Pain categories

[zirconia]

Thank you. I'm very happy to hear your experiences and opinions... This is all so very interesting.

Anne, the feature of repetitiveness is one thing I hadn't thought of. Does the knowledge that the pain will continue to reoccur for a given length affect of time have any effect? Or does it just constantly get worse until you can't stand it any longer?

Elizabeth, first I'm sorry you needed corrective surgery—and thirteen times at that. I've been trying to imagine how it must have made you feel, but find it hard. I'm glad you were able to find a way through.

Cindy—yes I do find the subject extremely fascinating. I also find it interesting that you were actually taught to compartmentalize the reactions and emotions. It sounds like the pain caused by the events you mentioned wasn't purely physical. If I'm right, I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, I do see how the ability would also carry over to the physical realm. It takes much strength and courage to do what you have done.

As you say, anticipating the pain does also seem significant.

After starting this thread I realized my electrologist might also be willing to comment on the subject. While I'm done with all truly essential work I still see her now and then to take care of areas I can't reach myself, and we usually chat when that doesn't hinder her (and I'm not too sleepy). When I asked her, she was happy to oblige. However what she said also confused me.

To sum up, while individual responses naturally vary, in her experience there is one very consistent pattern. Given the same location and hair density, in her clientele the males generally have an overwhelmingly lower pain threshold than females.

It stands to reason that finer and less dense hair hurts less to remove, so if the observation were general I'd find it natural. However, to make the comparison more meaningful she discussed clients undergoing work on the armpit, mons pubis and anal regions—where she says the hair quality and density is often similar enough to be comparable. In her experience, while girls mostly just bear it, she frequently has to ask the boys whether they'd like to to cut the session short because the pain makes it impossible for them to stay still enough for her to work efficiently.

The reason I found this puzzling has to do with what I've read here about the effects of hormone replacement treatment on pain perception. Since it changes our bodies—obviously including the skin—to more closely resemble those of natal females, it would seem logical that our sense of and reactions to pain would also change in the same direction. However, many posters mention that the pain from electrolysis has actually become worse after starting HRT. To me this feels like a conundrum.

Does anyone have any ideas regarding why HRT, while working its overall feminizing magic, would (at least in some cases) seem to have a seemingly adverse effect in this regard?

[Dena]

Does anyone have any ideas regarding why HRT, while working its overall feminizing magic, would (at least in some cases) seem to have a seemingly adverse effect in this regard?

Primitive man was a hunter and hunting with rocks and spears was a dangerous profession. A male needed to take a few bumps, bruises and other injuries in order to continue pursuing the game. If a hunter gave up at the first bump, everybody would starve.

Woman  tended to gather and as such didn't need to deal with that type of pain. On the other hand, child birth isn't exactly a painless past time so possible they have a different way of dealing with pain. In addition, if a woman gets the flu, often they continue to care for their family even though they are sick. Often the flu will put a man in bed.  It might be switching for a T based pain control system requires that we learn an E based pain control system.

[zirconia]

Dena,

If I understood your post correctly, you suggest that—since men are naturally less sensitive to pain than women—when HRT changes our endocrine balance we begin to feel it more acutely. At the same time, women can handle greater (e.g. childbirth) and longer lasting pain because they have a different way to control it. The decrease in pain resistance many feel after starting HRT could therefore be overcome by learning the female way to control pain.

In a way that does sound logical. I certainly am in a somewhat unusual state when I expect pain, and while I think I'm alert, my responses might possibly be slower.

What kind of doesn't fit is that I have also had a few acute accidents while on HRT that are usually considered rather painful (e.g. finger ligaments injured and the fingernail half torn off) but seemed to be able to dismiss them and continue work just like I would have before. Then again, if I have somehow acquired a new method of pain control, I may now be applying it to all situations and kinds of pain. I just don't seem to know how and when I might have done so.

If, as you suggest, there is a female way to control pain and it is learnable, have you any thoughts regarding how natal females and those of us that switch hormones do learn it?

[Dena]

If there is a special way of controlling pain, I am not sure if I know it. Feb 24 I fell on my left side doing a really good job of spraining my left arm cushioning the fall. It hurt for a good two months but I never used any pain killer. I limited my use of it and was probably producing endorphins like they were going out of style but I was able to tolerate the pain. Could it have something to do with a woman's ability to be in subservient as they have been through much of history and still be able to make their mark? I don't know and I am guessing again.

[Deborah]

I don't think that men are less sensitive to pain than women.  Rather they simply learn at an early age to "suck it up".  Not as many girls learn this because it's culturally acceptable for them not to "suck it up" and because they don't participate in the types of contact sports that cause a lot of pain like boys do.  So many never have to learn how to deal with it.

My credentials in saying this are from raising a daughter.  She did learn to "suck it up" and now as a fitness instructor makes other women cry, LOL.

When both her and my son were young and they got hurt and started crying I always asked them the same thing.  "Is there blood or is there bones sticking out?"  If not then I told them there was nothing wrong and to stop crying.  It might sound kind of cruel but it worked and it always reassured them that there wasn't anything to worry about.


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[zirconia]

Dena,

I've thought about this for a couple days, and really can't seem to see how subservience and pain tolerance could be related. I hope you don't think this rude, but to be honest, from what I've seen that very subservience can also be relative.

To give an example, while people in the West see the culture I live in as very male dominated, the women here very commonly control all family finances and just assign the husbands an allowance within whose bounds they are free to play. I think I've in another post also mentioned the tips mothers in law here may give brides to be. I think that women may just tend to have an overlapping but separate society.

Deborah,

Your description actually in a way reminds me a bit of my own upbringing. (^_^)

My parents didn't fuss much over anything that wasn't life-threatening. When little, I remember that when I tried a bit too hard to take my knife from my sister during a knife dance and she cut me, they just closed the wound and told us to be more careful. The attitude may be contagious—I myself felt more upset by the fact that the cut would leave a scar than scared or in pain. I'm sure part of pain tolerance is psychological.

That said, I must say I remain intrigued by why natal men would tend be more sensitive to the needle than natal women, despite being likely to have more experience dealing with painful injuries during day to day activities.

I'd really love to hear more people's thoughts and theories.

[Dena]

Dena,

I've thought about this for a couple days, and really can't seem to see how subservience and pain tolerance could be related. I hope you don't think this rude, but to be honest, from what I've seen that very subservience can also be relative.

To give an example, while people in the West see the culture I live in as very male dominated, the women here very commonly control all family finances and just assign the husbands an allowance within whose bounds they are free to play. I think I've in another post also mentioned the tips mothers in law here may give brides to be. I think that women may just tend to have an overlapping but separate society.

I don't know if the thought is true but there is an additional data point to consider. Young men sometimes do dumb painful things to prove their masculinity. Sometimes holding a burning match until it goes out, sometimes running around in freezing weather without a shirt and not complaining about the pain. Women as I said before, may carry on their normal duties even though they are sick while a man may be confined to bed. People sometime suppress pain because it's expected of them or they view of their social role doesn't allow it. In war prison camps men often endure extreme pain without cracking because their military honor code doesn't allow it. They often try not to show their captures the pain they are experiencing. A case of mind over pain?

[Tessa James]

Dena,

I've thought about this for a couple days, and really can't seem to see how subservience and pain tolerance could be related. I hope you don't think this rude, but to be honest, from what I've seen that very subservience can also be relative.

To give an example, while people in the West see the culture I live in as very male dominated, the women here very commonly control all family finances and just assign the husbands an allowance within whose bounds they are free to play. I think I've in another post also mentioned the tips mothers in law here may give brides to be. I think that women may just tend to have an overlapping but separate society.

Deborah,

Your description actually in a way reminds me a bit of my own upbringing. (^_^)

My parents didn't fuss much over anything that wasn't life-threatening. When little, I remember that when I tried a bit too hard to take my knife from my sister during a knife dance and she cut me, they just closed the wound and told us to be more careful. The attitude may be contagious—I myself felt more upset by the fact that the cut would leave a scar than scared or in pain. I'm sure part of pain tolerance is psychological.

That said, I must say I remain intrigued by why natal men would tend be more sensitive to the needle than natal women, despite being likely to have more experience dealing with painful injuries during day to day activities.

I'd really love to hear more people's thoughts and theories.

Hello Zirconia,

My career was as a nurse anesthetist, CRNA, and pain relief was my daily mission.  Some men may react to pain more significantly because of a more pronounced vaso-vagal response.  Lining guys up in the army for injections could find several of our most heroic types fainting after vagus stimulation caused a very slow heart rate.

Pain is a chemically mediated response to bodily threat or damage from any source, real or perceived.  Prior experiences with pain are a greater predictor of response than gender in my experience.  Our use of alcohol and other drugs can influences our responses to anesthetics.  Emotional pain like heartbreak has a far greater capacity to be recalled while physical pain is much harder to recall or describe and this may be seen as a protective brain
feature.  We frequently resort to "pain scales" in clinical use with faces or numbers with zero being pain free to 10 being the worst pain ever.
In my last decade of practice i specialized in obstetrical anesthesia and learned a great deal about how much pain a woman can endure.  While medicated births are now very common, some women still prefer natural childbirth or our anesthetic technique can fail.  I will never underestimate what a woman can do after countless experiences with women who labored for days with minimal to no food or water and then ended up with forceps deliveries or perineal lacerations.
All pain ends....eventually

[Kendra]

> My parents didn't fuss much over anything that wasn't life-threatening. When little, I remember that when I tried a bit too hard to take my knife from my sister during a knife dance and she cut me, they just closed the wound and told us to be more careful. The attitude may be contagious—I myself felt more upset by the fact that the cut would leave a scar than scared or in pain. I'm sure part of pain tolerance is psychological.

I was raised in the US.  My mother is from Japan.  My father is from California but embraced Japanese culture and let my mom run the household, including finances.  At age 3 I apparently became curious about electrical outlets (110 volts in the US) and walked up to one with a fork in my hand.  My parents saw this and said "No!" and I ignored them - so my dad said well, here's one way to learn about electricity.  My dad was a radar engineer in the Navy and knew darn well what electricity can do.  I stuck the metal in the socket, sparks flew and I obviously received quite a jolt and was frightened - and then I ran around the house declaring "denki hot!"  Denki is electricity in Japanese.  Little did they know this would prepare me for electrolysis a half century later.

[Deborah]

@Kendra

You must be my daughter, LOL.  She's half Asian too and did exactly the same thing when she was three.  A lightning bolt shot out of the wall and left a scorch mark.  She was scared but unhurt.  I never had to tell her again not to stick things in the wall socket though.


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[LizK]

I have been dealing with my pain management clinic for 18 years and the same Dr for the last 16. When I told him I was transitioning he was fully supportive and sent me off to the pain management shrink to try and get me to drop the idea that I could get rid of my implanted medication pump. He was the first one to officially "diagnose" the GD.

He was fine with me wanting to adjust my dosages and get them down as low as I could with a view to having it removed however one of the things he cautioned me about is that in his experience treating pain conditions he has noted that the few MTF he has dealt with, he found the majority experienced increase pain response after being on Oestrogen and asked me to wait 6 months reassess.

In short I did have an increase in my perception of my pain even if just slightly. I have to say for me it was certainly true and I have noticed this increase in my pain scores since starting HRT. My Dr was adamant that this increase is a direct result of the HRT. I don't know for sure but it is a bit co-incidental.

....Elizabeth, first I'm sorry you needed corrective surgery—and thirteen times at that. I've been trying to imagine how it must have made you feel, but find it hard. I'm glad you were able to find a way through....

Zirconia it was a traumatic time for me with the majority of the ops being completed before I was 8 and the final one at age 40. The reason for the numerous ops was because as I grew, ops needed to be performed to allow for this growth. I was very, very lucky and got a leading plastic surgeon who performed my first surgeries. The result I got was astounding for the 1960's...he did an amazing job especially in light of how very little he had to work with. I was born with no roof in my mouth and my nostrils connected directly to the corners of my mouth with no top lip and an open cavity left between my mouth and nose along with one where my top lip should have been.

If you were to see me in real life you may notice that I have a slight scar under my nose and a thin top lip. Apart from having slightly a big nose than average there is no other sign of the original deformity. My surgeon was a genius as I have seen others with similar conditions that have far more scarring with obvious deformities despite the advancement in equipment and techniques. 

Take care

Liz 

[zirconia]

Kendra, Deborah,

I did that when I was eight, with a piece of wire... We had guests, and all the lights went out. It was rather scary but also somehow exhilarating. I probably don't need to say it, but I also never repeated that trick...

Elizabeth,
Yes—that must have been extremely traumatic. I'm glad you had a good doctor. My grandfather had a milder form but it was never completely corrected. Since his palate remained open his speech was hard to understand until you got used to it, and when I was three or four I'd turn to look at my parents, hoping that they'd say something that would help me do so. Now I always feel bad thinking of how it must have made him feel.