Pain tolerance and emergency surgery without anesthesia

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This subject has been covered here before, but in reading through the old threads (newest being over a year ago), I decided to start new and not bump.

Several of us on the Spectrum, have said that we have unusual reactions to pain, and can either tolerate a huge burden of pain, or cannot tolerate even a tickle. In my case, it's both extremes with no middle ground. I had said in the past, that I've had various minor surgeries for this & that, without any sedation and only local anesthesia (i.e. Novocaine). But last night, I had to have a large hematoma in my chest drained and removed, and this was a REAL challenge even for me with my extreme tolerance. The surgeon is one who has operated on me before, so he knows I can't be tied down, and need to be fully aware and have every move explained as he does it. He's very good about that!! ! The cause of it was a voluntary procedure I had done last week, to remove the rest of the gynecomastia glands, which were posing a cancer risk as well as looking bad. That was a success, but I didn't follow the directions well enough at all, and as a result, I blew an artery the night after that procedure. It continued to leak over the weekend, and late yesterday I had my followup appointment. After I took my shirt off to show what I thought was a little too much swelling, the nurse said "Just lie quietly, and they're going to get the OR ready for you RIGHT NOW". .

Anyway, it took about a hour to get ready, then the surgery went on for 55 minutes, with me feeling 100% of every move. It sounds like a horror film, but honestly it wasn't as bad as I worried it might be. Afterwards, the surgeon said I was the only one he had ever heard of, who didn't need to be tied down and have IV sedatives for that kind of emergency. I'm terrified of sedatives and any kind of drugs like that (IV, pills or any at all). Here's a quick 1-minute segment of video, showing a hole he dug in my chest big enough to put a fist in! CAUTION: Blood & gore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ectmlbqIwE0

The moral of the story is that even if it totally screws up our daily routine, we might want to think about listening to warnings from doctors, and at least try to follow directions. If I had done that, I'd have likely avoided this event last night...

Charles

I would of had to been on so much ativan to do that

Just goes to show, some of us have really unusual sensory systems.

Just curious--are you hyposensitive in other ways, too, like not noticing when you've hurt yourself? Perhaps that is part of why you waited so long to begin with; what would have hurt other people very badly was only annoying to you. Your "pain alarm" just wasn't ringing loud enough for you to feel that getting to a doctor was urgent.

I didn't think it was as serious as it was, and I guess because I told the doctor on Friday that it was swollen and hard, but I said I didn't need any pain pills, he thought it was probably normal swelling. And the weird thing is that I AM very sensitive to things like bugs biting me, or even cold or hot water unexpectedly. flinch uncontrollably if a bug lands on me, but those things are all surprises. So I guess it's the surprise and not the pain that I can't deal with. Sometimes I'll find a small cut (on a finger, etc.), and have no clue how I did it. But usually I feel it like anyone else, if I bang or scrape something. For the surgery, as long as I was prepared for something to hurt like a mothe$&%#*er, I was OK with it. But don't misunderstand; I would NOT volunteer to feel that for any reason. At least I know if it's an emergency, or if it's not safe to have anesthetic for whatever reason, I can still do it. If I know whatever it is that hurts, is for a good reason, I can dismiss the "pain alarm" like we would a fire alarm if we know it's only because somebody left toast in the toaster too long.

Charles

I don't mind local anesthetics, but generalized painkillers like percoset and the like?
Nope. I'll come out of surgery, take the stuff for a day, then switch to aspirin or ibuprofen.

I attribute it to my hatred of not being in total control of myself. Don't like alcohol or weed either for that reason.

Wow! Glad you got through it okay. I don't think I could go through something like that. I can't watch the video because I am extremely squeamish about surgery.

I basically would never have surgery at all, unless it was a life or death situation. I don't like taking any kind of drugs and I don't like the thought of putting put under anesthesia either. And I don't want to be cut open. Ick.

But yeah to your point, I can tolerate fairly intense pain, not saying I can function or continue working through it but I can tolerate it without drugs. I even have a way of numbing myself out, if it's not too extreme. I'm not sure how I do it but if I can be still enough and not have to move and go into a light trance I don't feel it as much.

On the other hand sometimes the lightest touch can be maddening, like a cat's whisker brushing against my neck could make me jump out of my chair.

Humans can take a lot more pain than they give themselves credit for.

I tend to be a wimp with pain, but over the years, the more "pain" I've suffered, the greater my tolerance has become. I suppose reaching higher levels of intensity via experience resets my perspective of what is "too much."

I learned in my psychology classes that pain is half the physical alarm, and half your mental reaction to it. The physical part is pain; the mental part, distress. One can have pain without distress and distress without pain. For example, someone whose muscles are sore after a good workout probably has pain without distress. Someone who is afraid of needles and is getting a vaccine, is experiencing a lot of distress but only very minimal pain.

The distress part is adaptive, of course. It tells you that pain is bad, that you need to fight back or run away or get your hand off the hot stove. However, if a person does not react emotionally to pain, the subjective intensity of an injury can be much reduced.

I eventually concluded that this is what happens to me when I hurt myself, but don't notice--or, more precisely, hurt myself, and think so little about it that I forget it within seconds and don't remember where I got the injury when I discover it later. I don't have an "emergency!" reaction to many types of pain, especially superficial injuries like bruises and cuts. I also tend to get repetitive-motion injuries because when I get obsessed with an activity and it causes strain, the pain seems irrelevant.

My physical reaction to pain is probably relatively normal. The message gets to my brain just fine. It's the emotional reaction to it that differs.

I think I have this problem as well. Even when I had a ruptured appendix as a child, I told my mom once that my abdomen hurt and never mentioned it again, so that a week later when they finally figured out what was wrong with me, no one knew I was in any pain. They just did a CT scan as a last resort before exploratory surgery (I was EXTREMELY sick by that point and they didn't have any idea why), and found the problem by chance.

I just sort of register the pain, but then almost forget about it. I do think I was also actually hyposensitive to pain as a child though. Now I have a good pain tolerance, but I don't think I am truly hyposensitive anymore to the point of having abnormal reactions to pain.

I seem to feel pain like NT'S but I don't react to it. It's not like crying out and letting everyone know you're in pain will stop it.

I think I can tolerate some pain. I've had minor surgery a couple times and clowned around and the Docs commented how well I took the pain. I think I just didn't need to show it. I once jammed my thumb on my left hand during a fall. I was laying on the floor for 45 minutes afterward laughing.

I really appreciate all this input . It seems that the way it works for others, is similar to how I tried to describe it; the "physical pain" is only an alarm, and the response from the brain is a separate thing... But it's not 100% consistent, in that some types of pain (headaches, tooth problem-caused pain, and instantaneous pain such as ripping a fingernail loose by mis-grabbing something), cannot be muted or dismissed. Even if I recognize what it was that happened within a few milliseconds, and know it's not an ongoing process of damage to my body, once it's painful, it stays that way just as it does for most anyone else. But as for planned or foreseen causes of pain, it's just different somehow.

Charles