pain tolerance stories

Post Reply New Topic

I read on a few websites that aspies have an odd pain tolerance. Do you guys have any stories about a time when you were injured pritty badly but hardly felt a thing? Or when you hardly hurt your self, but started crying because it seemed like it hurt more then it should?

Once when i was younger i was playing on an old playground at school and a nail was sticking out and it cut the back of my neck open (to the point were i needed stitches) but i hardly felt a thing and continued playing with out telling the teacher. I got blood on every one so the teacher had to line every one up to see were it was coming from. When she saw my neck, she asked me why i wasnt crying and how bad it hurt. I replied " it doesnt hurt. I didnt even notice it till now..." then i was rushed to the hostpital for fear of bloodloss, and i got stitches.

But just the other night i stubbed my tow and had to bite my lip to keep from crying.

I can identify with what you're saying, but I always thought it was "normal", ie. there was some physiological reason for it. Perhaps you lose a lot of blood, but there weren't a lot of nerve endings around there - something like that, I'm not a doctor. Some things just look like they should hurt more than they actually do and vice-versa. It never occurred to me that there could be any link with ASD, but who knows? I'd be interested to find out as well.

People have different pain tolerance. Like say someone who has been trained in the army. Bet you can't out tolerate someone who has had they nervous snipped. Like someone using pepper spray, as mouth spray.

You were aware of banging your foot & not the cutting the head.

It took me many years to realise that I feel pain much more than most people do.
Even if I lean against something it hurts after just a few seconds.

When I had my ears shringed out several years ago it was agony.
The nurse doing it said she'd never seen anybody react that way before.

I can't carry anything heavy over my shoulder; it just hurts far too much.
Most men carry huge weights over their shoulders without problem.
They don't seem to have any pain sensors there.

An iron fence post (atop cement blocks) went into my stomach while I was climbing across it as a kid. There was blood on my shirt, and so I looked and there was a giant hole in my stomach. Didn't feel a thing. That's about the only time I didn't feel extreme pain from being injured. I've had a broken finger and I felt like I was going to die from pain.

I dunno if this counts but when I was 12, we were taking the siding off our house and my grand parents were there and my uncles and we were all doing it. There were nails sticking out of the boards that was the siding that came off. My grand father stepped on a nail and so did my uncle and they both had to soak their feet. Then I stepped on a nail and I stopped putting my foot down once I felt the pain and I pulled the nail out and took off my shoe and sock and looked at it and it wasn't bleeding and I didn't need to soak it. Mom was impressed how I caught it in time before I stepped further on the nail. I put my stuff back on and got back to working.


One time I had a wart on my toe and it hurt. My mother made an appointment. I go in and they freeze it. I was told it would hurt when they freeze it. The doctor freezes it and it doesn't hurt and he said it was a good thing. It didn't start hurting until he was done.

One time I had a root canal done and it didn't hurt. I think it may have been due to my tooth being dead so all the nerves around it were dead too. Maybe not ASD related.

One time I got hit in the head with a metal bar at my old job while I was putting the laundry in the bins. I was in shock for a few minutes and I got back to working again. Did it hurt, not really but it happened so fast I didn't get the chance to feel pain.

Then when I was having my baby, the pain was intense but it wasn't bad as the pain I was in when I had my uterus cleaned out when I lost the baby and I was still talking and I still packed my things and I still got dressed during the contractions every five minutes. Sometimes I wish I went natural but I was told labor was worse than the other pain I experiences so I got an epidural so I wouldn't experience the worst pain than the pain I experienced before.

I used to be very sensitive to pain as a child and mom would sometimes tell me "Oh stop it." I remember the time I got hit in the eye by my brother with his hand and it hurt and mom didn't care and just went "Oh stop it, it's not bleeding." It wasn't bleeding but it hurt and mom didn't give a darn and acted like I was acting or something. Now I realize it may have been sensory issues like very hypersensitive to the pain. She was the same way when she brush my hair and it always hurt me and she get mad at me when I wouldn't sit or stand still. Then she would slap me. She even call me a baby.


I can remember the time when these 6th grade boys threw pine cones at me in our neighborhood. I was eight then and he said he got me and I said he didn't. He said he hit me at the back of my head and I said he did not. He then insulted me telling me "That is because you have no brains up there to feel it." I still didn't believe him. It's a possibility he did get me there and I didn't feel it. Back then I just thought he was lying to me.

Well, as far as pain tolerance goes, cuts and scrapes barely bother me at all, but blunt force injuries (i.e. stubbing your toe, banging your knee on a curb, hitting your head, etc.) hurt like a motherf***er. Thankfully I've fallen enough times doing parkour to be able to handle banging myself up than I used to. Even the best traceurs bite the asphalt sometimes, eventually you learn to shake yourself off and keep running.

I burned my hand on a hot exhaust manifold last week. Only realized it because I heard a hiss. Blistered up later but it never hurt.

I had a car hood fall on my head once when we where trying to remove an engine. The latch hit me right in the soft spot. Drove me to the ground and there was a lot of blood but no pain.

Did a face plant off my mountain bike onto a rock last year. I thought for sure I must have broken something but I didn't and it just felt a little puffy on the side of my head.

But then light touches make me cringe.

I once cut myself on an exacto knife and didn't notice I did it until I saw my room looked like the set of CSI. It wouldn't stop bleeding and I needed stiches. It was taking forever for the novican to kick in and I didn't want to be there forever so I lied and said that it had and let the doctor stich it up without it being numb. Oddly enough, I've always found ligh touch sensations more painful than anything.

I once fell off a treadmill by turning it on full speed and trying to jump on it while it was going. I hated walking on it and got the damb thing to run in the first place. I wanted to take off in a full run as oppsed to graduadly running. What I really need is a human sized hamster wheel. I fell off and went SMACK into the contrete floor. I scrapped up my knee really bad and probably almost broke it; yet the sensation of the bandage was the worst.

When I had a hystorectomy last year, I didn't need ANY pain meds and was up walking about and stuff as soon as I woke up. I went home the next day. Whenever I had blood drawn, I never felt it and would even ask the nurse if she had actualy done it yet because I never felt anything and sure enough she had a vial full of my blood. The sensation of the bandage bothered me the most.

When I was 5, I had what I thought was the flu because I am sensitive to nausea. After about 3 days, I was unable to swallow. I went to the clinic and the doctor told me I had the worst strep throat he had seen in 10 YEARS! I didn't feel a thing and didn't notice until I was unable to swallow. He was a bit mad because he thought I should have come in when it started to hurt, but it never did hurt.

Any of my hypo- or hypersensitivities, including pain tolerance, seem to depend upon my level of control in the situation. I've sat through getting two tattoos without so much as flinching, but if my boyfriend pokes me in the arm or side, I cry out in pain. Things like stubbing my toe or hitting a taggle while brushing my hair are excruciating, and will typically reduce me to a crying blob. However, if I grab my own hair and yank or pull it with all my strength, it doesn't bother me at all. I pierced my own belly button with a sewing needle when I was 12, without numbing it at all, but I passed out from the pain when my mom pulled out an earring that had caused my ear to become infected.

If I am able to mentally prepare for something (and anxiety isn't a factor), then I'm typically hyposensitive...if something happens unexpectedly, I usually react with hypersensitivity.

I just got back from the dentist. He filled a cavity and ground down and redid some incisor caps. Afterwards, he realized he forgot to give me anaesthetic. It is lucky for him, it happened to me. I got distracted and never felt a thing during the whole time, just waiting to get it over with. Why I am like this, I dont think I will ever understand it.

I'm starting to think that the concept of "pain" is in the eye of the beholder. I actualy enjoy sensations that many people aparently consider painful such as chiropractic adjstments. I've caused myself to bleed by stratching too hard or using a knife to stratch an itch. I didn't care, even if it drew blood, the stratchy sensation and the relief of the itch was so worth it and even if I did accidently stratch too hard and drew blood, it didn't hurt.

I have a couple recent stories since I've been doing a little remodeling at home and I'm pretty clumsy. I'll just tell you guys one of them.

I had ripped a lot of shelving out of my closet and laid it on the floor in my room. As I was walking around my bed one day my foot got stuck all of a sudden. I tried to move it around but it was stuck really good and wouldn't move the slightest bit. So I look down and see that a nail that was sticking out of one of the shelves had went all the way into my foot. I was standing on one foot because the stuck foot was just slightly above the ground and I couldn't just put it down hard because it would've tore a huge gash in my foot. So I just stood there for a minute trying to keep my balance while thinking of what to do. I decided to feel around and see if I could judge what angle the nail went into my foot at and then pull off in that direction. After one or two failed attempts I got it right and was able to free my foot. There was a lot of blood and it was an annoyance to walk on, but it didn't really hurt much.

One time I had a bladder infection that went on for so long that it almost turned into a kidney infection. The pain didn't bother me very much so I didn't think anything was wrong. It wasn't until I kept running a fever and my mom asked me if it hurt when I went pee (it did) that we realized that I had a bladder infection.

I didn't need any pain medication when my 4 wisdom teeth got removed at the same time. It also doesn't hurt when I get cavities filled or root canals done. Unfortunately, this doesn't give me much incentive to brush my teeth since I'm not afraid of the dentist.