Do Different Genders Feel Pain Differently?

Difficulty Index: ★★★★☆

Alice Yoo '27

The commonly held belief is that women can withstand pain better than men. However, many studies over the decades have proven that women have more sensitivity to pain. In other words, women experience more high-intensity pain and possess less tolerance for pain, despite the myth. 

Statistics of chronic pain, which affects 20% of adults worldwide, show that 70% are women. Approximately half of chronic pain illnesses are more often found in women, while only 20% are more often found in men. Specifically, 75% of those suffering from migraines were women, and about 90% of fibromyalgia patients were women. Studies also represented women reporting sensing more pain compared to men, although the accuracy is hard to prove due to the subjective nature of pain. For example, at Stanford Hospital, 11,000 patients rated their pain on a scale of 0 to 10 from 2007 to 2010. According to the study, women’s pain scores were 20% higher than the ones of men on average, across over 250 medical conditions, including lower back pain and sinus infections. 

Another research was conducted by Roger Fillingim, a pain researcher and director of the University of Florida's Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence. He gathered a group of healthy female and male volunteers and used stimuli that could cause pain–heat, cold, electricity, and pressure–on their arms. Volunteers rated their pain on a scale of 0 to 10, and the experiment reached a halt on level 10. Mostly, women reported higher levels of pain while experiencing the same stimuli as men. 

Nonetheless, the reason behind the difference in pain perception between men and women has only been recently discovered in research held by members of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center. The researchers delved into the nociceptors near the spinal cords of mice, monkeys, and humans. Nociceptors are nerve fibers that signal impairment of the tissue caused by stimulus.

The team chose to focus on prolactin, a hormone that stimulates lactation after childbirth, and orexin B, a hypothalamic neuropeptide that keeps the body awake. When the team added prolactin in the tissues of both female and male rats, only the cells of female rats were observed with higher sensitivity. It was the opposite for orexin B–sensitivity of male rat cells was raised. This was a groundbreaking discovery of gendered nociceptors. When the team blocked prolactin and orexin B, the results corresponded to adding them; there was reduced sensitivity in cells of male rats with less orexin B and of female rats with less prolactin. Further into the study, the results overall supported the existence of gendered nociceptors in monkeys and humans. 

This is a step towards a more personalized medical plan for each patient to most effectively relieve pain. Frank Porreca, PhD, research director of the Comprehensive Center for Pain and Addiction at the University of Arizona Health Sciences, said, “We are bringing the concept of precision medicine – taking a patient’s genetics into account to design a therapy – to the treatment of pain. The most basic genetic difference is – is the patient male or female? Maybe that should be the first consideration when it comes to treating pain.”

Works Cited

Harrison Stratton, Grace Lee, Mahdi Dolatyari, Andre Ghetti, Tamara Cotta, Stefanie Mitchell, Xu Yue, Mohab Ibrahim, Nicolas Dumaire, Lyuba Salih, Aubin Moutal, Liberty François-Moutal, Laurent Martin, Edita Navratilova, Frank Porreca. “Nociceptors are functionally male or female: from mouse to monkey to man.” Brain, 2024;, awae179, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae179

Neighmond, Patti. "Women May Be More Adept Than Men At Discerning Pain." National Public Radio, 26 Aug. 2019, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/26/741926952/women-may-be-more-adept-than-men-at-discerning-pain. Accessed 27 June 2024.

Osborne, Natalie R, and Karen D Davis. “Sex and gender differences in pain.” International review of neurobiology vol. 164 (2022): 277-307. doi:10.1016/bs.irn.2022.06.013

Pigott, Stacy. "Study shows first evidence of sex differences in how pain can be produced." The University of Arizona Health Sciences, The University of Arizona, 10 June 2024, healthsciences.arizona.edu/news/releases/study-shows-first-evidence-sex-differences-how-pain-can-be-produced. Accessed 27 June 2024.

Rettne, Rachael. "Women Feel Pain More Intensely Than Men Do." Scientific American, 24 Jan. 2012, www.scientificamerican.com/article/women-feel-pain-more-intensely/. Accessed 27 June 2024.