What is Your Pain Tolerance?

 

This past week pain has been my unwanted companion. I never thought I would be in the emergency room over spring break potentially preparing myself for surgery. Luckily, that didn’t have to happen. The doctor sent me away with medicine and I have been getting better everyday.

Unfortunately, I know one day I will have to visit the ER again. A pain free life does not exist. Right now humans around the world are breaking legs, catching diseases, and having heart attacks. However, one common pain all women share is labor pain. Curious, I decided to research how women describe labor pain.

Here’s a list of how some women described labor pain:

• My pain was irritating but not unbearable.
• I had excruciating pain.
• My contractions felt like muscle spasms and weren’t very painful.
• The pain was all-encompassing.
• At first I didn’t know I was in labor and thought I needed to have a bowel movement.
• By the time we got to the hospital, I was at 10 centimeters. It hurt, but it wasn’t that bad.
• I felt like I was being run over by a train.
• I begged my hubby to throw me out of the car on the way to the hospital, it hurt so bad.
• It was close to painless, thanks to all the training and prep work I did during pregnancy.
• I was induced and got my epidural early, so I only felt minor contractions. It was all fairly easy!
• The epidural didn’t get rid of everything, like I had hoped. I felt the pressure of each contraction and the pain from the crowning.
• I had period-like cramps until I got an epidural. Then I just waited.
• Painful, until I got the epidural! It saved my life!
• I still felt most of the pain, even after the epidural was in.

It is interesting to note the different levels of pain women described. Some women were hardly effected others were in excruciating pain. Pain tolerance differs according to each woman.

BuzzFeed did an experiment to test which gender has a higher pain tolerance.

Humorous as this video is, pain tolerance really differs from person to person. Personally, I hate needles. My boyfriend donates blood every few months. Everyone has to live with pain at some point. It is important to know that not everyone responds the same way.