Do women and men experience pain differently?

Hi, my name is Dr. Mel Pohl. I am the Medical Director of the Las Vegas Recovery Center. We are an
addiction treatment program and we also have a program for people with chronic pain. My specialty is in
family medicine. I am a physician board-certified in family medicine and I also have a specialty in addiction
medicine. I am a Fellow of the American Board of Family Medicine and a Fellow of the American Board of
Addiction Medicine.
 
Actually, women do feel pain differently. What we found is that the spots in the brain where pain is
experienced, and they are diverse--I mean, there are a number of different areas in the brain structure. It
seems like the spots in women’s brains process the pain signal differently.
 
What we have found is that women may be less tolerant to pain. Therefore, painful stimulus, let’s say a push
that’s hard enough to make a fingernail blanch, might feel like pain to a woman whereas to a man, they
might feel less painful.
 
Having said that, women are able to tolerate longer periods of pain so that sort of probably goes back to the
experience of childbirth. I mean, a woman actually is programmed, if you will, on a brain level, on a brain
central nervous system level to be able to tolerate long periods of pain, but the acute experience of pain
seems to be more painful in a woman than for a man.