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Women do not have a higher pain threshold than men, scientists report

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A group of pain experts from the United Kingdom and Italy said women are often more prone to long-term debilitating conditions such as arthritis, migraines and irritable bowel syndrome and frequently fail to receive adequate pain relief for those conditions.

According to the experts, many women experience more recurrent pain, more severe pain and longer-lasting pain than men. This contradicts many commonly held beliefs that women have a higher pain threshold than men, perhaps as a means of coping with the extreme pain of childbirth, noted Troels Jensen, MD, president of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), in a press release from the association’s conference last week.

To complicate matters, many women feel pain in a different manner or degree than men, experiencing different symptoms for the same conditions.

The researchers suggested that different hormones, body composition and central nervous systems could mean that women are more prone to experience a range of painful conditions.

“Chronic pain affects a higher proportion of women than men, but unfortunately they are also less likely to receive treatment compared to men due to various cultural, economic and political barriers,” Jensen said in the press release. “The IASP hopes to provide a voice to these women by drawing attention to this global issue as a first step toward reducing pain and suffering of women around the world.”

The panelists at the conference said some over-the-counter medicines like paracetamol have less of an effect on women, and many physicians fail to take women patients as seriously as men, frequently downplaying their symptoms, according to the press release.

Also, some women in different cultures assume that suffering is part of their role in society and fail to receive the help they need, the investigators said.

The panelists said they hope the recent findings help other scientists and physicians to better treat women suffering from pain and perhaps prevent thousands of sick days each year.

For more information:

• Collett BJ, Giamberardino MA, Holdcroft A, Mantel H. Pain in women. TW01. Presented at the 12th World Congress on Pain. Aug. 17-22, 2008. Glasgow.