You quite often hear people talk about “pain thresholds” when it comes to IBS, because of course pain is such as vital part of the joy that is an irritable bowel. But I’ve always been a bit confused about the concept.
Now, I understand that if I am in a room with nine other people, and we all get our legs chopped off, and I’m lying on the floor screaming while the other nine are doing their knitting, that probably means that I have a lower pain threshold than they do. But how can you measure a threshold just by anecdotal evidence – how do you know your pain isn’t just less/more than other people’s unless you’ve all just had your legs chopped off together?
People sometimes say “I think I have a high pain threshold”, and that’s fine, maybe they do, but I always think “Well, how do you KNOW?” Women sometimes say it just after they’ve had a baby, and that always puzzles me. How do they know that their baby wasn’t just unusually smooth, or their cervix unusually cavernous?
It’s the same with IBS. Some people may well have high pain thresholds, but how do they know?!
I like to think that I have a high pain threshold simply because I’m in pain all the time, and I still function. I always used to tell my husband that I wish he could feel the type of pain I go through, just so I could see how he would handle it.
Well, I do have more than most people because while co-workers would skip work due to “period cramps”, I would be standing there and running around the office with my intestine hurting like hell, my stomach bloated and on fire and cramps that wouldn’t stop(oh and sometimes I would have diahrrea). Did I get to stay home? No, I don’t think so.
Take care
Dont know if its pain threshold.. or just the fact that we get so used to the pain being there that we just carry on regardless.. I know that the ibs pains, unless REALLY bad, are there and hurt like hell but I carry on – but yet add period pains to that and I am doubled over and cant move. Yet the ibs pains hurt more than the period pains, but I am used to those ones.. Its so strange how the mind and body works.. I hate it all though. We should not have to put up with any un-needed pain. Pain is ment to tell you that something is wrong in the body – not ibs though.. thats just there for the hell of it.
People can tollerate different levels of pain. I used to have IBS when I was 18, but it went as quick at it came. Now im 27 its back again and I’ve not changed any part of my life for years! I would say it did not hurt as bad last night as it did when I was 18. Is that because I can handle pain better or because it hurt less?
you might think you have a higher pain threshold than others your not in pain you just think its pain but its a psychological thing and you just think it hurts.
I know I have a high pain threshold/tolerance. why? well I broke my lower back and never knew I did it until the physio descovered it, when I went to see him because giving birth (100% naturally with no form of pain relief) had upset some nerves in the area it turned out I must have broke at some point.
Strangly though IBS when it is at it’s worst can have me doubled over in tears.
I only recently learned of pain thresholds – I don’t have IBS, but the Dr. says I match the profile of someone with a low threshold. He asked if I had ever thought I’d broken a bone, then had X-rays reveal it was only a sprain. (me? 3 times) Had I ever wondered why a minor injury hurt so much? yes. Had I ever marveled at the pain-tolerance level of others? BIG yes. As a child, I was considered a cry-baby. As an adult, I’d been labeled a ‘pain hypochondriac.’ Basically, I’ve always been healthy, hadn’t been to see doctors for illnesses in a very long time – just painful injuries that have always turned out to be nothing major.
There are ‘things that make you go, hmmmmmm?’ and then sometimes one runs across possible explanations for a series of life time events that were all consistent. For me, the good news is that (if I’m right) there’s nothing wrong with my knees – I figure I got regular, 40-year old knees that are not particularly damaged, just hurting more than they should. I’ll willing to bet my co-payment that x-rays will reveal nothing wrong with my knees.
To some degree, my pain threshold is a learned trait. I had Jagged sheet metal run across my open hand, and basically walked away asking for some duct tape. I have had stitches put through my fingernail, numerous, what would seem to be painful events, with no interior pain response, outside of a repulsion to the wound.
In some cases, I just control the injury and never look at it, outside of a genetic abnormality, and or strange fetishes, my ability to tolerate pain is probably at the maximum limits. I do feel sensations, but the pain sensation, is not ‘pain’ per se, it is more of a tickle and a numbness.
That being said, while I do not experience physical pain normally, I do sense non physical pain abnormally, meaning sadness can make me physically hurt. Something in my brain is obviously wired wrong.