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I have a big thing about pain thresholds,
so hang on tight - here we go…
Pain is an exceeding complex issue. From a purely biological
point of view there is absolutely no such thing as differing pain
thresholds. Pain Nerves - like all nerves in the body have a threshold
at which they fire off or not. For example a pain nerve doesn't
turn on a 'little bit' - its either on or off. Now the threshold
that a pain nerve fibre activates at is fairly common and consistent
across most people, regardless of sex, race or age. The reason
that pain may be more intense or not will depend on the amount
of nerves firing and the type - there are different types, the
sharp nasty stabby pain type and the deep throbbing achy pain
type as well as a few others. Some people may have slightly abnormal
thresholds - an example of this is in Epilepsy where the nerves
in the brain get over excitable and tend to fire to quickly -
this can cause a fit.
BUT - in general - there is no difference PHYSIOLOGICALLY between
the healthy pain response in a male or female.
However, pain is more complex than this. Pain is effected by
the subjective context. Simple and crude examples of this are
the traditional cultural effects on pain. The British stereotype
of stiff upper lip tends to result in people not displaying pain
even if they feel it whilst the traditional Mediterranean stereotype
sees pain elaborately displayed. Men and Women in Western Culture
have very different peer group pressures that result in different
responses to different pains. The battlefield soldier may tolerate
horrendous pain whilst in an aroused angry state and women experience
extreme pain during childbirth - and in my experience tend to
yell a lot!
So culture, gender and context DO effect pain perception - as
indeed may the time of day - pain is worse at night. Mood may
obviously have considerable effect on pain perception - if you
are depressed then your perception of pain will be different from
that if you are elated. Thus trying to measure pain is really
very complex - and this is why researchers use standardised scales.
The scales are generally subjective - your impression of your
pain - the classic one-to-ten scale is measured on your pain perception
- 1 = no pain / 10 your worst imaginable pain.
SO - when people tell me that they have a high pain threshold
it is a load of old… Equally when we are told that a person
has a low pain threshold it is equally rubbish....
A very famous nurse researcher stated the following:
"Pain is whatever the person says it is - whenever the person
says they have it"
And that is all we really need to know.
