Tag Archives: pain

Health

Experiencing Pain

Women and men experience pain differently. Recent studies reveal that women, when compared to men, experience:

  • more recurrent, severe and longer lasting pain
  • 50% higher rates of pain in head, neck, shoulder, knee and back
  • twice as likely to experience orofacial pain
  • 150% higher rates of migraine headaches
  • 4 times as likely to experience fibromyalgia
  • up to age 65, more likely to experience pain in multiple regions in the body

Men, on the other hand, experience higher rates of multiple painful conditions, including cluster
headaches, coronary heart disease, gout, duodenal
ulcers and pancreatic disease.

Why the differences?

First, our physiology and our sex hormones differ. Scientists don’t know exactly how androgens and estrogens influence how we perceive pain, but they do know that these hormones

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Learning

The Joy of Pain

By Shae Hadden | Bio

It might be said that existence isn’t possible without both pleasant and unpleasant experiences—without pain and pleasure. They are like a guidance system, helping us navigate through life and orienting us away from illness and danger and death.

We have pleasant, positive
emotional states like love, joy, sympathy, affection, self-confidence,
happiness. And we have unpleasant emotions like boredom, loneliness,
jealousy, fear and sadness.

I’ve been relating to the physical
pain I’m experiencing since my car accident as a source of learning.
I’m actually living ‘in joy’ with it —you might say ‘enjoying’ the fact
of being alive and being in pain. Many people I share this with seem
surprised,

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Health

Aches & Pains II

By Marilyn Hay

This is the second post in a two-part series.

Changes and adaptations to my arthritis didn’t end with learning to manage pain or finding new and fulfilling things to do at home. I could no longer manage the spiral staircase where I was living—I came close to falling enough times that it scared me. And the long, brutally cold winters in Winnipeg brought even more constant, relentless pain. I couldn’t bend well enough to get boots on, so was often confined indoors, unable to negotiate the snow. The idea of house-hunting was exhausting and I really didn’t know where to begin looking. I just knew I needed somewhere that wouldn’t get as cold in the winter and, hopefully, wouldn’t have as much snow.

Luckily,
just as I decided I needed to move, friends discovered a new adult
housing development being built in British Columbia, so I didn’t need
to do any house-hunting. I bought a unit online and I’ve lived here for
over two years now. I live in a bungalow now, so no stairs to worry
about. In spite of the fact that the prolonged winter rains and damp
aggravate my joints, I love it. At least I

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