It’s long been a household debate: Who really is the stronger sex, men or women? It’s no secret that physically, men often outperform women. But women have long argued that the grueling experiences of childbirth and the monthly hormone fluctuations validate their strength and superiority as the tougher sex.
Over many years, pain researchers have firmly established that women do experience more pain than men. Unfortunately, the majority of chronic pain conditions predominately affect the female sex. Women are at a greater risk of developing several chronic pain conditions and display increased sensitivity to painful stimuli in the laboratory setting compared with men.
Chronic pain is a highly individualized and insidious clinical problem. It serves no physiological purpose, as it often outlasts the length of the original injury (usually around three months).
Given that pain is perceived and processed in the brain, many of us are unable to adequately communicate what it is, how it feels and the way it destroys lives. For this reason, Professor Paul Rolan of the University of Adelaide refers to it as the “cancer of the soul.”
