Asperger's and high pain threshold?
I have been told that when your boobs are filled with milk, they feel uncomfortable but with me they just feel funny. They don't hurt or nothing. But they did hurt when I was engorged. It hurt when I bump them or when I even press on them or touch them. But lot of times I don't feel the milk pressure like I used to and I know they are full just by how they feel but they don't feel uncomfortable. I don't know if it's because my body is different or I just don't feel it as much like lot of women do.
I have stubbed my toe and it hurt but I don't cry. I once cut my toe at my family reunion and it bled and I didn't cry but it hurt. I still have those scars.
I think I have developed higher tolerance for pain over the years. Maybe because I was clumsy as a kid so I got used to the pain eventually. Then it didn't hurt as much.
I've always had a high pain threshold, but it runs in my family. Like League-girl, I didn't notice my labor contractions. The nurses had me hooked up to a machine that measured them, and would ask me if I was in any pain because they seemed to be bad ones, but I'd honestly not felt them. I once took a medical test that was supposed to predict whether or not I was susceptible to carpal tunnel syndrome -- it measured conductivity in the hands. The nurse who administered the test had to turn the device up to 10 to even get a response from my nerves when people's hands usually jerked at around 5 or 6, so it may be a neurologically based condition. She told me to be very careful, because a high pain threshold can be dangerous if I ignore things. I'm also not sensitive to light touch -- can't really feel it.
I was taught early on that I have to express pain. SO now even if I just bump into someone I say ow out of reflex. I realized that a lot of things that I say hurt don't really hurt at all.
Cut my hand open and required 13 stitches, and the only reason I was crying was because I didn't want them to sew me up because I used to sew and it scared the hell out of me to think someone was going to do that to my hand. It was actually really not all that painful at all in the end. A lot of things are like that. My dad and I both end up with cuts and bruises and go like, when did I get this?
Stepped on glass once and tracked blood all over the house, and didn't feel pain until I saw the blood and realized that I needed to do something about it. XD
Pain is weird.
_________________
Someone who's only willing to give you a penny for your thoughts isn't worth your time.
Aspie Score: 170 of 200
NT Score: 37 of 200
Verdandi
Veteran
Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
Wow, I do this too. It's kind of weird to explain to people.
Stepped on glass once and tracked blood all over the house, and didn't feel pain until I saw the blood and realized that I needed to do something about it. XD
Pain is weird.
I had an ingrown toenail for something like either three or four years of high school. I did not want to see the doctor for it because they wanted to remove the entire toenail and I was not down with this. Eventually, I saw someone and got it resolved without surgery.
I walked on it all the time. The bad part was stubbing my toe. Otherwise, it was just uncomfortable. And a bit messy at times.
Hopefully, some of this can contribute towards lessening the concern I sensed in your last post. Some common-sense shared by others (or sense gained through personal, sometimes painful, experience...can't hope to avoid all of it) applied towards prevention, using external(ized) data for evaluating methodologies (which may include really assessing relevant info such as age of event's participants, height of a fall/potential fall, what the same event could signify to someone similar (in build, in overall health, etc.) to you, etc. ), and pre-designating personal defaults (such as 'if X happens, I'll ask my room-mate to watch for signs of disorientation/concussion', 'if X type of pain persists for more than X# of days, then I'll go directly to my care provider, 'if X happens, then I'll go directly to my care provider', or 'if X happens, I'll have a notice in my wallet directing others to get an ambulance to take me to St. Vincent's ER)...these common(shared) sense preventions and methods of evaluating illness/injury may be 'more the thing' for Aspies living their lives. Take good care of yourselves.
The prevention part is my problem lol, I'm just really terribly clumsy (dyspraxia). I usually need to look at my feet while I'm walking to prevent tripping, but that isn't always possible. For instance my most recent injury, like a week ago, was an ankle sprain while I was trying to carry a big container (like a horse feed bucket) full of water to a dog. I couldn't see my feet cause that bucket was huge and I was trying to not get water all over myself, and I just lost my balance and fell. I told my mom I stepped in a hole, but I just fell. This is a fairly regular occurrence, it used to be about every other month, but now it's about every 6 months. I really wish I could prevent it because my fear is at some point I'm going to injure myself badly enough that I will require medical attention, which is a terribly stressful event for me, triggering panic attacks and whatnot.
I wouldn't neccessarily say my pain tolerance is high or low, more just plain weird. I have had ingrown toenails that I barely noticed until I stubbed it on something (I'm always stubbing my toes on various things) at which point it would go from not even being noticed to agonizing pain. Once, I had an ingrown toenail on my big toe that was so infected, my toe was twice as wide as it should be. A different time, (other big toe) they tried using some local anasthetic that had worked previously on my foot, and when they were poking my toe to check if it worked, it seemed to, but then they started cutting the toenail, and it obviously didn't. They saw me tense up, and stopped cutting. The pain didn't go away right away. They said they used enough ansthetic that my entire foot should have been numb ( it wasn't). I had them just finish quickly. The pain stopped about 20 mins after I left their office. Every time I've had an ingrown toenail removed, they keep wanting to prescribe pain meds, I even had the script filled once. I've only used 1 pill after a kid stepped on my foot about 6h after the surgery.
I have average to above average pain tolerance, even though I am hypersensitive.
I laughed so freaking hard at that comic. That has been me so many times. Doctors never took me seriously, until they felt the ruptured tendons/broken bones and were wondering WTF. I was imaging acid being pored on me, being slowly castrated, etc.
_________________
When you know you don't have all the answers, you begin to ask the right questions.
-Dr. Erik Selvig, Thor
http://aspiespy.blogspot.com/
Wow, I do this too. It's kind of weird to explain to people.
Stepped on glass once and tracked blood all over the house, and didn't feel pain until I saw the blood and realized that I needed to do something about it. XD
Pain is weird.
I had an ingrown toenail for something like either three or four years of high school. I did not want to see the doctor for it because they wanted to remove the entire toenail and I was not down with this. Eventually, I saw someone and got it resolved without surgery.
I walked on it all the time. The bad part was stubbing my toe. Otherwise, it was just uncomfortable. And a bit messy at times.
Ingrown toenails are awful, one of my stims became pressing my toe against my shoe and it would hurt a bit but it was kinda like a pleasurable pain, and I had no clue why I was doing that. Now I know.
How did you get rid of it without surgery? I had to have it removed twice and I would be eternally grateful to know a non-surgical way of dealing with this.
It IS really hard to explain this, isn't it? It's really just a reflex now, I now it doesn't hurt, but I'm supposed to act like it hurts in case it's actually a problem. I had my pinky slammed in a door and I lost the nail there and ever since then I was told I had to tell people if I was hurt so they'd know.
_________________
Someone who's only willing to give you a penny for your thoughts isn't worth your time.
Aspie Score: 170 of 200
NT Score: 37 of 200
Verdandi
Veteran
Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
I have average to above average pain tolerance, even though I am hypersensitive.
I laughed so freaking hard at that comic. That has been me so many times. Doctors never took me seriously, until they felt the ruptured tendons/broken bones and were wondering WTF. I was imaging acid being pored on me, being slowly castrated, etc.
I've never been able to give a good description of my pain on the "10 is the worst pain you can imagine" scale. If they describe what each pain level means in terms of potential impairment, I always end up rating it higher than it feels, which I also think they don't take seriously because I never act like I'm in that much pain. I pretty much have to be at an actual 10 in order to really show pain.
See, that's what I'm worried about. My mom always says if I can move it or walk on it, it's not broken, just sprained, bruised, whatever, but when I got my hand smashed between a goat's head/horns and a tree my teacher who used to be a football player (i.e. he know's what a broken bone looks like) said it looked broken. Once when I was little I told my mom that my ear hurt a little, so she took me to the doctor and he showed us this chart of ear infection stages or something, and he pointed to the next to last one and said if we had waited a couple more days my eardrum probably would've burst. So now my mom takes me to the doctor the first time I complain about anything other than a headache, so now I never complain about any pain in front of her no matter how bad it hurts because going to the doctor is a million times worse for me. I figure either I can diagnose and cure it myself, it'll get better on it's own, or it'll kill me lol. I'm weird with pain, like if I fall and scrape my knee or sprain my ankle it doesn't really bother me and I usually don't take any pain meds, but if someone else is doing something to me (like getting my teeth cleaned, my mom brushing my hair when I was younger) hurts really bad and makes me cry. Even now if my mom is doing my hair like for a party or something (I'm scared to use a curling iron) I involuntarily pull away and my eyes usually water, but a few months ago when my hair was long I would just rip through the tangles and pull out chunks of hair, same thing for plucking eyebrows (not that my eyebrows get tangled lol, that it hurts when someone else does it to me). The last time I remember crying from a self-inflicted accidental injury was when I got poked in the eyebrow with a hot wire (electric fence). In my psychology class in high school, the book said something about girls having a higher pain tolerance than boys, and all the guys were like "That's BS, girls can't handle pain, blah blah blah." So we did an experiment where we had to put our hand in ice water and see who could hold it there longest. Of course I got to represent the girls. The guy was trying to be all macho and tough and whatnot, but I easily outlasted him. Although that didn't really prove anything since I'm not NT, but for sure AS girl pain tolerance > NT boy pain tolerance.
In high school for school spirit, they had people stand in ice water to see who was toughest or whatever. Two other guys and I were in there a while, they were both yelling, shaking, and groaning, while I was laughing and flexing, enjoying the cool. I eventually got pulled out by a teacher, who didn't want me getting frostbite.
_________________
When you know you don't have all the answers, you begin to ask the right questions.
-Dr. Erik Selvig, Thor
http://aspiespy.blogspot.com/
Sometimes, it's just a matter of prevention (rather than trying to evaluate damage level after the fact). I learned prevention from the event that broke my foot. It isn't necessarily that I don't do that particular action now (though, given that the action involved motorcycle-riding, it maybe would be smarter ), but I do apply prevention in HOW I perform the action (this 'event' involved 100% fault on the part of the other driver - I forestall that possibility now by 'staging' other drivers, in addition to 'anticipating' them. One's a more active role, while the other's a more passive reaction).
Hopefully, some of this can contribute towards lessening the concern I sensed in your last post. Some common-sense shared by others (or sense gained through personal, sometimes painful, experience...can't hope to avoid all of it) applied towards prevention, using external(ized) data for evaluating methodologies (which may include really assessing relevant info such as age of event's participants, height of a fall/potential fall, what the same event could signify to someone similar (in build, in overall health, etc.) to you, etc. ), and pre-designating personal defaults (such as 'if X happens, I'll ask my room-mate to watch for signs of disorientation/concussion', 'if X type of pain persists for more than X# of days, then I'll go directly to my care provider, 'if X happens, then I'll go directly to my care provider', or 'if X happens, I'll have a notice in my wallet directing others to get an ambulance to take me to St. Vincent's ER)...these common(shared) sense preventions and methods of evaluating illness/injury may be 'more the thing' for Aspies living their lives. Take good care of yourselves.
Well said, Dae. I could use this too. Next time I trip and fall or can't stand easily during a basketball or soccer game, I go to the doctor, without assuming it's just a sprain. Next time I'm in a bike crash, I go to the doctor (I've had two of those that I thought were just road rash but were broken arms).
_________________
When you know you don't have all the answers, you begin to ask the right questions.
-Dr. Erik Selvig, Thor
http://aspiespy.blogspot.com/
I think I am good with pain, its the shock of what happened that sets me off more then anything.
I know, right? I haven't played basketball or soccer since the achilles injury because I don't want to get hurt and not know it, and stick to running, biking, lifting, and boxing (I mean training, not actual blow exchange, I don't need those kind of injuries without knowing it). I still managed to get rhabdomyolysis (non-stop breakdown of muscle fibers due to overtraining) because I was training six to seven days a week, and thought I needed to toughen up from muscle cramps. My blood levels for platelets were through the roof, the doc wondered what was wrong with me.
_________________
When you know you don't have all the answers, you begin to ask the right questions.
-Dr. Erik Selvig, Thor
http://aspiespy.blogspot.com/
Wow, I do this too. It's kind of weird to explain to people.
Stepped on glass once and tracked blood all over the house, and didn't feel pain until I saw the blood and realized that I needed to do something about it. XD
Pain is weird.
I had an ingrown toenail for something like either three or four years of high school. I did not want to see the doctor for it because they wanted to remove the entire toenail and I was not down with this. Eventually, I saw someone and got it resolved without surgery.
I walked on it all the time. The bad part was stubbing my toe. Otherwise, it was just uncomfortable. And a bit messy at times.
I had that surgery in high school. Well, less that, more like they shot my toe up with drugs and yanked it out from the side. I hate needles so much I asked if they would not shoot it, and instead, give me something to bite down on. Here is a product I use now that helps with nail issues, and I haven't needed that procedure since find this at CVS.
_________________
When you know you don't have all the answers, you begin to ask the right questions.
-Dr. Erik Selvig, Thor
http://aspiespy.blogspot.com/
All of these incidents did hurt. There was pain involved. Some people say fight through the pain or no pain no gain, and I took it to heart. Others say there are different kinds of pain, so know the kind you have.
Do I have a high pain threshold, or do I just not know the different kinds of pain?
Can anyone relate?
So what is the scientific reason for why pain doesn't bother us? Does it have something to do with nerve endings or natural opiates?
_________________
When you know you don't have all the answers, you begin to ask the right questions.
-Dr. Erik Selvig, Thor
http://aspiespy.blogspot.com/
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