Pain - do we experience it the same as NTs?

Post Reply New Topic

I have a freakishly high tolerance to pain for some reason. As a kid, I would walk bare foot across asphalt during a hot day and not even think of it, like to the point of it putting blisters on my feet. I remember as a kid, I once step on a nail that went clean threw my foot, and I thought it was cool lol. I do feel pain, but it does not bother me at all for some reason.
I have a bunch of issues that cause me pain, but I never complain about it because it dosnt bother me at all. I know people who are on a bunch of pain meds for similar things, but I have never needed to take any type of pain medicine. Even when I have a migraine, I dont experience any pain that bothers me.
I have only ever experienced a couple things before that were painful enough to bother me. Once was when I had severe road rash on my arm, the road rash itself didnt bother me, but changing the bandages was beyond excruciating, the type that makes a person cry. So I know I have a pain limit, but I think anything below that limit, just dosnt hurt or simply does not bother me.

I may have pain throughout the day going on but I don't really care since I can still move and do physical things. If it impaired me from certain things, then yes I'd lay down or go to the doctor.

I have a high pain threshold as well.
I once put a 3 inch nail into my kneecap, accidentally, and only discovered it because my jeans were catching on the nail head when I walked.
I also have major dental problems because the only time I feel toothache is when the nerve is dying. When I have dental work done and need an anaesthetic they put in 3 times the normal dose just so I can endure the pain.
I once had very severe sunburn on my back, on a holiday to Qld with the family. About a week after the initial sunburn, we were at water world and my kids convinced me to go down a waterslide. Well someone came down behind me and whacked me in the back. I walked down the rest of that slide. Later in the first aid area I was asked if I wanted to take off my Tshirt so they could see my back. I took the shirt off and all the skin on my back came off with it. I saw a doctor and he wouldn't call an ambulance to take me to hospital as it was self inflicted, so I stood in a line in the bank to withdraw money so I could call a taxi to take me to hospital.
The worst thing with the sunburn was 3 or 4 days later as it was starting to heal that it started itching. I could stand the pain from the sunburn but the itching was so bad I went walking all night as I couldn't sleep, couldn't lie down.

Pain I seem to be able to endure well but itching. It doesn't seem fair.

No. One would think I have a high pain tolerence because I've cut myself by accident and didn't notice until I saw blood. I had blood drawn recently and when the nurse said, "All done!" I replied, "That's it?" because I litteraly did not feel it. Are they putting numbing agents in the needles nowdays or ate they just better at taking blood in Texas than they were in Ohio? Every chiropracter I have ever been to says they wish all of their paitents were as relaxed as I am. Everyone else says being adjusted is so painful but I LOVE the way it feels. I had my wisdom teeth out with a local and wonder if I really needed a numbing agent at all. As soon as the novacain wore off, I was back to myself. Yet I cringe when watcing the opening sequence of Little House on the Parie where Laura, Mary and Carrie are running through the weeds because the sensation of them brushing up against my legs like that would be painful. My kriptonite is someone touching my knees or elbows with them being unbent. I've litteraly almost fainted because it was so excrucatingly painful. I can't wear pants because of it. My parents were always told it was due to the autism but my chiropracter didn't agree. My parents and brother would think it was funny to poke my knee when it was unbent. It was for them but not for me and it made me unable to trust them.

Mine would seem to be off the normal scale as well. I once got a 1.5"x8" dirt rash from mountain biking on my ribs, picked my bike up, rode home, disinfected & bandaged it then just hysterically laughed at myself on the couch until it hurt less. And that's just the biggest scar, not the worst story. I can take at least 5 hard punches before it really aggravates me enough to do something, and since I've been into skiing I'm pretty sure I have diminished sensitivity in my feet. I can slam a door on my foot and any trace of pain is gone within 5-10 minutes.

After 30+ hours of tattooing on my body including areas such as the neck, a needle jab really feels like nothing to me. I think mostly people end up building up anxiety towards needles which contributes to why some people become nervous about injections. I have been told I have a high pain tolerance, I have even taken a fair amount of blows to the head and injuries from physical contact sports, I don't know if that has to do with being on the spectrum or not.

There are everyday things that "hurt" in a way that I suspect an NT would not be able to comprehend. Things like bright days or certain sounds, that have a physical sensation of pain (kind of like a migraine pain but full body) because they are so over-the-top to me. A room with a 100-watt bulb on is almost unbearable, for instance; and in that sense I have a lower pain tolerance than NTs.

On the other hand, I have endured multiple dislocations over the years and have always put them back in myself since I am the only person I trust to do so. Doctors are confused by my lack of expression regarding the "pain-scale" as well. Anyone who has ever done a piercing for me has commented on my lack of reaction as well. No tearing up, flinching, gasping, holding of breath - nothing. They might as well have been painting my nails. Its not that I don't feel the pain, it just doesn't seem worthy of a reaction.

Similarly, I find that the more intense the emotional pain of another person dear to me is, the more I feel their pain but have no 'fall-back' set of expressions or social reactions that seem appropriate so I tend to not react at all. I feel the empathy deeply, just like I feel the physical pain, but have no genuine reaction available to express it.

Someone punched me in the nose and nearly broke it and I just laughed, in the same incident I had my eye split open badly enough to leave a scar for a year or two and I didn't notice until someone told me.

So I suppose I have a fairly high tolerance for pain.

It's interesting though, how many people here speak of things as being painful that the general population probably wouldn't notice, like sunlight. I don't think you can make a strong assertion that people on the spectrum always have a high tolerance for pain. I remember reading an article years ago about how different cultures react to pain. They had people from different cultures hold their hand over a candle flame and gauged their reactions. A sherpa kept his hand over the flame and calmly said that yes indeed, it hurt very badly.

I got appendicitis and didn't even whine until it burst and gave my abdominal cavity a big infection. I broke my arm at the same time as a nt, same place, same severity, while in PE class. It was like noon. I helped packed up her bags and wave her goodbye on her way to the hospital, and sat thru the school day ending at five. My mom took me to a hospital when I mentioned the incident during our chat, and presto, a cast.
Need I say more?

I have a pretty high threshold of pain. For example, once I had a bunch of cactus thorns stuck in my hand, and I went for a week before I got around to pulling them out.

I have low tolerance, delayed response, and determination, under certain circumstances, not to make a big display of pain, but under other circumstances, I might deflect my own pain by deliberately making a huge and humorous display in an obviously outsized bid for sympathy. This combination is okay for me most of the time, but I sometimes wonder if the delayed response and oversensitivity, combined with what may not be the expected ways of expressing feeling, might make me look like a liar to someone who doesn't know me well.

On the other hand, I've been known to calmly reassure EMTs that I'm okay, and that it's all right for them to do whatever they have to do in order to perform their job in helping me, while lying on the ground with a puncture wound in my inner thigh (from the fork lock key, which was on the same ring as the side key of the motorcycle I was riding, having jammed itself against the shock absorber so that the point of the key went through my chaps when I went down). I told them the same thing I said to my tattoo artist: I might or might not need to sometimes make some low growling sounds or something to help me cope, but just keep going and don't worry.

As a side note, for those who might have a chance to make a difference, chaps unzip and flop right off much more easily than they can be cut off. An EMT will do a lot less harm by unzipping them than by trying to cut them off. Chaps leather is thick, and cutting it would cause such a struggle that the accident victim would be more likely to be accidentally moved slightly and caused extra pain and injury. Fortunately, mine got unzipped. Five awkward stitches (weird wound shape) at the hospital, and I was fine.

I feel pain easily, but don't necessarily react to it. I can walk in the snow or in the garage barefoot in the winter. When it's 17F outside, I can walk around in a light flannel jacket. I feel cold, but it's more of an annoyance. I can feel small aches and pains, but their an annoyance at worst. I can walk on a gouty knee or foot where others would call in to work for a couple days. Even though I can feel many aches and pains, I also tolerate them.

Pressure points don't work on me either. I've come away with bruises from where people have tried to find them. Also, when I was 9 I broke my arm in two places but no one thought it was serious because they didn't think I was in enough pain. It was over 24 hours later that we got it x-rayed.

I don't know about the level of pain, but in my experience NTs whine a lot more. And able bodied people a lot more than disabled people. The more someone isn't used to pain, the more they think the world is ending if it happens to them.

I know I don't.

Most of my childhood by mom would point out how things that shouldn't hurt me do hurt and things that should don't.

A few examples- I once broke my jaw and the only thing that hurt were these little scratches on the side of my face.

Another time, I was bite in the face by a dog and had serveral deep puncture wounds which didn't hurt at all.

But spray antiseptic on a cut, and I would scream my head off.

Also as a kid, it hurt to have my hair washed or cut. Weird.