"High pain threshold" WTH?

[Sean]

I've not been any studies, but I deal with pain every day... Personally, I don't think folks nervous systems are any different; I do still feel pain, I just rationally judge how I am going to respond to it , that is tolerating it- much like different people can tolerate hot or cold weather.

Actually, people's nervous systems can vary by a large amount for various reasons. For example, if you and I were to sit down and have somebody inflict identical injuries to a specific part of our right wrists, I'd bet a very large amount of money that you'd feel pain before I did!

[Gob]

His right wrist gets regular intense workouts for a start...

[Sue U]

..and it's not listening to Leonard Cohen. (Just to pre-empt LJ)

or watching cricket

Of course not, Gen'l.....

It's doing both at the same time....

Poppycock. Leonard Cohen + cricket would produce such an anesthetic effect as to render one completely comatose and insensate, if not killed outright.

[The Hen]

That would be torture.

Personally I love hearing the commentators chat about what the seagulls are doing in the outer field. Leonard would interfer with that.

[Crackpot]

Not to mention that people are being asked to rate their pain on a scale of 1-10 without any real concept of what 10 is...

Or if you do not much rises above a 2 or 3.

[loCAtek]

I've not been any studies, but I deal with pain every day... Personally, I don't think folks nervous systems are any different; I do still feel pain, I just rationally judge how I am going to respond to it , that is tolerating it- much like different people can tolerate hot or cold weather.

Actually, people's nervous systems can vary by a large amount for various reasons. For example, if you and I were to sit down and have somebody inflict identical injuries to a specific part of our right wrists, I'd bet a very large amount of money that you'd feel pain before I did!

However, I specified, I do feel pain. The point is: I tolerate it.
I can tolerate the pain, and still function

...let's not say "well", but at higher levels than most is sufficient.

By way of example, here's what happened to My Ex and I, when we experienced the same type of pain;

Many moons ago, for brunch I was fixing a simple fare of hard-boiled eggs before the main course. In minutes, they were done, so I drained off the scalding water, and deftly reached into the pot bare-handed; plucked out the eggs and put them into a friendlier bowl for serving. As I placed them before My Ex at the table, I cautioned, "Careful, they're hot."

As I turned towards the kitchen, I heard him exclaim, "OW!!!
They're HOT!!!" ... as he dropped an egg.

His eyes glared at me accusingly, so I reminded him, "I told you, they were hot!"

"But, you touched them!" My Ex cried.

I retorted, "I'm a welder."






Technically, the pain level should have been exactly the same: the same nerves, the same eggs, at the same temperature (maybe they were a tiny bit hotter, while I held them) ...but it was the reactions to that pain, that were different.

[Sean]

You still don't get it lo... The point is that unless you and your ex were sharing a brain and a nervous system, your nerves ARE different.

[loCAtek]

Please explain, how so?

[Sean]

You're kidding right? You want me to explain how you weren't sharing a nervous system?

I take it back about you not sharing a brain.

[loCAtek]

Not what I asked.

How do the same kind of humans with the same kind of nervous system, suddenly not experience the exact stimuli, from the same source, in the same way?

If he and I were petting the same bunny; why would what he felt be any different from what I felt?

Please explain, how his physical nerves would be different from mine.

[Gob]

You're kidding right? You want me to explain how you weren't sharing a nervous system?

I take it back about you not sharing a brain.

I damn near wet myself

[Sean]

Not what I asked.

How do the same kind of humans with the same kind of nervous system, suddenly not experience the exact stimuli, from the same source, in the same way?

If he and I were petting the same bunny; why would what he felt be any different from what I felt?

Please explain, how his physical nerves would be different from mine.

First of all, there's no "suddenly" about it.
Secondly, look up 'congenital analgesia' or 'HSAN' for just a few examples of how nervous systems can differ.

[The Hen]

My endurance for heat if far greater than Gob's as I used to be a kitchen hand.

I trained myself to handle scalding objects. if I didn't I wouldn't have been a kitchen hand.

With training you can endure higher temperatures than you would have been able to without training.

Practise makes perfect.

[Gob]

Hen's capacity for pain is enormous....she's heard me sing.....

[MajGenl.Meade]

loCA aside from the no doubt wonderful medical information, it should be self-evident that we don't possess the same kind of nervous system other than in the same way that we possess the same kind of hands or eyes. The plan (if one likes) is the same but the functioning differs.

From outward appearance, eyes are all the same 'kind' of thing - and yet people are colour blind and even those who are 'no' have no real true idea if they see things as others see them. You and I might agree on "red" but how does either one of us know that we are seeing the same shade of red?

Similarly, your question could be phrased "how come my six feet tall friend can reach a higher shelf than I can when we have the same kind of arms, legs and torso?" The answer of course is that you do not have the same - only the same 'kind'.

As to petting bunnies, neither one of you knows exactly what the other feels (yes, yes a bunny, I know). The stimuli is the same but the recognition of it by the brain is dependent upon the individual.

On a practical level, the roughness of your hands (ahem) as a welder may protect you from experiencing the heat as much as his soft (ahem) ones. Or women tolerate more pain (after all they voluntarily marry men and have babies). I've often noticed how as we age, many of us gain a growing tolerance to hot tea/coffee which younger people's mouths reject as intolerably hot.

Sandra Bullock used to be intolerably hot

Just sayin'
Meade

[Gob]

I trained myself to handle scalding objects. if I didn't I wouldn't have been a kitchen hand.

With training you can endure higher temperatures than you would have been able to without training.

Jesus, I just had a flashback!

In the second year of my apprenticeship, I was doing a stint in the toolmakers shop. One of the guys who worked there was a blacksmith called "Will Piss", (don't ask, just don't ask.) He must have been in his late 50's then, and still wore a calliper from a polio infection in his youth, however, despite this, he was possibly one the strongest guys I have ever met. Luckily my old man, who knew Will of old, warned me about his favourite trick to play on apprentices, (every fucking journeyman had one of these!)

I saw a few fall foul of it.

Will would call a gullible lad over, and ask him to hold the bar of iron he was offering. Most apprentices, not being too stupid and knowing what blacksmiths do, would laugh and say; “I’m not taking that, it’s going to be too fucking hot.” Will would then reverse the bar, and offer them the end he had been holding for a minute or more, most apprentices would take it off him. All who did this would scream, curse, and dance around holding a burnt hand. I saw one guy, (“Inch high Private Idiot” by name, ) fall for it for a third time.

[oldr_n_wsr]

In the summer I go barefoot a lot, my wife always wears sandals or some other kind of footwear. Both of us step on the same sharp rock (both bare foot). Who is going to feel more pain?

[MajGenl.Meade]

The person who stupidly stepped on it second after seeing the first one hopping around in agony

[The Hen]

Now on the feet issue, Gob beats me hands down.

Feet are my achilles heel.

Gob can walk on all kinds of pain, and I may as well have had Lotus-flower feet if you compare my walking ability over the same ground.

Not only are his feet as tough as buggery, (however tough that may be), but they are lethal weapons.

Yet we both have the same kind of feet?

We have trained, but trained differently.

[PMS Princess]

I think some people have nerve endings that are further under the skin. My dad and I would occasionally run across poison oak vines (much worse than the leafy bits) while cutting wood. He wouldn't get it because he would burn it off with scalding water. A friend in high school would hide hickeys by holding a curling iron to her neck. She said she couldn't feel a thing. She did say that it was difficult while growing up because it took longer to learn what 'HOT' was, resulting in many scars from burns, cuts, scrapes and breaks.