Female Pain is Grossly Undermined — Now Researchers Know Why

Women are no strangers to pain. And in fact, women may actually be more prone to it, considering females experience childbirth, painful periods, and have a higher risk of developing chronic pain conditions (like fibromyalgia or endometriosis). Despite this, the medical community is known to mistreat, or overlook, a female patient’s pain.

New research published by the Journal of Neuroscience has found a reason for this disparity, or “a scientific explanation for why female pain and health has been vastly overlooked by the medical community,” reports the article. The reason: a fundamental, biological difference in the pain receptors of males and females.

During the study, researchers found that while they were able to “manipulate certain receptors in the male mice to abolish chronic pain, doing the same to female mice had no effect,” reports the article.

Bottom line: men and women register pain extremely differently. 

The research follows a mandate from the National Institute of Health (NIH), which recognized sex as a “biological variable”, therefore requiring studies to include and test both sexes.

Ted Price, co-author of the study, said that the recent mandate has brought to light a “slew of discoveries and findings that were previously ignored in situations when preclinical and clinical trials yielded different results likely due to the sex disparity”. This has led to the mistreatment of women, he added.

In the future, these findings may lead the way to “sex-specific” drugs or treatments — and, hopefully, a more serious approach to women’s health.