Men and Women Experience Pain Differently; Difficulties in Migraine Diagnosis in Men

A woman is three times more likely to have her recurring headache correctly diagnosed as migraine and treated appropriately, says Dr. Copperfield, a GP in Essex, UK.

He elaborates - "Asking a man to describe the pain he's in is a complete waste of time. Men simply don't have the vocabulary. [A woman will] tell me where it hurts, when it hurts, what brings it on, what makes it worse, how long it lasts and what makes it better.

A chimpanzee with a clipboard could get the classic history of a one-sided thumping pain, triggered by stress, tiredness or caffeine, accompanied by nausea and preceded by a bit of visual blurring, from a woman. All it would get from a bloke with the same headache would be, “I'll tell you one thing, Cheetah. It hurts like crazy."

Good doctor explains it by an inherent difference men and women react to pain. When men are in pain, the area of the brain that's responsible for analysis and problem-solving is the most active. When women experience pain, the limbic system, the part of the brain concerned with emotional responses is the one that handles it.

Interestingly, Dr. Copperfield notes, that "when men are asked to forget how annoyed they feel about being in pain and to focus more on the unpleasant sensation itself, their level of pain reduces. This doesn't happen in women; it's as if they can't divorce the emotional from the physical aspects of discomfort."

Kudos to Dr. Copperfield for an excellent article.

link: Why men are better than women at dealing with pain