Can you feel the pain!!??!?!
Ahhh, and so the debate continues, evidence piling up on both sides of the question. Who experiences more pain, men or women? Men are the believed hunter/gatherers of society and therefore experience lots of pain in the way of broken limbs, scars, cuts, bruises and other war related injuries. Women, on the other hand, have to grow a parasite inside them before expelling it to the world (ok, 'child' for the politically correct people I guess) and that means that they will be guaranteed hours and hours of excrutiating pain and agony before birth. So, now they are doing studies as to who might experience more pain, and the tallies show that men experience less pain than women, or at least men experience a lower intensity of pain than women. Hmmmmmm, I wonder why that could be..
*insert wavy lines and flashback mode here* DOO DOO DOO...DOO DOO DOO...DOO DOO DOO
Father looking down at his boy on the pavement with a skinned knee yelling "dont cry! only sissies and baby's cry! you are a man"....
Mother going to a daughter saying "there, there...why dont you go to your room and have a nice long cry..that will make you feel better"...
A gang of teenage boys surrounding another teen that has just had his ankle twisted "look at the wittle baby..gonna cry...lets see those tears baby!"...
group of girls surrounding a girl that has just had a bump on the head in cheerleader practice patting her reassuringly on the shoulder going "I know, that hurts horrible...let those tears flow deary, that will make you feel better...let the pain out"...
boy with a cast on his arm walking out of the doctors office as the doctor pats him on the back and says to the parents "yep, you got yourself a strong brave boy here. Broken arm in two places and not a single tear fell, not a single cry of pain..yep, a strong little man you have here"
*insert wavy lines and flashback mode here* DOO DOO DOO...DOO DOO DOO...DOO DOO DOO
hmmmmmm, now why would men report experiencing less intense pain than women when it comes to injuries and bodily pain...yeah, these scientistics must be right, it has to do with the colour of our hair and our genetic make up and hormones...that is the only explanation that I can possibly think of.
Bridging the pain gender divide
http://healthandfitness.sympatico.msn.ca/NewInHealth/Pain_Management/Articles/els_Gender_Divide
When it comes to pain, it seems that men are from Mars and women are from “ouch, that really, really hurts.”
Over the past several decades, study after study has confirmed that, on average, women both experience more pain and find that pain more intense. The gender differences are beyond dramatic.
For example, recent Canadian research has shown that on a scale of 1 to 100, women rate their lifetime pain levels at an average of 38.9. Their male counterparts clock in at a meager 14.8. The differences spread across conditions and locations. Jaw pain, migraine pain, arthritis pain—more women report they are in pain. Colonoscopies, visits to the dentists, heart surgery—ditto.
“The size of these sex differences in pain is, in general, as large or larger than differences in pain recorded between a person who has received a clinical dose of morphine compared to that same person when they haven’t received a clinical dose,” says Roger Fillingim, a pain researcher at the University of Florida’s College of Dentistry.
Such differences not only invite questions about why the incongruities exist. They also suggest that in order to most effectively treat pain, researchers need to focus on its gendered experience.
Biological roots
Part of the difference is clearly rooted in genetics. Fillingim points to a study in which he participated. There it was shown that women who carried a mutation of a gene expressed in red hair and fair skin could have pain mediated by certain drugs. Women without the mutation didn’t respond. “For men that gene didn’t matter—redheaded or not, they didn’t respond to the drugs,” he says.
In a more general biological sense, pain seems related to differences in hormone levels between men and women. Numerous painful conditions flare during menstruation, and studies of postmenopausal women on hormone replacement have shown that they have lower pain thresholds and tolerances than women not taking hormones.
Conversely, evidence suggests that high levels of the male hormone testosterone dampen pain. “But most of the evidence in humans suggests that hormones alone are not enough to entirely explain sex difference when it comes to pain,” says Fillingim.
This has led to examinations of socialization and gender expectations when it comes to pain. Studies that Fillingim and others have conducted show that both men and women assume men will report less pain than women, and that men who rate themselves as highly masculine think they are more pain tolerant than less masculine counterparts.
Why would nature divide the world into pain-enduring men and pain-full women? “If all men were at one time hunter-gatherers and were constantly running through the woods, getting attacked, or thrown about, they had better not be bothered by every little ache or pain,” says Fillingim about one evolutionary theory. “If they were they weren’t going to be able to bring food home for their families.”
Targeted treatments
As evidence of gender differences in pain has risen, so has the notion of gender-based medications and treatments.
Already, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a class of drugs for irritable bowel syndrome pain only for women, because it seemed to have no effect on men. Certain classes of drugs given to patients after wisdom tooth removal have also been shown to dampen pain in women but actually increase it in men.
Moreover, Fillingim points out that psychological treatment may also have to become more gender aware. For example, anxiety is more closely related to pain in men than in women. “So in a clinical setting if you are trying to treat pain patients and your treatment focuses on anxiety reduction, well, that might help men but not help women,” he says.
Fillingim and others imagine a pain future where “we are going to be able to tailor currently available treatments so that, where we find differences between men and women—think type of medication, dosages, psychological treatment—we prescribe based on sex.”
*insert wavy lines and flashback mode here* DOO DOO DOO...DOO DOO DOO...DOO DOO DOO
Father looking down at his boy on the pavement with a skinned knee yelling "dont cry! only sissies and baby's cry! you are a man"....
Mother going to a daughter saying "there, there...why dont you go to your room and have a nice long cry..that will make you feel better"...
A gang of teenage boys surrounding another teen that has just had his ankle twisted "look at the wittle baby..gonna cry...lets see those tears baby!"...
group of girls surrounding a girl that has just had a bump on the head in cheerleader practice patting her reassuringly on the shoulder going "I know, that hurts horrible...let those tears flow deary, that will make you feel better...let the pain out"...
boy with a cast on his arm walking out of the doctors office as the doctor pats him on the back and says to the parents "yep, you got yourself a strong brave boy here. Broken arm in two places and not a single tear fell, not a single cry of pain..yep, a strong little man you have here"
*insert wavy lines and flashback mode here* DOO DOO DOO...DOO DOO DOO...DOO DOO DOO
hmmmmmm, now why would men report experiencing less intense pain than women when it comes to injuries and bodily pain...yeah, these scientistics must be right, it has to do with the colour of our hair and our genetic make up and hormones...that is the only explanation that I can possibly think of.
Bridging the pain gender divide
http://healthandfitness.sympatico.msn.ca/NewInHealth/Pain_Management/Articles/els_Gender_Divide
When it comes to pain, it seems that men are from Mars and women are from “ouch, that really, really hurts.”
Over the past several decades, study after study has confirmed that, on average, women both experience more pain and find that pain more intense. The gender differences are beyond dramatic.
For example, recent Canadian research has shown that on a scale of 1 to 100, women rate their lifetime pain levels at an average of 38.9. Their male counterparts clock in at a meager 14.8. The differences spread across conditions and locations. Jaw pain, migraine pain, arthritis pain—more women report they are in pain. Colonoscopies, visits to the dentists, heart surgery—ditto.
“The size of these sex differences in pain is, in general, as large or larger than differences in pain recorded between a person who has received a clinical dose of morphine compared to that same person when they haven’t received a clinical dose,” says Roger Fillingim, a pain researcher at the University of Florida’s College of Dentistry.
Such differences not only invite questions about why the incongruities exist. They also suggest that in order to most effectively treat pain, researchers need to focus on its gendered experience.
Biological roots
Part of the difference is clearly rooted in genetics. Fillingim points to a study in which he participated. There it was shown that women who carried a mutation of a gene expressed in red hair and fair skin could have pain mediated by certain drugs. Women without the mutation didn’t respond. “For men that gene didn’t matter—redheaded or not, they didn’t respond to the drugs,” he says.
In a more general biological sense, pain seems related to differences in hormone levels between men and women. Numerous painful conditions flare during menstruation, and studies of postmenopausal women on hormone replacement have shown that they have lower pain thresholds and tolerances than women not taking hormones.
Conversely, evidence suggests that high levels of the male hormone testosterone dampen pain. “But most of the evidence in humans suggests that hormones alone are not enough to entirely explain sex difference when it comes to pain,” says Fillingim.
This has led to examinations of socialization and gender expectations when it comes to pain. Studies that Fillingim and others have conducted show that both men and women assume men will report less pain than women, and that men who rate themselves as highly masculine think they are more pain tolerant than less masculine counterparts.
Why would nature divide the world into pain-enduring men and pain-full women? “If all men were at one time hunter-gatherers and were constantly running through the woods, getting attacked, or thrown about, they had better not be bothered by every little ache or pain,” says Fillingim about one evolutionary theory. “If they were they weren’t going to be able to bring food home for their families.”
Targeted treatments
As evidence of gender differences in pain has risen, so has the notion of gender-based medications and treatments.
Already, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a class of drugs for irritable bowel syndrome pain only for women, because it seemed to have no effect on men. Certain classes of drugs given to patients after wisdom tooth removal have also been shown to dampen pain in women but actually increase it in men.
Moreover, Fillingim points out that psychological treatment may also have to become more gender aware. For example, anxiety is more closely related to pain in men than in women. “So in a clinical setting if you are trying to treat pain patients and your treatment focuses on anxiety reduction, well, that might help men but not help women,” he says.
Fillingim and others imagine a pain future where “we are going to be able to tailor currently available treatments so that, where we find differences between men and women—think type of medication, dosages, psychological treatment—we prescribe based on sex.”
posted by Capt_Canuck at 7:54 PM
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