High Pain Threshold - how do you know?

Depends on if you are ginger or not, apparently! ;-)

i can help you gauge your pain threshold, if you like

Do the cold pressor test, or whatever it's called.

And what's that? Is it reliable?

I know someone who has a PhD in Pain. Although it sounds like something a TV wrestler would have (and something a character in the Simpsons once claimed to have) an actual real PhD that he got by doing all kinds of studies into why certain things hurt.

He know works in the pain research department of a major London university. I'l try and track him down and ask him about this. It's been a while since we last spoke, though.

Cheers for that.

I really resent the "if you were suffering from x you'd know all about it".

My mums good at spouting that one, but being a hypochondriac I am prone to clutching my chest and worrying about collapsing lungs, heart failure etc.

How do you Know All About It?

you'll probably be at the doctor's

I either have a very high pain threshold as I never seem to be in pain
or
a very low pain threshold because I have never experienced pain, so when i do it will really hurt.

yeah the comment about 'you'd know all about it' was totally off base. I don't really know the answer to the original question, pain is such a slippery thing. But I have learned more about sciatica since I got pregnant as it's a common complaint--the baby gets bigger and presses on the nerve running down your leg. I've had everything from numbness to lack of response to middling pain to no symptoms at all as a result--it changes as the baby changes position and with your own posture and flexibility. So it's certainly possible to have sciatica with only low-level symptoms--this is when you should try to catch it!

There is a yoga pose that I find particularly helpful--it's called pigeon pose:
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/863_1.cfm
Don't be scared by the picture, that's the advanced pose. Just do the first two steps listed, then switch and do the other side. After you're done, get back on all fours and rock your hips around a bit to relax them. This pose helps open up your hips so that nerve doesn't bump up against anything.

training, constantly subjecting yourself to pain will increase your threshold. obv.

considering i recently had the shit kicked out of me by junkies (for petty fucking change) im going to say my threshold has largly decreased since highschool(i.e the last time i got in a fight).

Cold pressor is seeing how long you can keep your hand in freezing cold water. I can't quite remember what its for, I just remember it from psychology a level.

Thanks Teeny, I'll give that a try (not the advanced obv!)

I may try to numb my hand/bring on gangrene just to see if I can, but not this weekend.

Try exposing yourself to kryptonite.

This can be a real problem. Last month I found out I had this awful kidney infection for a month+ and the Dr. was like "How do your kidneys not hurt?" I mean, I could kind of feel them, I was aware of them, but they didn't really *hurt*.

A similar thing is going on with my sister and a possible blood clot. She's like "but it doesn't *really* hurt".

See! My point exactly! You could have something life threatening going on and just be putting it down to a simple annoyance.

Although a friend of mine was completely the opposite. He rushed himself up to casualty twice convinced he was having a heart attack, on both occasions it was just bad indigestion and the ensuing panic led him to believe his arm was numb.

I'll probably die of the heart attack I put down to indigestion.

Dr's (or clinicians) usually punch you in the small of your back to diagnose a urinary tract infection that has become a kidney infection. And most kidney infections are caused by untreated UTI's. Lower abdominal pain can be a sign for lots of bad things - huge ovarian cysts, for instance.
back/leg/hip pain is probably just the onset of arthritis - just kidding! Muscles and bones don't tend to send symptoms to the body the way organs do.Meaning leg pain is probably due to not stretching enough as opposed to "leg cancer".
if you're achy, you should do what teeny said, and just monitor your bodies response.And take your temperature. If you have severe pain in an area where lots of organs are located, you should go to a Dr., or the ER, asap.
I work at a reproductive health clinic, and we make referalls constantly for the serious stuff (kidney infections, for instance). We also treat people for the itchy/scratchy stuff. STI's and YEAST.
I suppose one thing I've learned is that it's not good to try to diagnose yourself.

teeny otm about pigeon pose. you'll feel great after you do it.