours agoShareSaveGrace DeanBBC NewsShareSaveGetty ImagesTwo years ago, Dan Somers started to experience a series of strange and unexplained symptoms. He had severe chest pain, was unable to keep food or even water down and kept “chucking up bile”.Though he had a sense that something might be wrong, Dan was reluctant to seek medical help. “I’m really stubborn when it comes down to going to the doctors,” the 43-year-old from Ipswich tells the BBC. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”Dan’s pain continued to get worse, until he was “near enough screaming on the floor in pain” and had to take time off work. It was the worst pain he’s ever experienced, he says upon reflection.But “I honestly thought I could try and fix it,” Dan recalls.It was his wife who finally managed to push Dan to see the doctor.His GP sent him straight to hospital, where he was diagnosed with a gallbladder infection and spent a week recovering. He was told he had been close to getting sepsis.Dan’s story mirrors those of other men who’ve told the BBC they’ve also put off seeking medical treatment – often until their symptoms became unbearable or until a loved one pushed them to get help.Dan SomersIt’s well known that men go to the doctors less than women, and data backs this up.The NHS told the BBC it doesn’t release demographic data about GP appointments. But according to the ONS Health Insight Survey from February, commissioned by NHS England, 45.8% of women compared to just 33.5% of men had attempted to make contact with their GP practice for themselves or someone else in their household in the last 28 days.Men were more likely to say they weren’t registered at a dental practice and “rarely or never” used a pharmacy, too.They also make up considerably fewer hospital outpatient appointments than women, even when pregnancy-related appointments are discounted.Men are “less likely to attend routine appointments and more likely to delay help-seeking until symptoms interfere with daily function,” says Paul Galdas, professor of men’s health at the University of York.This all affects men’s health outcomes.Experts say there’s a long list of reasons why men might put off seeking medical help, and new survey data from the NHS suggests that concerns about how they are perceived come into play.In the survey, 48% of male respondents agreed they felt a degree of pressure to “tough it out” when it came to potential health issues, while a third agreed they felt talking about potential health concerns might make others see them as weak. The poll heard from almost 1,000 men in England in November and December 2024.Society associates masculinity with traits like self-reliance, independence and not showing vulnerability, says social psychologist Prof Brendan Gough of Leeds Beckett University. “Men are traditionally supposed to sort things out themselves”.”It’s worrying to see just how many men still feel unable to talk about their health concerns,” says Dr Claire Fuller, NHS medical director for primary care. She notes that men can be reluctant to seek medical support for mental health and for changes in their bodies that could be signs of cancer.”GPs are often the best way to access the help they need,” she adds.’Men are inherent problem-solvers’Kevin McMullan says he’s learned from working for men’s mental health charity ManHealth that men want to solve their own problems. He says he struggled with his mental health for years before he finally got help.”You want to fix it yourself. Men are inherent problem-solvers and how you are feeling is a problem in the same way that having a flat tyre is a problem,” says Kevin, 44, from Sedgefield in County Durham.This is something that the Health Insights Survey indicates, too. The data suggests that when people were unable to contact their GP practice, men were significantly more likely than women to report “self-managing” their condition, while women were more likely than men to go to a pharmacy or call 111.”Many men feel that help-seeking threatens their sense of independence or competence,” Prof Galdas says.Kevin McMullanProf Galdas points to other factors deterring men from going to the doctors, like appointment systems that don’t fit around their working patterns.Services also rely on talking openly about problems, he suggests, which doesn’t reflect how men speak about health concerns – and there are no fixed check-ups targeting younger men.Women, in contrast, are “sort of forced to engage in the …
