# M vs F pain threshholds



## Ernest Nagel (Oct 27, 2008)

What do you think?

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/pain-management/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100218149&page=1


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## Tad (Oct 27, 2008)

I love how, as we understand better how our bodies work, we are discovering how much garbage were most theories that treated everyone as being basically the same!

Cool stuff


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## Miss Vickie (Oct 27, 2008)

Hmm. Interesting. You know, I care for women daily who are in pain and I'm always amazed at how differently each of them handles pain. I have some women who come in at 1 cm, barely contracting, sobbing in agony and I have other women who come in, nearly ready to deliver, whose only external indication of pain is a little sweat on their upper lip. 

The redhead thing is interesting, Ed. I'm going to keep that in mind, but I can already think of about a half dozen redheads I've cared for over the years who fit that observation to a "t".


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## Rojodi (Oct 27, 2008)

On June 26, 1994, my wife started to complain to me about "gas pains in her lower back" before she went to bed. At the time, she was nine months pregnant.

At 8:30 am, June 27, 1994, she went in for an ob-gyn exam. She was informed that she was 5 cm dialated. 

At 3:31 pm, she had a 9 lbs, 3 oz, fart.

She came through it well, didn't do much complaining about the pain - just about that "he's stuck." Now, it's a big tragedy, need the Tylenol for a paper cut.

Everyone has many levels of pain. She could tollerate birth; she can't paper cuts.


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## GoldenDelicious (Oct 27, 2008)

Well, my pain threshold is usually high. When I was seventeen I got a tattoo (silly girl as I don't really like it now). A colleague of mine at the time heard I was getting it and said she would come along as she'd always wanted to get one but never had the courage. We both got our tattoos on the same place on our body and by the same tattooist, therefore the pain given should have been the same. I got mine and didn't bat an eyelid, I told my colleague it was quite sore but bareable. However when it was her turn she had to keep asking the guy to stop and she had to have a fan pointing towards her as she was breaking into a sweat from the pain. She kept saying to me, "I thought you said it wasn't that bad you liar!" 

My pain threshold IS lower at a certain time of the month, therefore I always make sure I book my leg waxing for the week after, lol.

As for Male versus female. I think everyone is different. I had a male ex who passed kidney stones and was in severe agony. I had a female cousin with the same thing and she said it was painful but she didn't need the pain releiving injection my ex had to receive. Then again my dad sliced the top of his finger so badly it surely needed stitches and he stuck a plaster on it and said it was a scratch and it would knit itself back together, he's mad! It just depends on the individual. GD


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## olwen (Oct 29, 2008)

Ernest, I haven't yet noticed that one sex handles pain better than the other. I've seen a lot of people take erotic pain and everybody reacts differently even if the end result is the same - to raise endorphin levels high enough to result in orgasm. Some people can take A LOT of one type of pain (thud) and hardly any of another type of pain (sting). Some people scream, some people moan, some people barely cry out, some people sweat, some people get cold. Some people bruise easily while others don't. Some body parts handle pain better than others...it's all just individual.


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## thatgirl08 (Oct 30, 2008)

I personally kind of doubt that pain threshold can be diluted into a male vs. female thing. I think it's highly individual. 

I've noticed this a lot when it comes to body modifications. The only body mods I have are piercings and people ask me all the time "did your ____ hurt to get pierced?" I've had people tell me that their tragus was absolutely the most painful thing ever. I barely even felt my tragus. My outer conch on the other hand, made me woosy, lightheaded and sick to my stomach. I cried! I've heard people say their cartilage was no big deal. I got my monroe pierced about two months or so ago. It hurt, but I didn't think it was that bad, especially in comparison to some of my other ones. My friend just told me today that she tried to get her monroe pierced over the weekend, but she blacked out from the pain! 

Pain is such an individual thing that depends on so many factors. Not to mention, pain and descriptors of pain are such subjective terms. What "very painful" is to me, may not be what it is to you. I don't see how you can take something subjective and individual and boil it down to something this simplistic.


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## Cors (Oct 30, 2008)

Interesting article, thanks for sharing.


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## Ichida (Oct 30, 2008)

My pain tolerance depends on my mood.

If I am in a giggly mood i yelp if someone steps on my foot or jiggle hysterically if someone tickles me, but if i am angry i don't even FEEL something hit me until much later


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## Ernest Nagel (Oct 31, 2008)

I wonder how much acculturation has to do with it, too? I was mostly raised by my maternal grandparents until I was six. "Pa" especially was very stoic; strictly no whining or crying allowed. "Better open a window, it's getting whiny in here." was his stock reply to anything resembling complaint about physical discomfort. He was neither cruel nor insensitive, quite the opposite in fact. He just refused to acknowledge pain in himself or others. If you were "breached" you showed him the wound and he'd quietly, competently clean and dress it, explaining how to do it for yourself or others. No sympathy though. If you cried or whimpered he'd stop and look away until you straightened up. 

To this day it feels awkward and quite frankly wrong to admit pain. I do it because I realize it's something that normal people expect but I'm never at ease doing it. In fact the more serious the pain the quieter I tend to get. Anyone else been trained to do that or do it by nature; stuff the pain?


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## thatgirl08 (Oct 31, 2008)

Ernest Nagel said:


> I wonder how much acculturation has to do with it, too? I was mostly raised by my maternal grandparents until I was six. "Pa" especially was very stoic; strictly no whining or crying allowed. "Better open a window, it's getting whiny in here." was his stock reply to anything resembling complaint about physical discomfort. He was neither cruel nor insensitive, quite the opposite in fact. He just refused to acknowledge pain in himself or others. If you were "breached" you showed him the wound and he'd quietly, competently clean and dress it, explaining how to do it for yourself or others. No sympathy though. If you cried or whimpered he'd stop and look away until you straightened up.
> 
> To this day it feels awkward and quite frankly wrong to admit pain. I do it because I realize it's something that normal people expect but I'm never at ease doing it. In fact the more serious the pain the quieter I tend to get. Anyone else been trained to do that or do it by nature; stuff the pain?



I definitely try to do this, but for a different reason. I find that if I start to cry too much or complain about it, I actually work myself up a lot more.


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## Tad (Oct 31, 2008)

Ichida said:


> My pain tolerance depends on my mood.
> 
> If I am in a giggly mood i yelp if someone steps on my foot or jiggle hysterically if someone tickles me, but if i am angry i don't even FEEL something hit me until much later



If I recall correctly adrenalin suppresses pain. Which is why sometimes people can take close to lethal wounds and not even realize it until later--they body is basically in a mode of "If I stop now I am dead, so if I _can_ keep moving, I _will_ keep moving."

I've also read that with women they've found how they feel pain varies with hormone levels, so that they were generally considered to have higher pain thresholds than men most of the month, but that it drops considerably during their menses, because one hormone or another was up or down at the time (I forget the details). 

No doubt over time they'll find more factors that tend to modulate how we feel pain, amongst other things.


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