A new research has found that male hormones make them feel pain less intensely or differently.

The research that was carried out in transsexuals in Germany who have undergone sex change and that post-procedure subjects say their new lives, as males are literally less painful than their previous lives as females.

Professor Hartmut Goebel, director of the Pain Clinic in Kiel, Germany says that testosterone reduces sensibility to pain when compared to estrogens that actually increases sensitivity to pain.  

Goebel says that the quality of pain men experience is also different. He adds that female brain colours pain with more emotional response and that men are able to mask low-level pain in a way female brain cannot. He points out that up to 70 percent of women suffer from frequent severe headaches, as opposed to only 52 per cent of men. 

Inspite of this, women seems to be more willing to under go painful procedures and situation such as eyebrow plucking, leg waxing and wearing uncomfortable shoes or tight garments. 'And women heed pain as a warning signal and more frequently consult physicians when they experience pain, while men's tendency to ignore pain means they sometimes fail to go to the doctor until a situation is seriously advanced,' Goebel notes.

Ironically most studies involving pain medication have involved male test subjects when 80 per cent of pain medication is administered to women.

Source-Medindia
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