Gender and Pain

Last Updated: Sept. 1, 2003

Male and female brains process pain differently
Whether you are male or female also influences how much pain you have, what type of pain it is, and how treatment affects you. Male and female brains process pain differently, according to researchers.

Women report pain more often than men do, and in more body regions. They also have more severe and more persistent pain. When women and men are given the same pain stimuli in laboratory studies – gradually increasing heat, for instance – women say “ouch!” before men do. Women discriminate better between types of pain.

Age and sex differences exist in the prevalence of many chronic pain conditions. Migraine headache, as one example, affects mainly women in their childbearing years, decreasing with age. This pattern suggests hormones may play a role in migraines. That is less likely to be true, she said, for a pain problem that continues to rise with age, such as joint pain.

Despite their greater pain burden, women handle pain better than men do. Women use more coping strategies, honed perhaps by their more frequent encounters with pain, in menstruation and in labor and childbirth. Women prepare better for pain, they plan tactics to handle it. Men more often say, “I'll deal with it when I have to.”

Even young boys and girls often differ in how they perceive and cope with pain. Many cultures around the world permit girls to be emotional, but discourage boys from showing pain. These attitudes then are carried into adulthood.

Gender differences are a new focus for research
Until recently, scientists seeking to standardize data used only male animals in most laboratory studies of pain. In this way, they eliminated variations induced by normal, cyclic changes in female reproductive hormones.

Many trials of new medications and other treatments excluded women, too. Potential harm to the fetus in pregnant women remains a concern.

Then, in 1990, the NIH launched its Office of Research on Women's Health, drawing attention to unmet needs in this area. The NIH Revitalization Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993, requires that both women and minorities be included in NIH-funded clinical research.

Source: National Institutes of Health

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