Pain Pain Go Away!

Ouch! That didn’t pain much though!

Refusal to acknowledge and express pain as a sign of masculinity is a deep-rooted conditioning towards sexual hierarchy

Exactly a year and a half back, we were wheeling in our son into the emergency OPD for a bone-deep gash he suffered on his forehead. While I noticed that he was as cool as a cucumber except a few sporadic oohs and ouches, the neighboring pediatric ward was resonating with heart-wrenching cries of a toddler being needled with a vaccine booster dose!
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From an “Ouch!” to “Oh my God”, pain has made you remember your mother and, your belief in the almighty stronger, atleast a few times by now. For one it could just be a stubbed toe to bring the roof down while for another, only after 20 broken bones will you hear a yelp. Ofcourse there is always an intrinsic personality of individuals that make them perceptive and reactive to pain in contrasting ways, but could a scientific possibility be ruled out?
 
That wriggly curious worm inside didn’t let me rest in peace till I could fill the blanks up. We all have the same pain receptors (nociceptors-in technical terms), the same neurosensory pathway, the same nerve endings and the same god-damn cerebral cortex, yet we differ in our response to pain. Why?
 
Pain is the Protector!
Pain is extremely important. Yes, you heard it right. Pain is uncomfortable but it is the foremost signal given to the body that it needs protection and healing. If you lose sensation to pain, you are at a greater risk of losing your life.
 
Don’t confuse threshold with tolerance
Pain Threshold and Pain Tolerance are two completely different things. When I say I don’t feel much pain if I accidently hurt my thumb while chopping vegetables, I have a high threshold to pain: which means I start perceiving pain as a discomfort only at a higher intensity.  So I need my whole thumb to be chopped off my palms to finally bawl out in pain! At the same time, I can perhaps feel immense pain with a severed thumb yet can bear it till the cows come home! That would define my tolerance to pain. The diversity in phrasing these two aspects of pain determines the response to it.
 
To simplify this, “it doesn’t pain that much” tells about your threshold to sense pain; and “it is paining but I can manage” tells about your tolerance to pain.
  
“I cannot explain how much that pains!”

• Blame The Biology

Nociceptors or pain receptors are basically sensory neurons that pick up and sense an uncomfortable stimulus or a possible threat, which could be mechanical (eg. a broken bone), thermal (eg. a burn) or emotional (eg. loss, sadness, excitement), and transform it into pain signals. Sensitization and desensitization of these neurons through nerve damage, chronic use of opioids, contact with certain venoms, chronic inflammatory conditions and mutations in sodium channels that control pain transmission, can considerably change their perceptivity. As a result, while for some even a touch can feel like a dagger going through (known as hyperalgesia), for others a broken rib will feel like a mere sprain.
 
“Come on, be brave!”

• Damn those Hormones

You just about stop yourself from punching that face which utters this everytime you cringe in pain! You rammed your knee into your coffee table, have a splitting headache and are now you sit wondering why on earth is a small knee bump giving you this kind of excruciating pain. Your answers may lie in these questions. Have you been anxious about a past event? Or going through a phase of depression after losing a loved one? Or has your work-stress been getting the best of you? Or even worse, has insomnia been your best night buddy offlate?
Your psychological state has a direct impact on your perception of pain. The knee doesn’t hurt as much as your heart does. And all those baffled hormones and neurotransmitters are making your more vulnerable and less tolerant to even a pink prick. 
 
“I ran the marathon despite a bad Achilles heal!”

• Exalt with Exercise

We all applauded in tears when Milkha Singh ran the race with sore bleeding feet or when Anil Kumble braved a debilitating fracture to his jaw but continued to bat, subsequently bowled 14 overs with a bandaged face and took Brian Lara’s wicket. Players, athletes, power lifters, gymnasts, yogis, firefighters, national security guardians, you name them and they will vouch for their amazing ingenuity to ‘embrace the pain’.
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Not that they are born with nociceptors with super-human power, but because they develop the tolerance with will power and consistent endurance exercises. Exercise is known to manipulate the neuroendocrine system, making it, if I can say, tougher and resilient. Another reason to get those limbs moving and muscles screaming!

“Boys don’t cry!”

• Gender Game!

So who is the stronger one?! This topic can set any soporific get-together ablaze!
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While one school of thought swears by the tremendous pain-tolerance capacity of women owing to their intrinsic child-bearing attribute, others do not accept any refutation to men being the stronger ones. Going by biology, I will have to very reluctantly admit (my double X is not liking this admission!)) that women do have slightly lower tolerance and threshold to pain because of less natural painkillers like endogenous opioids and circulating  beta endorphins. Women are what their hormones tell them. Their sensitivity to pain varies across their menstrual cycle and unfortunately women are more likely to suffer from chronic pains later in life than men do. Sounds outraging but it makes sense.
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Nevertheless, that doesn’t necessarily make men more tolerant. (I admit once again that I have a strong feminist streak!). There is a deep rooted conditioning that men are subjected to as young as toddlers and boys of basically braving every onslaught without any hint of expressed pain and sadness. (But then, aggression is allowed! Rather expected!). This psychosocial conditioning is a major reason why boys grow up into men who take risks, brush off injuries and say “I am fine” more often than women!

When Tolerance Turns Toxic…
Extreme threshold and tolerance to pain is not a gift of god everytime! It can be a huge deterrent to your health and wellbeing. Not allowing your body to feel pain in its natural acuity and chronicity can confuse your body’s fundamental healing process.
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• You are less likely to detect signals of an impending health issue; even the blaring signals go unnoticed.
• You are less likely to visit a doctor.
• You are less likely to trigger the customary preventive and protective immune response.
• You are more likely to suffer from lingering inflammatory conditions, lowered immunity and extreme chronic pain for prolonged period.
  
  

If you are one of these kinds, there is news for you. You are free from painful sufferings but ironically suffer from another disquieting condition called CIP-Chronic Indifference to Pain. A Painful Paradox, isn’t it!
 
Pain can make you and break you too. But to brave the pain, we need to feel the pain first. It is undoubtedly a blessing to be able to bear pain and yet come out victorious, physically or emotionally. Nevertheless, sensitivity to pain can be modulated. If you fall on the lower side of the scale, there are more than enough ways to increase your threshold and tolerance. But if you are on the other side of spectrum, you have some task to do before you are faced with a bigger monster!

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Thanks for the pain… it made me raise the game!