Pain Tolerance and AS

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I don't know what my pain tolerance is compared to other people because I don't know what they feel. I am stoic about showing pain though, I keep it to myself. I was very quiet giving birth, but I sure felt the pain.

pain tolerance very low, in that everything sensory feels super-intense. also, i have fibromyalgia, so sometimes even light touch is excruciating.

however in the sense that i have chronic pain, my tolerance is high. i'm so used to it.

as a side note, psychopaths have blunted fear and an inability to learn from pain. However, they can be very sensitive emotionally (much like narcissists, particularly when the ego is threatened). they are characterized by very shallow but intense emotions. so for instance when they get a little bit frustrated they can completely freak out, enraged, and a minute later be back to baseline.

look at bundy going to the executioner. he is terrified. but he doesn't really "get" it through his trial. he still thinks he is going to get out of it. no sense of future aside from the immediate, no connection between getting caught and consequences. a psychopath will get caught in one lie and turn around and tell another obvious falsehood right to your face and literally expect to be believed.

i swear i think psychopathy is an emotional learning disorder. sorry... tangent!

I have AS and a little headache can drive me mad. A little cut can feel horrible. But, I found getting tattooed (I have 8 tattoos) a relaxing and enjoyable experience---and yes it hurts---but relaxing and peaceful.

i want at least one tattoo, but i'm kinda scared of the pain involved - that i'll start and wont' be able to finish (and have permanent inkwork unfinished on my body)

You know, I never really thought about that when I got my first one until I saw a sit-com later where a guy ran out of a tattoo parlor after the first touch of the needle. He had a little blue dot on his arm. If you look around though, have you ever seen anyone with a partial tattoo? I have seen some though with only an outline---perhaps they didn't have enough money to finish. I have confidence you would come through fine. Although I wanted a tattoo, I was also very curious about what one felt like to get...so years ago I got my first one...and then I kept wanting more until I now have 8.

thanks for the encouragement! i've been wanting to do this for 30 years, so it's hardly an impulse. i know what i want and where (and picking least painful spots). just waiting for the financial resources and courage to follow through!

It depends. If I face pinching then I'll cry out and tear up. If I'm cut, I don't even notice. Hard impacts don't really faze me.

Now for examples.

When my mother tries to 'pop' acne she can barely work with me because I squirm and resist so much. When children pinch or bite me I get pretty mad and reactive.

One time I climbed over a barbed wire fence, it was until about 30 seconds later when I put my right hand out in front of me that I noticed that it was covered in blood. Even then, I didn't care much, I was just worried it would stain my clothes. Another time I caught my hand on a barbed wire fence and the only reason I noticed the cut was because I could hear the 'rip' noise as it tore my hand. Cutting with knives isn't too bad either; Brief intense pain when it happens, then I can ignore it. Like one time I accidentally shoved a screwdriver under my thumbnail, it hurt a lot for about 3 seconds and then I ignored it.

Hard impacts have made me breifly yell in rage, that's it really though. It hurts, but I just sit down and wait for it to stop hurting- there's nothing else to do. One time however, I was hit in the head, and my vision actually flashed! Like it was a bright light for a second. Then I fell over, half blacked out with my whole head throbbing. It was very interesting that it messed up my... eye neurons or whatever.

I'm not sure what kind of threshold I have. I may feel pain, but how do I know if it's severe pain and I'm handling well, or if it's a teeny pain and I'm totally overreacting? I had a hysterectomy last November, and my doctor said that from the problems he found, I should have been in severe chronic pain. The truth is I was in very little pain. He said I must have a high pain threshold, but then I read an article about endometriosis that said the amount of damage does not correlate with the amount of pain. So who knows?

this is all very interesting.

i think i personally have a pretty high pain tolerance, especially after reading some posts. i nearly fell asleep for all my tattoos, which i have more than most and some in allegedly painful places. also i almost weekly find dried blood on my clothes or dripping down my hands from some cut i had no recollection of acquiring. i used to do muay thai as well and body hardening is part of the routine. i always seemed to be able to last much longer during those exercises than my counterparts.

but put me in a cold room and i will become the world's largest man-baby.

As an electronics engineer/technician. I work with a soldering iron and when I do any soldering work. I sometime drip hot molten solder( about 700'F) on my legs. I started soldering when I was 9 years old and when that first happen. It hurt like a mofo and it would leave big red blisters behind, but after a while. I got used to it and now I don't feel it any more and it no longer leave blisters. The only thing I notice now when it happens is theirs patches of hair missing in the spots where the solder drop.

As for tattoos, I think I could handle them okay, but them being so fashionable annoys me and makes me disinclined to get any. (Does this make me a crypto-hipster, or perhaps a sufferer of premature Old Geezer Syndrome? )

I quite enjoy massages, though the relaxation they induce unfortunately doesn't last long. Masseuses often ask me if I can handle the hard kneading, which I can without problems. They ask everyone that, though, not just skinny me. I was told they've encountered a lot of huge muscular hockey players who find the hard kneading unbearable.

I've both, a higher and a lower paintolerance. It really depends what kind of pain.
When someone touches me my accident, this can hurt. But pressure as a pains sometimes even feels straingly good.

It's hard to tell because I haven't really felt any notable pain for years. OK, I sometimes have slight back pain, my wisdom tooth tells me "hey, I'm here" every few months, and there's always some part of my skin that itches, but it's not I like can complain.

I'm very afraid of pain and especially needles, though. I almost lost consciousness last time I got a vaccination.

To answer the OP's question - high tolerance.

Now to qualify that answer: I have thought about my pain response for many years. Sticking myself to test for blood sugar seems to hurt just as much for me as for other diabetics (when I do it wrong.) Whacking my thumb with a hammer, I think, hurts just as much as any other person. Injuring myself when I am unaware of having done so I will find later an injury and have no memory of when or how I obtained that injury (small cuts, scrapes, bruises). From grinding my teeth at night I have a cracked wisdom tooth and have worn away the enamel on most of my molars. My dentist says I should have pain from the cracked tooth and hot/cold sensitivity - I almost always have no pain or sensitivity. I also have bad knees and psoriatic arthritis in my hands and hips - most of the time I am not aware of any pain anywhere. Lastly, when I was a teenager I broke my foot and ankle - most of the time I have no pain from it nor do I notice the usual aches with changes in the weather other people report.

I have noticed that when I am physically exhausted I am aware of aches and pains more. Also, when I am very sick such as with a bad case of the flu. And when I had surgery on my shoulder - at first it was hot/cold sensitivity of my teeth then later when the pain meds were dialed back my knees, hips and hands.

This leads me to believe that, for me, there is some mechanism employed by my body to minimize or eliminate minor aches and pains while letting through the more intense sensations. And that this mechanism is not as effective when exhausted or when the body is fighting a significant infection or when healing from a major injury.

I suspect that not noticing small injuries may be more related to my focusing on performing a task and thus being less aware of other things which are happening not directly related to that task.

I have an average to high pain tolerance. I can put up with accidental minor injuries (e.g. smacking my knee on something), occasional scratches/bites from the cat, some migraines, and even cramps. The only pain I can't put up with are major injuries, sprains, and migraines that are so painful, that I need to lie down.

I don't know if it's because I skateboard or because I've been told to get over it so much as a kid, but I tend to deal with pain pretty well. Yeah, it hurts but it usually fades to a dull ache after a while. Oddly enough, my arms have different sensitivities to needles. If I have blood drawn or an I.V inserted in my left arm, I can't feel the needle. I feel the dullest of pricks and then a slight tingle. However, the moment a needle breaks the skin on my right arm, I am suddenly in the most excruciating, tear jerking, pants pissing pain ever. I've yet to understand this.