Your Pain Threshhold... and the Proverbial Straw

[dragon wench]

As I sit here doped up on Advil pain relievers, I can't help but wonder if I'm the only one who generally has a high pain threshhold, but runs screaming to the medicine cabinet at the first sign of certain types of pain.


For me it is headaches... I can't tolerate them, not even mild ones. Hence, my present doped up condition. Yet.. I can stand extraordinary levels of physical pain... I mean, I quite easily survived natural childbirth; For those of you who have not had this experience, trust me... there are very few things more painful.

Yet... I'm just pathetic where headaches of any level are concerned....


How about you, what kind of pain can you least tolerate?

[Hill-Shatar]

Physical pain, easily. Emotional pain, easily.

Those darn headaches... I am currently drugged on both Moltrin and Tylenol myself...

[Bloodstalker]

Toothaches. It's the one thing that absolutly drives me nuts when it happens. I'd almost overdose to stop the pain

[dragon wench]

@Hill,
I hadn't really thought about emotional pain when I made my first post. For me, it really depends on the source of the pain. In some cases I just bury it deeply, in others I'm a mess

@BS,
yeah toothaches are nasty too; though, happily, I don't seem to get them

[slade]

Im immune to physical pain and most emotional pain, but its those headaches that urk me. Everynow and then its the muscles and joints near my elbows that really hurt from lifting weights that I tend to run to the pills.

[Dottie]

I think my threshhold regarding most types of pain, headaches, cuts etc are quite normal. I've tried to pluck my eyebrows a few times though, and I scream like a baby. It's really unbearable.

[C Elegans]

There is a difference between actual threshold level, and coping mechanisms. The pain threshold is the level where a sensory stimulus is perceived as pain, but the threshold does not necessarily say anything about how well people endure pain. A person with a high threshold may experience a higher degree of suffering when they a certain level of pain, while a person with a low threshold may experience less suffering at the same level.

Most people don't know their actual threshold, since this must be measured in a specific way. Long ago when I was at the hospital removing a growing birthmark at my stomach, I was asked if I wanted to be a volunteer in a study of pain threshold. I agreed, and the physician tested me by picking an area of my skin with a needle, and I reported if I felt pain or not and when I felt the pain was too sharp to endure. According to this study, I had a low pain threshold, but I have a very high pain endurance. This is not surprising seeing I have quite a bit of accidents and injury in my personal history - experiencing pain usually makes you habituate, except in the case of burning or inflammation of the tissue when development of over-sensitation is more common.

I'm used to having constant pain in my knees due to several injuries, and that I never think of unless I do something special so I get problems walking or doing normal activies. When I had my knee surgeries years ago, I was always more bothered by walking around on one leg with crutches, than the pain - my god, it's slow! You can get crazy from impatience!

I've walked around with a fractured collar bone and a fractured elbow without taking any painkillers, because the side effect of painkillers bothers me more than the pain. I never use prescription analgesics since they all give cognitive side effects, and the only prescription free analgesics you can get in Sweden are acetylsalicylic acid (like Aspirin), ibuprofen (like Motrin and Advil) and paracetamol (like Tynedol and Paradol). Since I have had an ulcer I can't take acetylsalicylic acid or ibuprofen, and even low doses of paracetamol have a sedative effect, so I prefer not to take it.

The only pain I always treat with painkillers is, like many people in this thread, headache. I get difficulties concentrate when I have a headache. Toothache is difficult too, but when I've had my various teeth surgeries (I crashed my teeth in an bike accident so I've had some problems over the years) I am more disturbed by not being able to eat than by the pain. The eyes are also really irritating, since it's difficult not to use them.

[Lestat]

Well... this is not to get distasteful, but there are two times in my life I was dizzy and literally sick of pain (i.e. distorted perception + puking): twisted nerve; there, where men are most vulnerable... I would have confessed to blowing up the twin towers if only the pain would go (and they were still standing at that moment).
But apart from those two occasions, I never ever have taken painkillers in my adult life. I think I have a fairly high tolerance of pain (in the sense that I can tolerate feeling quite a bit of pain).

[Denethorn]

Headaches are quite annoying. But I see taking painkillers as masking the problem. I try to consume water etc. in an attempt to rid myself of it. Only if that fails do I hit the painkillers.

Sore throats are my weak point. I seem to be exceptionally susceptible to very severe throats... unable to consume anything except icy chilled water. Swallowing your own saliva becomes a very serious issue, and ofcourse when you don't want it to, saliva production skyrockets Seem to get a bi-annual case of a sore throat. I have to go around doped up on paracetamol and antiseptic lozengers.

For most pains my methodology is get to bed and sleep it off . For annoyance factor though, I have to say the almighty paper cut is the most annoying little pain in the world... so aggravating

[ch85us2001]

Believe it or not, hiccups! I have very painful hiccups. I can stand the rest (even though I get very queasy at blood) as in I hiked 75 miles over mountains with all my pack weight on my back instead of my hips That was painful!!