# Bearable extreme physical pain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 2, 2014, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691 "2014-01-02T07:50:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/21 "2014-01-04T09:21:35Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > GQ ? The scientific world says its subjective. I was looking for a range of answers. > [@](#): > > Right there it means its like a computer program “run ExtremePain”. > It may or may not crash the computer I consider strong physical pain to be a signal that by default means DO SOMETHING TO STOP THIS SIGNAL NOW!!! The pain signal can involve the urgency of the problem. > [@](#): > > its a bit hypothetical that anyone actually likes it, it sounds a bit inconsistent with definitions to like it… That if they like it then its not pain. The signal could be associated with pleasures and be triggered by the pain. Or you could feel numb and pain would make life seem more meaningful. (I’ve been experiencing that lately - deliberately causing myself some pain) > [@](#): > > However the idea may be that the release of endorphins with the pain is what convinced someone that painful experience was somehow enlightening, or at least made it feel like the load was lighter. Yeah that could be it. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/22 "2014-01-04T13:16:23Z")
This is very unscientific and really just a personal anecdote and not really about _extreme_ pain. When I do stained glass I tend to get glass spilinters in my fingers. When I first started, taking the bigger, deeper splinter out was quite painful, but as time went on I could settle myself first, then removing them was much less painful… The splinters are rarely in the same place, so scar tissue isn’t the answer. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/23 "2014-01-04T14:15:00Z")
I 4ever reading an article recently that said a study going that religious people were able to tolerate higher Kellogg of pain than atheist when looking at a religious item while inn pain. In the studies case I believe the item was a picture of the Virgin May and the pain was caused by submerging the test subjects hands in frigid water. Of course I also recall that cursing produced similar results. YMMV ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/24 "2014-01-04T18:47:07Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > G. Gordon Liddy famously held his hand over a burning candle until the skin turned black. When asked how he endured the pain, he said, “The trick is in not minding.” Liddy may in fact have done just that, but this story predates him by a good bit. A nearly identical tale was told of T.E. Lawrence. As reported by Peter Hathaway Capstick in _Death in the Long Grass_: (T.E. Lawrence had demonstrated, to his batman, his practice of snuffing out lamps with his bare hands, and the batman had determined to try it himself) _" 'Ee, that 'urts" cried the batman, snatching his scorched hand away. “Wot’s the secret then?” “The secret” intoned Lawrence in his mystical way "is not_ minding _that it hurts"._ ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/25 "2014-01-04T21:10:56Z")
Some people have a higher threshold for pain than others. I survived my broken wrist without taking anything stronger than asprin, and only for the first week. Ditto my recent burned foot. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/26 "2014-01-04T21:34:07Z")
If you are a masochist, you get intense sexual pleasure from the experience. The nerves transmitting pleasure and pain are very close, and the pleasure overrides the pain. Once the masochist reaches climax, the pleasure is gone and the pain is then noticed. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2014, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/27 "2014-01-04T22:58:15Z")
It all varies anyway. When I broke my ankle, I felt little pain and even dragged myself to the hospital emergency room convinced it wasn’t broken. The doctor asked if I had a high pain threshold and I said that my dentist doesn’t think so. I am exquisitely sensitive to dental pain. After they operated on my ankle, they sent me home with 50 narcotic pills. Eight years later they are still all sitting in my medicine cabinet “just in case”. I wonder what their street value is. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/28 "2014-01-05T04:05:09Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > G. Gordon Liddy famously held his hand over a burning candle until the skin turned black. When asked how he endured the pain, he said, “The trick is in not minding.” This is supposed to be how the “dissociative anesthetics” like ketamine, PCP, and dextromethorphan work, by causing the patient to dissociate their sense of self from the self-image of the body and its sensations, so that they still feel the pain, and can tell that it hurts, but it kind of feels like it is happening to somebody else, so it doesn’t bother them. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people can learn to do this without the aid of outside chemicals. However, I fear that most of the time, people undergoing torture and torturous death are experiencing just as much pain as it seems like they should. I certainly HOPE this isn’t the case, but I suspect that it is. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/29 "2014-01-12T01:53:00Z")
[http://www.cuttingdepression.net/why-do-people-cut-themselves/](http://www.cuttingdepression.net/why-do-people-cut-themselves/) > [@](#): > > Cutting distracts them from thinking about their emotional pain, as this causes concentrated efforts on self-mutilation as well as manifest sensations of physical pain. Biologically, humans tend first to physical pain rather than emotional pain; thus, cutting provides temporary relief from all those heavily stressful and distressing thoughts and emotions. In essence, the physical pain masks emotional pain. > > Adding more incentive as to why people would cut themselves is the fact that cutting causes a rush of natural painkillers called endorphins that become activated once people hurt themselves. It is also common for teenagers to state that by engaging in self-harm, they feel as if their emotional pain is leaving their bodies via the bleeding. > … > Teenage depression usually goes hand-in-hand with the feeling of emptiness. Teenagers suffering from depression commonly say that they experience “nothingness”, unable to feel anything. On the other hand, individuals who had previously undergone traumatic events in their lives may have developed numbness as a form of defense mechanism. In these cases, people cut themselves because they experience a “rush”, a sense that they can still feel something, and that they are alive. ---
**Author:** ![JohnClay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@JohnClay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnClay)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/30 "2014-01-12T01:55:08Z")
Alternative types of pain besides cutting: [http://www.cuttingdepression.net/how-to-stop-cutting/](http://www.cuttingdepression.net/how-to-stop-cutting/) “…popping yourself with a rubber band or holding ice until it becomes painful…” ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/31 "2014-01-13T16:30:06Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > G. Gordon Liddy famously held his hand over a burning candle until the skin turned black. When asked how he endured the pain, he said, “The trick is in not minding.” [He must have been channeling](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEEVNX7dSCU&noredirect=1) Lawrence of Arabia (which was made in, what, 1962?) ---
**Author:** ![chinchalinchin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9bd4f/32.png) [@chinchalinchin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chinchalinchin)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/32 "2014-01-14T02:45:09Z")
This is going to sound weird, but when I was like 10 or 11, I used to punch myself in the thigh until it bruised. At my current age, I don’t think I could stand it, but back then, if you got past the initial stinging, the subsequent blows felt slightly euphoric. I was a strange little kid. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/33 "2014-01-14T05:57:42Z")
I have osteoarthritis - it is said to produce the same level of pain as does childbirth (it is a good thing that happens to women - if you asked a man to do it more than once, the species would be extinct). On one memorable day, my entire right arm - should to finger tips was absolutely on fire - even more intense than the usual. I had a doc’s appt, so could not take as much narcotic as would be required. After a while, I disassociated myself from it - I cannot explain it, except that I knew it was much more painful than I had ever experienced, but it seemed kind of like background music - you are aware of it, but it does not draw your attention. If that ever happens again, I’m going for the pills, the hell with being coherent. I’ll leave the exploring of the phenomenon to others. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2014, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/34 "2014-01-14T21:29:53Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > A dentist performed what was supposed to be a very painful procedure on me. He didn’t tell me it was going to hurt beforehand. I wasn’t paying particular attention to what he was doing except there was a sort of sawing motion. > > Eventually he paused and said to me, “You must have a really high pain threshold.” > > After that, it hurt like crazy. That’s how absent-minded I am. I guess it was sort of a self-hypnosis. [Studies have shown](http://www.pnas.org/content/102/36/12950.full) that if you expect it to hurt, the subjective experience of pain is more intense than if you don’t expect it to hurt. ---
**Author:** ![boyhowdy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@boyhowdy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boyhowdy)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691/35 "2014-01-16T15:08:40Z")
“Cutters” (self-injurers who often slice deeply enough to produce tell-tale scarring) report a sense of calm or euphoria. It gives them a sense of control somehow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bearable-extreme-physical-pain/677691.md?page=1)