I’m trying to figure out the reviews I’ve read for the epilator I recently bought. Most people say that it doesn’t hurt much at all, but some say it hurts a lot. I fall in with the “doesn’t hurt much at all” group. What I’m trying to figure out is if we’re experiencing the same amount of pain, or different amounts of pain.
Can a near identical stimulus (the most obvious variable here would be how long the users allowed their leg hair to grow) cause vastly different amounts of pain in different people? Or is it that users are thinking of the same amount of pain as being of varying intensities? Moreover, is there really a difference between how much pain something causes and how much someone feels that it hurts given it’s so hard to quantify pain?
My husband insists that if I pluck his eyebrows or ear hairs, it’s excruciatingly painful to him. I say he’s just a big baby. I pluck my eyebrows (or did*) starting when I was about 10 or so, and mostly I hardly even notice a twinge.
On the other hand, I seem to be much more sensitive to blood sticks, even on my forearm, than he is. Finger sticks are right out of the question. And to complicate matters, sometimes I don’t feel the stick of my insulin needle at all, sometimes I do a little bit, and sometimes it’s “WOW that hurts”, even in the same general area.
I think that different people have different pain tolerances. And I think that I have some nerves in part of my injection sites that are very sensitive, and other areas are not so sensitive.
*I’m getting electrolysis done, because I’m getting some old lady whiskers, and a slight mustache. To me, this doesn’t hurt any more than just plucking them would.