I have a high pain tolerance, no one believes me

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When I'm hurt people seem to not understand that I have a high pain tolerance, even when I tell them. Some seem surprised, but treat me just like they treated me before, others won't talk to me after I tell them I have a high pain tolerance, it seems like people have a hard time believing that I have a high pain tolerance.

I mean, could it be my LOOKS? I don't really feel like people's looks have anything to do with pain tolerance, but I'm wondering if some people do.

Like, here do I look like someone with a low tolerance to pain?



Is this why people don't believe me? Because of my LOOKS? I know it sounds crazy but people think crazy things sometimes.

If not, what could be the reason? Is it just that they have a low pain tolerance themselves, so just assume that EVERYONE does?

I have a high pain tolerance, it's normal in autism, I have asperger's, but it is a well known condition in medical circles, you can't tell by looking.

I have really bad headaches all the time and often have what seems to be muscle or joint pains, so a lot of people assume I just "let it get to me too much" and that I should "just ignore it". But my tolerance for most other types of pain seems to be exceptionally high.

I think that people just have assumptions about "normal" pain tolerance, because most people have about the same pain tolerance.

On the other hand, I have a fairly low tolerance for pain, but people still seem to overreact when I'm injured. I think that my facial expressions may be exaggerated.

My mom has an unbelievably high pain threshold. She was in the hospital for major surgery, and after two days, she was walking around like normal. For what it's worth, you don't look anything like my mom.

As long as you know it is true, what does it matter what they think?

I have a pretty high pain threshold as well. Along with that, I also do not bruise our bleed easily (blood draws take a ridiculous amount of time with me because I seem to flow slowly), so when I am hurt, there is usually no physical evidence to support me...

Probably because you are a girl, and aspies often come across as wimpy.

And if you insist anything forcefully to people they will disagree with you just to be stubborn.

They probably don't want to talk to you because they are caught off guard by the strong reaction you have to the topic being brought up or discussed.

I also have anxiety.

My co-workers knew I had a high pain tolerance when I would hand them extremely hot metal parts without warning to watch them scream and jump. They did the same thing to me but with airhorns and firecrackers.

People are always surprised to learn that when I'm screaming, it's usually not because of pain. I'm more likely to scream out of fear or anxiety than pain.

I find this most interesting. You mention really bad headaches. Last week I got an allergy attack that began with a sinus headache that was absolutely horrible for me. I paced the floors not knowing what to do. I hadn't had a sinus headache like this for a few years. Then I took a Tylenol and slowly it eased up, and I was able to sleep.

Some types of pain I can tolerate without any problem at all---like with tattoos, they don't bother me getting them. Many people would consider a tattoo more painful than a headache, but for me it is the other way around.

But...if a sock has a slight wrinkle in it, it can drive me crazy. I have to get the wrinkle out. It can be the same way with shirt tags against my neck.

I am interested to read about how I am not alone in this unusual pain thing.

I also have a very high tolerance for pain. I was at my job picking up garbage around the parking lots this morning. My supervisor gave me the longest route to cover. She said that somebody will help me if I'm a little behind. After I did my half of the store front, as I was starting my main sections, I had this horrible shooting pain from my right knee cap to where my hip joins. I kept on working as fast as I could, because I wanted to get by with as little help as possible and I almost made it around the entire parameter.

I started getting a lot of mild headaches as a kid, and they started sometimes getting really severe in my early teens. Eventually it got to where my head always hurt, just at some times much worse than others, and I've been that way ever since. I was really scared about it and got it checked out when I was 17, but doctors never found anything physical that should be causing it, and said that it was my nerves. If it was anything that could be fatal, surely I'd be dead by now. But anyway... a friend of mine has neuralgia, and talked to me a couple years ago about how it affects him, how hard it is to diagnose, how it doesn't show in brain scans, how psychological stress can trigger it, etc. From what I've looked into since then, I think I have atypical neuralgia.

As for just how severe my headaches get, well... a few years ago I was hospitalized for a potentially deadly stomach infection called C. diff (which was completely unrelated, of course). My stomach was in the worst pain it had ever been. I was given morphine, enough to kill all the pain in my stomach, and even then, the pain in my head wouldn't completely go away.

You're right Xeno, if something was severely wrong in your brain, you would surely have known it by now. At first I thought your headaches might be migraines---they are often common in the teen years. But since you still have them, I think your thoughts about neuralgia might be right. I think I would pursue checking that out.

i would have to second you last thought there.

i also don't understand why it would be so important to you that people know you have a high pain tolerance or the point of arguing over it. maybe it's not that they don't care but that it doesn't matter to them because it's not a topic of interest or importance. actually, it seems kind of an odd thing to bring up unless you were getting a tattoo or something. Also, i'm not sure why you would expect them to treat you differently because of your pain tolerance but i do understand that if you got upset or kept bringing it up how that may put people off.

i also find that pain tolerance can change over time. i find mine has gone up incredibly after having my children and especially since i did deliver them all natural(without pain killers or epidural.) i think that how we feel pain is relative in a way to other pain we have been through in the past. for example, at 11 i got my ears peirced. at that point it was the most painful thing i'd ever felt and i would probably have rated it a 9/10 where as my more rescent peircings i would have rated a 2 /10 and would rate delivering a 9 lbs baby a 9/10.

either way, i would not put much thought into what people think of your pain tolerance levels. i highly doubt that they think you are crazy because of it unless you are using it to do stunts or other things that could cause damage to yourself. they are likely reacting more to your own reaction to the topic so perhaps this is a chance for you to become more aware of your own behaviour in the situation.

People do sometimes freak if you have a high pain tolerance and you just got hurt in a way that would have them in extreme pain. Especially if you aren't showing a great deal of emotion. It's like a built in thing for them, you got hurt, they know if this had happened to them they'd be screaming. So when you aren't they tend to go to the conclusion that you're in shock, which must mean that it's much more serious than it looks like. If it's a smaller injury but still obviously painful they also tend to overreact since they're not seeing that you're in pain, they're responding more to what they don't see (the pain reaction) than what they do see (the injury). Especially if they know you are capable of emotional reactions, like getting frustrated and angry at social situations.

To use an analogy, imagine walking into a room and everyone in the room casts a shadow, except one man. That would be incredibly disturbing to most people, most I think would immediately go to trying to explain why he doesn't have one or why they must have been mistaken and his shadow is really there. To most people when it comes to pain, we're the man with no shadow. They're looking for something in us and when they don't see it they feel they have to react for us because it's too disturbing to see someone who just got physically hurt and isn't really registering it on the kind of basic emotional level they know should be showing. On a very deep fundamental level it feels wrong to them.