Pain threshold
KingdomOfRats
Veteran

Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,833
Location: f'ton,manchester UK
If someone asked me that question, I wouldn't know what to answer. How do you know if your pain threshold is greater or less than the norm? How do you know what other people feel and therefore whether your own perception of pain is outside the brackets of normality?
do get pain with hitting head on wall [eg,through accident,meltdown etc],kicking something hard with toe,trapping hand/finger in door,
getting skin cut,being scratched strongly by animal with sharp claws............if not get pain,or not get much pain at all from these,it's probable have a high pain thresh hold,taking tea bag out with hand as well,those with regular pain thresh hold wouldn't do that, people have a go at am for doing it to.
am have extremely high external pain thresh hold,and can bite through tongue to extent without realising,am get internal pain though via migraine and brain concussion from meltdowns.
this high tolerance to pain that many auties and aspies have can also be caused by a specific part of brain being damaged,think Richard Hammond from the programme Top Gear now has this problem from the damage he got.
Thanks guys, it's becoming clear now. I think I'm a bit like Missboots - I react to the extremes but not the stuff in the middle. And like Sedaka, I like hot baths - even if I've been wallowing for half an hour, my partner still finds the water too hot to get into afterwards. I suppose this ties in with being able to remove teabags from boiling water!
Similarly, if I have an injury such as a sprained ankle or foot problem, I tolerate that pain but by compensating my walk, eventually the resulting back pain become too much. I do get a lot of lower back pain, but am not sure if I tolerate this for longer than average before I start to complain or need to stretch or even take a pain killer.
Hmm, interesting. I would still like to read other people's experiences of pain perception.
Thanks.
_________________
It goes that way because that's the way it goes.
I'm not sure if I have a low or high tolerance for pain.
My legs have been in endless pain since as long as I can remember, but I just block out the mild pain.
Maybe if I had a higher tolerance for pain, I wouldn't feel it at all.
I don't think its really possible to say, I don't know bad other people feel pain.
My head can take a lot of pain, but the rest of me is pretty wussy. I cope with blood far too well. When I lopped my finger off, the nurses were commenting how much time I spent looking at my finger tip that was flapping like a zippo lighter. Apparantly we're meant to look away and want to pass out or something. I wanted to know what was going on!
_________________
"Think like the whelp, think like the whelp, think like the whelp... " Captain Jack Sparrow
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Inigo Montoya
When I was a little kid I was more terrified of vaccinations than all the other kids in my class. Actually getting the injections wasn't so bad, though... usually they didn't hurt at all. I could always handle/ignore minor injuries once I had them (I wasn't one of those kids who ran crying to their mother because they scraped their knee or chipped a tooth or slashed their finger), though I was scared of getting them and cautious as a result.
With a lot of my injuries feeling squeemish about seeing blood was worse than the actual pain. I've cut my self deeply with a knife and only noticed it when I saw blood going everywhere. Yet stubbing my toe or getting my finger pinched in something is extremely painful for me (but no blood). Maybe this is normal though.
Icarus_Falling
everyman antihero

Joined: 11 Jul 2007
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,215
Location: beyond human comprehension
My pain threshold is probably abnormally high, though not superhuman high; I'm able to ignore quite an awful lot before it even begins to bother me. I'm not sure why, exactly. AS? Perhaps. I was often severely beaten as a child; after a while I guess you learn that getting hit or kicked or lashed with a belt just doesn't hurt that badly anymore. Neither does being cut, or burned (though burns are probably the worst). I've never really broken a bone; can't claim to know what that feels like.
In some cases where I experience pain that is below my threshold, it is a strange experience; I am aware of the pain, but I do not feel it. In some cases, I feel no pain at all; ever have a bad cut and not notice it until you see the blood? (I note some others have had similar experiences.) Adrenaline is certainly something that enables one to be oblivious to pain.
My son, who is somewhere in the range of LHA to MFA also appears to have a very, very high pain threshold; probably higher than mine. It's difficult to tell with him because he cannot really talk. But for example, once when he was much younger, he managed to burn his leg rather badly on the stove. It was not a horribly serious burn, but it was enough for me to look at and wince myself. But after some initial expressions of obvious discomfort on his part, he seemed not to notice it at all, which completely astonished me; of all of the various injuries that I've had, the hurt of burns seemed to linger the longest. In his case, I am fairly certain his autistic sensory issues grant him the benefit of being able to simply ignore a great deal of pain. I wish I could ask him about it, get specific details.
Good fortune,
- Icarus feels emotional pain more than physical pain…
_________________
Please forgive me if, in the heat of battle, I sometimes forget which side I'm on.
I often don't feel cuts and bruises until I see them. I thought that was normal. Once I've noticed them they don't hurt but I am aware of them, especially if they are in a vulnerable place likely to suffer further damage from everyday clumsiness.
_________________
It goes that way because that's the way it goes.
Yeah, my showers are HOT also! I can't really wear glasses in the bathroom for a while because of all the steam. My skin gets a nice red color. I have "freaked out" some people when they realize how hot the water is when I am cleaning stuff. I once had a bully burn one of my arms for the hell of it when he realized that I didn't even flinch. So my pain threshhold, at least for certain types of pain, IS high.
As the person posting this thread mentioned, how should one know if his pain threshold is lower or higher than an average? Having wondered this issue, I'd say my own pain threshold is quite a normal, not high but also not low - but driven into a corner I'd judge it to be rather lower than higher. A pain disturbs me a lot even if it's not strong because then I start worry about my organism.
richardbenson
Xfractor Card #351

Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 13,553
Location: Leave only a footprint behind
i can handle alot of physical pain. when i was a teenager my appendix ruptured in the evening and i slept through it and didnt go to the hospital untill the next day, i had to be carried to the car & out of it because i couldnt walk. othertimes im a big baby and cry alot. lol
_________________
Winds of clarity. a universal understanding come and go, I've seen though the Darkness to understand the bounty of Light
I'm a big wuss.
I'm particularly bad when it comes to being punched, kneed or kicked, whether by accident or not. My brothers used to fight all of the time and then my little brother would do it to me and I'd be in total agony. I always thought that he was just a lot rougher than most but then occasionally in bed my boyfriend will knee me in the shin and it hurts like hell.
I used to be terrified of needles too because they seem to hurt me much more than they hurt others.
I'm better with aches though and can usually distract attention away from the hurt area.
I tend to have a very high pain tolerance when it comes to migraines and backache/sciatica
Although a sudden noise/bank freaks me out and those crazy random electric shock toys scare the life out of me ! !
Everyone else thought it was great but I nearly passed out after my first shock .

Ed Almos
I've had four of them (three within a two week period). Pain's not a big deal to me anymore; I can take just about anything.
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