Gender differences in pain tolerance

[Peter]

It's always struck me through my experiences that women are less tolerant of pain than men, and the 'women have a better pain tolerance, and men would never survive what they go through' thing has always seemed very suspect to me.

Are there sex differences in pain? For experimentally-delivered somatic stimuli, females have lower thresholds, greater ability to discriminate, higher pain ratings and less tolerance of noxious stimuli than males. These differences, however, are small, exist only for certain forms of stimulation and are affected by many situational variables such as presence of disease, experimental setting and even nutritive status. For endogenous pains, women report more multiple pains in more body regions than men. With no obvious underlying rationale, some painful diseases are more prevalent among females, others among males, and, for many diseases, symptoms differ between females and males. Sex differences in attitudes exist that affect not only reporting, coping and responses to treatment, but also measurement and treatment. So many variables are operative, however, that the most striking feature of sex differences in reported pain experience is the apparent overall lack of them.

On the other hand, deduction from known biological sex differences suggests powerful sex differences in the operation of pain mechanisms. First, the vaginal canal provides an additional route in women for internal trauma and invasion by pathological agents that puts them at greater risk for developing hyperalgesia in multiple body regions. Second, sex differences in chronobiology are likely to give rise to sex differences in how pain is "learned" and stimuli are interpreted, a situation that could lead to a greater variability and wider range of pains without obvious peripheral pathology among females. Third, sex differences in the actions of sex hormones suggest pain-relevant differences in the operation of many neuroactive agents, opiate and non-opiate systems, nerve growth factor and the sympathetic system.

Thus, while inductive analysis of existing data demonstrate more similarities than differences in pain experience between females and males, deductive analysis suggests important operational sex differences in its production.

Laboratory studies show a clear difference in pain tolerance levels between men and women. When healthy men and women are subjected to heat and other types of pain tests, women almost always report feeling discomfort first.

"It takes a lower temperature for a women to tell you that this feels painful," says Roger Fillingim, PhD, associate professor in the college of dentistry at the University of Florida, in Gainesville. "The laboratory studies show rather convincingly that women have a lower pain threshold and pain tolerance than men. That has been fairly consistently shown in the experimental studies that have been done."

To measure the differences in pain tolerance between men and women, Fillingim uses something called effect size, which compares the differences between the groups to the differences within each group. On a scale of small, moderate, and large, the pain tolerance difference between men and women is considered moderate. In degrees centigrade that translates to a difference of one degree to a degree and a half.

"So they are not so great that you would say, 'Here comes a women and she will have more pain no matter what else is going on,'" he says. "It is also not so small that they should be ignored for other factors."

Fillingim and colleagues enlisted 81 undergraduates at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, with roughly equal numbers of males and females, as study participants. Half of the students were assigned to a low-incentive group, in which students received just 5 cents for every 15 seconds they kept their hand submerged in ice water. The remaining students in a high incentive group received $1 for every 15 seconds their hand remained submerged.

Before enduring the cold water, students were asked to predict how painful the experience would be, how they would perform and how motivated they were by the monetary reward. During the experience, in which they submerged their right hand in cold water up to their wrist until they could no longer tolerate the pain, the researchers measured their pain and took blood pressure and heart rate measurements. After removing their hand from ice water, the students completed questionnaires that measured their pain, stress, perceived performance, and motivation to keep their hand submerged.

Like in previous pain studies, males had higher pain thresholds and tolerances than females, with the female students providing higher pain ratings 30 seconds after their hand was submerged, as well as on the questionnaire afterward. The study results are published in the current issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

Anyone got any thoughts?

[purposefulinsanity]

I always thought the idea that women have a higher pain threshold than men is more to do with the fact that women seem less likely to bitch about their pain and let it affect what they have to get done than men rather than any real biological difference.

Of the studies you mentioned though its worth considering the effect 'macho' attitudes had on the men, after all men are taught by society that being tough makes them 'real men' so they might have had more motivation to prove themselves.

[ozymandias]

Well, when your a guy, your basically told to. "Suck it up", "Walk it off" or whatever the machismo phrase of the day is.   How I tolerate pain depends upon my mood/state of mind at the time!

[DirtDawg]

I am fully convinced that physical pain does not hurt me as much as other people. I also have a slight ability to do a mind thing with pain and make it shut up, to a large degree.

I don't know about gender differences. I have known people of both genders who seem to be almost totally incapacitated by bumping their elbows on something. I know most of it is an act, but I don't understand it. I would be demoralized if I showed that much enfeeblement from something so insignificant. Maybe the question should be:  Who goes into self protective shock first, after a severe injury, men or women? I have seen men continue to function in an emergency and pull friends to safety, after themselves sustaining excruciating injuries. (Ever been to a rodeo?)

[McGiver]

women probably develope their pain tolerance from the time they hit puberty all through menopause.

i bet old women do not have the pain tolerance that old men have.


meh, i am really sensitive about my genitals.

[Scrapheap]

I've always heard the women are supposed to have a higher pain tollerance. Coyuld be an urban legend, I don't give a fuck one way or another though. 

[Sanityisoverrated]

A lot of women seem to get off on pain. I don't know if that counts as tolerance though- more an adaption perhaps.

[SovaNu]

don't think a bunch of aspies makes a good study group since aspies have varying tolerances for pain.

[Peter]

don't think a bunch of aspies makes a good study group since aspies have varying tolerances for pain.

What's your pain tolerance like?

[Litigious]

Depends on how much Valium she's consumed. 

[SovaNu]

yes it does.

mostly i would say i'm whiny and don't like pain unless it is a certain kind of pain.

[Peter]

yes it does.

mostly i would say i'm whiny and don't like pain unless it is a certain kind of pain.

A certain kind of pain?  The pain of a 12" cock, perhaps? 

[SovaNu]

cutting is like creating little vaginas all over your body that ache for a sharp razor to fuck them, fuck them hard.

[McGiver]

cutting is like creating little vaginas all over your body that ache for a sharp razor to fuck them, fuck them hard.

you make me sooooo horny.

[SovaNu]

thank you.