Smerteterskel

[Gjest Tom Forrest]

Lurer på om det er noen der ute som har peiling på om det er forskjell mellom kjønnene når det gjelder smerteterskel?

Finnes det noen bevis enten den ene eller den andre veien for om et av kjønnene har høyere smerteterskel enn det andre?

PS!

Ikke bruk eksemplet med fødsel. Er klar over den, men mener å huske jeg har lest en undersøkelse som viste at menn faktisk har større smerteterskel enn kvinner...

[cowgirl1365380426]

Hei!

I et kjapt søk på Google fant jeg bl.a. dette:

Håper det er til noen nytte:)

gender differences and pain tolerance [ 30 sep 2002 | 01:19PM EST ]

Got into a little bit of a discussion on I-nest about pain tolerance and gender differences. Went hunting for info on Google, and this was interesting...

http://www.psychology.su.se/staff/ul/Hellstrom12000.html

Now, they defined pain tolerance as the threshold at which the subject removed his/her hand from the water. Since the women removed their hands from the water sooner, the researchers concluded men have higher pain tolerance.

But Wait, There's More.

Systolic pressure was higher in men than women, increasing more in men in response to the cold pressor testing than women.

Mah frenz an nebbors, what we have here is shoddy science.

First we've based the definition of "pain tolerance" on how the researchers themselves define pain tolerance, and they have a very narrow definition. Secondly, we have utterly failed to take into account the social conditioning which prohibits men expressing when they feel pain unless that pain is very severe. Thirdly, we have ignored a very obvious indicator of pain being felt as a result of pre-existing biases in the researchers.

What indicator? Systolic pressure is part of blood pressure. We already know that blood pressure increases when a person feels distress. For example, there's a sort of malady fairly well-known among physicians as "white coat syndrome," wherein a patient's blood pressure increases due to distress at having to visit a doctor. There is no other known underlying cause for the BP increase, just fear and stress.

Do you suppose pain causes fear and stress in men, even when they don't outwardly express it? I sure do.