Women More Sensitive to Pain Than Men

healthday.com ^

[chance33_98]

Women More Sensitive to Pain Than Men

But study didn't find any racial differences in pain thresholds

THURSDAY, April 1 (HealthDayNews) -- Blacks and whites have about the same sensitivity to pain, but women appear to be more sensitive to it than men.

That's what Duke University researchers report in the April issue of the Journal of Pain.

"Many pain medications are addictive and have unpleasant side effects, so it's important for physicians to be able to understand exactly how much pain their patients are experiencing," lead researcher and psychologist Dr. Tavis Campbell said in a prepared statement.

He conducted the study while at Duke; he's now at the University of Calgary in Canada.

"This research supports well-established findings of slightly higher sensitivity to pain among women compared to men, but revealed no difference between whites and African-Americans," Campbell said.

Previous research and anecdotal evidence have suggested blacks are more sensitive to pain than whites. Campbell suggested pain assessment procedures may be responsible for such racial differences in pain sensitivity.

His study included 76 men and 59 women aged 25 to 45; 72 were black, the rest white. A blood pressure cuff was inflated on the arm of each study participant and left inflated for several minutes. That created an aching sensation. The participants rated their pain according to standard pain rating scales, which gauge both the intensity and the unpleasantness of the pain.

[Doc On The Bay]

LOL!

Doc

[annyokie]

My greatgrandmother birthed a child under an oak tree next to the wagon when the family was moving from Kansas to Oklahoma.

I required surgery to birth my last two.

[Arpege92]

It was resourceful.....it's just funny at the same time and something I wouldn't let him live down. ;-}

[LisaMalia]

It would have to be a constant knee in the groin for men to really understand child birth.

Good point! Men, think of that "knee to the groin" pain for 15 staight hours, and you'll get an idea of what hard labor is like.

Like I said before, the pain is well worth it, and I am actually glad that I was born a woman and able to experience the miracle of pregnancy and childbirth.

[cupcakes]

It certainly does hurt and some of us aren't heroins about it. Please pass me my epidural and I say this as someone just 6 weeks away from my latest labor adventure. I'm convinced though that some of us have much more pain then others. Perhaps it is location of the pain. Like I said, I deal fine with soreness with say an incision from a surgery, but I just want to curl in a ball with the kind of pain I have in labor.

[freedumb2003]

also had a major heart attack...I thought I had the flue

Wow -- I guess heart attacks act differently for different people. The way I described it was the way it would feel after you were hit with a sledge hammer -- not the initial hit but the pain afterwards. And, yes, it felt like a damn elephant was sitting on my chest.

I am glad you had it diagnosed and fixed.

btw -- I now keep on a reasonable diet and do a reasonable amount of exercize. My doctors have all remarked that it is amazing how few HA suferers DON'T do this. And die.

[cupcakes]

It certainly does hurt and some of us aren't heroins about it. Please pass me my epidural and I say this as someone just 6 weeks away from my latest labor adventure. I'm convinced though that some of us have much more pain then others. Perhaps it is location of the pain. Like I said, I deal fine with soreness with say an incision from a surgery, but I just want to curl in a ball with the kind of pain I have in labor.
BTW, I think too it is because incisions and that kind of thing are more local, labor is so all-encompassing that it is hard to concentrate on anything but the pain. I feel the same way with a migraine--it is so overwhelming that it is hard to think of anything else when you have one.

[Arpege92]

The pain is worth it....although that's not what I was thinking during child birth. I was praying that this kid would hurry up and come out....twenty two hours was too long for me.

[Riley]

There are no exceptions to the rule -- you have a blockage and it will kill you if you do not get treatement. You cannot guts your way through it. That is misplaced machismo.

And who is going to pay for it?

I have been living on 'misplaced machhismo' for a week now. Hurts, but so far so good. It is a collapsed graft from my last bypass. Still have 4 of 5 going OK. Walking as much as I can stand to to dialate the coronary atery.

[annyokie]

Good luck with the new little one!

I had 19 hours of hard labor with my eldest. I was ready to tell my husband "if you ever touch me again, I'll kill you!"

He watched the World Series while I was ready to quite my body and go home.

When they finally gave me the Pitocin (sp) I punched him (son) out like a seed.

[TalBlack]

Reading these posts I'm amazed to see that for a group of people who take the trouble to read the news every day no one seems to know that this question of who is more sensitive to pain is as old as the hills and has been studied and reported on for decades. The one big stumbling block is: How to zero out differences in physiology, chemistry etc that affect the transmissinon of pain impulses.

This article aside I believe the common wisdom at present is that women are more sensitive to pain but much more resistant to shock as an effect of pain or truma.

On a personal note: I have always said if i were a woman and someone told me I was pregnant I'd blow my damn brains out!

[LurkerNoMore!]

Saying "Ergo" seems so..... gay.

[freedumb2003]

Ladies, I can't even LOOK AT MOVIES of childbirth, much less imagine the pain involved. I think Bill Cosby's proposal that it is like passing a bowling ball is probably dead-on. I mean the human body can't possibly deal with what you are talking about without unimaginable pain (and as I said on this thread, I had a heart attack).

I don't care what the stupid study says, and I certainly don't think arguments about logical fallacies are germain in this instance. I believe with my heart and soul that women can endure pain that men don't even want to have DESCRIBED, much less actually experience. If Men had babies, the C-section would have been invented by one of Adam's sons (well one of them at least).

My hat's off to you ladies and this is partly why guys say "Hi Mom" on TV!

[Riley]

Feels different for diifrnt people. Mine feels like a rail spike through the chest and a clamp on my left arm.

[Exit148]

HUH??

My DH crosses the threshhold at the dentist and gets his shot of novacaine. The last time I had novacaine was with root canal. All other teeth work is novacaine-free.

My 4 kids were natural childbirth.

Need I say more?

[freedumb2003]

Still have 4 of 5 going OK. Walking as much as I can stand to to dialate the coronary atery.

Dammit man, get thee to an ER. We pay for this for free for the leaches in society, we can pop for someone who actually HAS SELF-RESPECT AND DIGNITY (I mean you) but is too mule-headed to accept the largesse of society!

I am deadly serious -- get there and leave your wallet behind. You have been paying for this for your entire working life. This is finally your investment paying back.

GO! NOW!!!

[LisaMalia]

What a sweet post. And congratulations on your recovery from your heart attack.

What a man! We need more like you.

[Dan from Michigan]

Because we're smart enough to know when to come in from the cold! :D

LOL. It was warm yesterday (about 50 degrees, no wind) so I wore a T-shirt and no coat. I went to my parent's house about 20 minutes away. I do my laundry there and I left about midnight.

Mom: "You didn't bring your coat?"
"It's not that bad out there."......36 and snow flurries.

I survived. It wasn't that bad.

[cupcakes]

Thanks so much. I know labor is going to stink once again, but I can't wait to hold my new son in my arms. I have never been one to get upset at my husband during labor--like I said, it is just so overwhelming and all-encompassing for me that nothing else exists:-)
One thing I have been lucky about though is for the intense labor cramps, I haven't had a labor longer than about 12 hours and that was my 2nd labor which was induced. On that note, I've went into labor naturally and induced. They were both pretty similar, but my doctor has a pretty gradual approach and my body was already showing signs of being receptive to labor with initial dilation and effacement. Both labors were similar in length and my induced labor was actually more tolerable than my naturally occuring one--don't know why that is, maybe because I had more build up with the induction where the naturally occuring one had the hideous every 2 minutes and 1 minute in length contractions from the get go.
This time after much consideration, I have decided to just get an epidural at the earliest oppurtunity and definitely before my waters are broken since that is when all hell breaks loose for me. I'm not even going to attempt a completely non-medicated labor.
Well I'm off to bed--have a good night.

[freedumb2003]

Well shuckens gee whiz and thanks, Ma'am. *blush*

Maybe you can help me shame Riley into going to the ER?