A person's pain tolerance refers to the amount of pain they can reasonably endure. Some people have a very high pain tolerance. Men often have higher pain thresholds than women in experimental settings. This may be due to hormonal differences, such as the influence of testosterone. Pain tolerance is the maximum level of pain a person can tolerate.
Pain tolerance is different from the pain threshold (the point at which you start to feel pain). The perception of pain that comes with pain tolerance has two main components. The first is the biological component, headache or itchy skin, which activates pain receptors. The second is the brain's perception of pain: the amount of attention spent paying attention to or ignoring pain. Brain perception of pain is a response to signals from pain receptors that detected pain in the first place.
Pain tolerance is equally important in treating pain. It represents the individual's ability to cope with pain. People with a high pain tolerance can withstand severe pain without significantly affecting their quality of life. While a high pain tolerance can be good in many ways, people with a high pain tolerance should be vigilant to pay attention to their body, as even the perception of discomfort can be a sign of a major health problem. Social expectations also play a role in this regard.
Women, for example, are statistically more likely than men to report pain and often experience a greater intensity of pain. Cultural influences add another layer, shaping how and when people seek help. Pain is complex, and high tolerance, often considered a strength, can sometimes prevent people from accessing the care they really need. Why is back pain or a knee injury annoying for one person and agony for another? It turns out that a person's tolerance to pain is as unique as the person, and it's determined by some surprising biological factors, as well as some psychological factors that, in fact, we can try to control.
For many people living with chronic pain, this adaptability creates greater tolerance, allowing them to carry on with daily life despite persistent discomfort. The pain threshold for hot and cold temperatures may depend on age, and people who are regularly exposed to extreme temperatures may gradually increase their tolerance, resulting in a lower pain threshold. Biofeedback aims to raise awareness of the body and mind, as well as to the way in which a person reacts to stimuli, such as pain. Age and pain tolerance are important, especially in older people, because if their pain is detected too late, they are at risk of suffering a major injury or delaying treatment of the disease.
By evaluating both factors, healthcare providers can gain a more complete understanding of a person's pain experience, which can serve as a basis for developing personalized strategies for treating pain. However, babies can feel pain and childhood surgeries that provide early pain experiences can alter the brain's tolerance to pain later on, by increasing the number of A fibers and C fibers, two types of pain receptors located in the area where the injury occurred, and by reducing pain tolerance in the areas where the incision occurred. In this example, pain tolerance would be the maximum number of pinches a person could reasonably withstand. They may not cause drastic changes in the way a person experiences pain, but over time they can increase the amount of pain a person can endure. A study published in the Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development points out that exercise increases pain tolerance markers in people with chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Understanding the difference between them and how they influence the experience of pain can help healthcare providers develop more effective and personalized pain management strategies. For example, recent research shows that one side of the body may feel pain differently than the other side. A simple example of a pain threshold would be a pinch that causes pain to one person and has little or no effect on another. The temperature at which heat or cold becomes painful would be a threshold, where the maximum temperature the person could withstand would be their tolerance. A person with a high pain tolerance can withstand more pain than a person with a medium or low pain tolerance.