Women suffer more pain than men across the whole body, major global study finds

7 days ago by MicroWave to c/health

Researchers looked at pain around the world and across the human lifespan, finding steepest rise happens before age 55

Women report suffering more pain than men, a major new global study has found.

That was true for all types of pain the researchers measured, and comes amid continuing concern about the gender pain gap, which means women are less likely to be prescribed the pain relief they need.

Researchers from all over the world carried out “one of the largest harmonization efforts in pain epidemiology to date”. Data was collected from more than 6 million people from 118 countries from 1990 to 2025, and included people from five years old to more than 100.

The research, published in Nature Medicine, looked at how pain, as the leading global cause of disability, was distributed both around the world and across the human lifespan.

Oni_eyes 40 points 7 days ago

How did they factor in the expected lower reporting from men due to the culture of "suck it up" or "grin and bear it" that seems to be more prevalent among men than women for physical/mental pain?

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prex 37 points 7 days ago

They can only ask. Pain is inherently very subjective. eg:

https://xkcd.com/883/

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Undoobitably 1 point 6 days ago

Basically the conclusions are bunk and the money spent is wasted.

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prex 1 point 6 days ago

I would kind of think the opposite: With a big enough & broad enough study that asks lots of extra questions you can use fancy mathematics to allow for confounders and reduce the gap between correlation & causation.

Edit: fuck, that was a long sentence.

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doleo 23 points 7 days ago

Not that I entirely disagree with your point, but if we're going to talk about being put off of reporting, then how about centuries of women being dismissed by medical professionals?

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Oni_eyes 5 points 7 days ago

I understand your counterpoint, however has that behavior led to more women not sharing their pain or being louder about their pain to get past the dismissiveness? Do both sexes just bottle it up?

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searabbit 13 points 7 days ago

I think both just bottle it up. Men because they are conditioned to be stoic and women because they are conditioned to not be a bother. Most women are in pain a few days every single month but how many women do you know that go around telling everyone about it?

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TubularTittyFrog 1 point 6 days ago

when you stub your toe really badly, or roll your ankle. do you tell everyone about it, or keep it to yourself?

I can't recall ever telling anyone how I stubbed my toe.

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Feathercrown -3 points 7 days ago

Is that because it's not painful or because they think it would be embarrassing though?

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pomp 1 point 6 days ago

NEXT

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Devial 11 points 7 days ago

They didn't, though they do mention pain is complicated to study specifically because diagnosing it necessarily relies on self reporting. This unfortunately makes it virtually impossible to account for that fact. If someone tells you they have some level of pain, there is very little to nothing you can do to know if they are over exaggeratjng, under exaggerating or doing neither.

A more accurate headline would be that women report higher levels of pain across the board, rather than they experience higher levels of pain.

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Catoblepas -4 points 7 days ago

There is no difference between reporting and experiencing a high level of pain unless you believe women as a group lie or exaggerate about it.

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paultimate14 16 points 7 days ago

I would recommend you educate yourself on the limitations of surveys in scientific research. Humans have subjective responses to survey questions. It is perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of the results, without accusing anyone of lying or exaggerating. Understanding the experience of another person fully is impossible, and one of the core problems philosophers, scientists, and artists gave been wrestling with fot as long as humans have been sentient.

It is all the more reasonable to be skeptical of the ridiculous headlines from an outlet like the Guardian attaches to stories like these. It is stoking the flames of gender conflict to get clicks rather than providing any useful information.

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Catoblepas -8 points 7 days ago

If there’s something specific you’d like to address about my point feel free, because this just reads like “nuh-uh.” What evidence do you have that women, as a group, are more likely to over-report pain? What mechanism do you suggest would lead to women as a group over-reporting pain, since individual differences are flattened out in a sufficient sample size? Why is it consistent across 118 countries if it’s not something that is measurably occurring?

You accuse the Guardian of engaging in gender war clickbait while denying the findings of a scientific study? Doesn’t seem scientific to me.

Out of curiosity, would you also say this about a study with men and social isolation (another entirely self reported metric)? How skeptical would you be that they really feel isolated? If there’s a difference you should interrogate why.

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neatchee 5 points 7 days ago

Or men as a group lie and minimize their own discomfort?

Why jump immediately to the worst possible interpretation?

frankly, given our patriarchy and internalized misogyny it's far more likely the men are lying - or more precisely, deluding themselves - to protect their ego

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Catoblepas -4 points 7 days ago

How is ‘actually it’s men that lie as a group’ better than saying the same of women?

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Devial 3 points 7 days ago

Or, you know, men as a group Underexaggaurate about it, which is literally the verbarim stated point of the comment I'm replying too. Did you even read the stuff you're replying too

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Catoblepas -6 points 7 days ago

Conversations move along, you’re the one that was trying to make a distinction between what women claim they experience and what they actually experience. And that’s what I responded to, since it would make no damn sense to take up something you said with the OC.

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StabbingSky 9 points 7 days ago

Or standardize the pain scale. A 9 on the scale for me is significantly more pain than a 9 for my wife because I have both a high pain tolerance and threshold. I say 9 because I've never experienced what I'd consider a 10 (pain so intense I lose consciousness).

My vasectomy without anesthesia was a 9.5.

But our response to pain is largely learned.

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chickenf622 8 points 7 days ago

Bro why did you do it without anesthesia? Mine with local anesthesia was already a whole ordeal I couldn't imagine making it through with out the pain relief.

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StabbingSky 9 points 7 days ago

Because the surgeon didn't believe me when I told him I have the redhead gene and am extremely tolerant to all anesthesia. For reference, it took 8mg of Versed (standard is 1-2) before I even felt it before a down the throat echo of my heart, and my last filling required so much lidocaine that it paralyzed half of my face.

He gave me a bunch of air shots, waited a few minutes, I wasn't numb, did it again for like 20 minutes and said, Well you have to be numb now, can you feel this," then made the incision. I told him I could feel that, but he just went right along.

I was too busy diverting the pain to stop him at that point. But honestly, he was so fast that I likely would have been in pain for longer if I had stopped him and made him give me more anesthesia.

But, I basically did a speed run of the pain, because my recovery was almost completely pain and swelling free.

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motionofethre 3 points 7 days ago

My doctor didn't let the lidocaine settle on the first side.... I feel you. He shot the lidocaine in and immediately cut. Hurt horribly. He immediately said sorry.... but too late

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chickenf622 1 point 7 days ago

Ah I did have a similar experience getting a root canal. Whatever they gave me wore off and I was so over the pain that the dead tooth was giving me I told them to just keep going. Granted I chose the pain, but I get the mindset of just getting it done and over with.

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searabbit 6 points 7 days ago

It's not really possible because your hormones affect your subjective experience of pain. Things that are not painful at all during ovulation suddenly can feel extremely painful during menstruation.

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Drusas 2 points 7 days ago

Same, which can create problems. If I say my pain level is a six, that means I'm in a lot of pain. A doctor who doesn't know me would almost certainly assume otherwise.

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IamMoonPie -2 points 6 days ago

Yeahhh no, just no. Women are treated so poorly by the medical system compared to men. I could go to ER with my husband to be seen for the exact same thing He’ll be:

Seen faster than me
Listened to instead of questioned
Given the appropriate tests
Leave with medication and follow ups.

I’ll be:

Forced to wait longer times
Questioned relentlessly (are you pregnant? nope, no longer have a uterus. We’re still gunna give you a pregnancy test because we don’t believe you).
Will not receive any tests outside of standard baseline tests.
Will leave with zero answers, no medication, no follow ups. Just a suggestion to drink more water and exercise.

So you men really have no room to complain about lack of reporting when its literally not even applicable to this situation.

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Lumisal 6 points 6 days ago

Counterpoint: This could be in part because men seek medical care less than women (source: https://www.icgi.org/...), therefore when one does go the medical staff assumes it must be pretty serious, and this would reinforce that the self report study may not be accurate.

That said, it would still be extremely wrong for medical staff to assume that / downplay women who go because they're more likely to go, because then you'll be missing important cases in women, which may also explain why women have worse outcomes in medical care as well.

Overall the situation is shit because under the current system and culture it means men die more often from medical health issues and women die more from unnecessary malpractice and negligence.

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crapwittyname 4 points 6 days ago

Even so, this is a cultural question, not a healthcare one. While women are treated more poorly within the healthcare system, men are exposed, outside the healthcare system, to "man up", "suck it up", "boys don't cry" and a general attitude that admitting to pain is weakness and unmanly.
There may be an abundance of reporting; I would be willing to bet that male pain is better studied than female pain, because that usually seems to be the case (medical science ignoring female physiology to an almost comical degree). But, the point op was making is that the men in the studies are more likely to lie/downplay their pain because of the culture of toxic masculinity. It's one of the ways men are victims of the patriarchy too.

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HexesofVexes 28 points 7 days ago

"It found women’s self-reported pain across 11 bodily sites – head, face, neck or shoulder, foot or ankle, hand or wrist, elbow, chest, back, stomach or abdomen, hip and knee – was higher than for men."

Self report, not really all that useful. Could be anything from "women experience more pain" to "women are encouraged to speak up about pain" to "women are less inured to pain". I'm afraid it's a bit clickbaity.

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deft 4 points 6 days ago

Ever get that weird pain in your chest when you stretch or something? I can't tell you how many phantom pains like that I get and ignore but also forget

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winkerjadams 1 point 6 days ago

That's actually growing pains and eventually stops

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HexesofVexes 2 points 6 days ago

Spoiler - it reappears in your 40s

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Aqarius 3 points 6 days ago

That's just growing old pains. Those eventually stop too.

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BradleyUffner 1 point 6 days ago

I have that. I mentioned it to my doctor at my last physical. He diagnosed it as something called "slipping rib syndrome", where some of your ribs aren't fused properly.

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Zacryon 4 points 6 days ago

Self report, not really all that useful.

Why not? Pain is a subjective experience. If someone experience high levels of pain consistently, that is reason to do something about it. Someone else may experience less pain for the same cause, but that doesn't invalidate other experiences. In the end it's about helping people and making their lifes better.

Although for such studies it would be good indeed to factor in socialisation effects. If men are raised to suppress expressing pain when they're in pain, while women are not, that might bias the results.

Do we have a non-invasive method for objectively measuring pain?

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HexesofVexes 5 points 6 days ago

My issue is that it leads to more than one conclusion and we have no reason to choose one over the others.

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TubularTittyFrog 2 points 6 days ago

all that, and because people lie.

lying about pain is a great way to socially manipulate the people around you.

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HubertManne 3 points 6 days ago

I don't see how you can do a study about pain without self reporting. No one can say how much pain another person is feeling. Thats why the hospital has that face ruler to get you to give them a number.

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HexesofVexes 4 points 6 days ago

No-one is arguing with that; just that they have lots of possible conclusions and they chose one for no good reason.

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pomp 1 point 6 days ago

Pretty sure that face ruler was put there to sell oxy, actually xD

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HubertManne 1 point 6 days ago

I always liked it. Its like if I were to make a face for how much this hurts it would look like that one.

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RBWells 16 points 7 days ago

I do think women's pain is under-treated, IUD insertion no pain meds, no anesthesia, a lot of GYN procedures that really hurt are done with no help.

The worst pain I have ever felt, though, is still migraine. Not childbirth (I did those unmedicated) not broken bones, migraine is by far the most intense pain I have ever felt and that is not specific to women, though more common in women.

My tattoo artist said men complain, women don't. Not that it hurts us less, we just don't complain. Cultural thing maybe. My husband does complain when his back hurts; I just wait it out. Though if it persisted I'd be more likely to go to the doctor than him.

So maybe some of it is self-inflicted, we don't tell anyone we are hurting, but for God's sake, my gynecologist is a woman she should know that shit hurts!

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Drusas 5 points 7 days ago

On the other hand, I get migraines, but they're not even in the top three worst pain I've even experienced. The worst I've ever experienced is a mystery pelvic pain (yes, I'm also female).

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RBWells 5 points 7 days ago

Until I hit menopause I had no idea that the pain level of a migraine could vary, I have them occasionally still (not many with the steady low dose MHT and no cycles), and mostly they are about like a hangover level of headache.

Before menopause, they were uniformly at an 11/10, vomiting, crying and such intense pain I got hallucinations. Like I have no idea how one can hurt that bad without it killing you. In labor, I literally thought "well, not as bad as a migraine anyway".

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ScoffingLizard 2 points 6 days ago

Holup. I'm still stuck on migranes being worse than childbirth with no meds. Like something literally tore off your uterus and slowly ripped the skin from your vagina to your butthole. How in the world was a headache worse than that?

I'm a woman with no kids so this is an eye opener, but also never saw birth videos so maybe I'm ignorant of things.

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Droechai 5 points 6 days ago

A heavy migraine attack is quite different from a headache. It impacts your whole system, including visual distortions, vomiting, vertigo, sensory sensitivity and mental distress

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HubertManne 2 points 6 days ago

yeah I did not really understand what a migraine was till my wife was vomiting and like could not walk.

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Drusas 3 points 6 days ago

That is not how childbirth works.

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LastYearsIrritant 3 points 6 days ago

What? You mean to tell me you don't grow a new uterus for each child???

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ScoffingLizard 1 point 6 days ago

Doesn't the placenta attach to it or something?

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mrgoosmoos 1 point 7 days ago

complain, or share their feelings?

most guys I know just state how something feels or what is currently bothering them. not complaining, just sharing information

unless it's some type of serious headache — that shit is debilitating.

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RBWells 2 points 7 days ago

He complains. I would go so far as to say whines, lol. Partly because he can't work out when hurt and lack of exercise makes anyone irritable. I am strong with pain but an absolute whiny baby when sick, a slight cold and I complain, I hate it so much. He hardly notices it - gets a cold about the same frequency I do (maybe once a year on average?) but it impresses him so little he thinks he gets sick less often than I do.

So it's not that he complains more, just more about physical pain.

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stopforgettingit 1 point 6 days ago

That is because you are a man talking to another man. Not a husband talking to his spouse. How pain is shared between partners is different than how you would talk about it with friends.

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chickenf622 10 points 7 days ago

The more I learn about how periods and pregnancy can fuck up the body the more and more I'm certain women, in general, experience more pain than men on a regular basis.

The device that simulates period pain is something I feel all doctors should go through. If you know what that pain is like then I imagine you would listen more to your patients.

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Feathercrown 1 point 7 days ago

I'm fascinated by the existence of this device

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chickenf622 2 points 7 days ago

It's a useful education tool. If you can experience a close enough analog then you can be more aware of what someone is going through.

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Feathercrown 1 point 7 days ago

I'd imagine so, yeah

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unexposedhazard 6 points 7 days ago

Completely delusional to think they wouldnt. Women literally have built in monthly pain generator for the majority of their lives.

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bitjunkie 4 points 6 days ago

…according to them.

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Lushed_Lungfish 1 point 6 days ago

Sorry, I don't get it.

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wesker 2 points 7 days ago

Explain the man cold, then.

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searabbit 3 points 7 days ago

Men have weaker immune systems. Which also means women tend to have more autoimmune conditions, leading to more chronic pain. Ouch.

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IamMoonPie -1 points 6 days ago

Yeah duh…

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Fleur_ -1 points 6 days ago

How can women experience more pain then men when no balls to be kicked in?

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pomp 1 point 6 days ago

than*

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