Hi

I have been looking everywhere to see if perhaps there is a link between high pain tolerance/threshold and high tolerance to medication.

i had an operation on my neck (Thyroglossal cyst) when i was 6 and i woke up during the operation, couldn't move though.

when i was 20 i crushed my wrist and broke bones in my hand falling 7ft onto concrete and landing on on hand palm down. when i went to hospital the there was no doctor there (small country town) so they got me to see the janitor who put a half cast on and sent me home (wasn't in much pain). a week later i went to my GP who after examining it said i had to go to major hospital 300klms away and get it operated on straight away. i never took any pain medication for it.

when i got to hospital i told them about how i'd woken up during my earlier operation and some other issues where medication hadn't worked and they gave me a cocktail to knock me out.. after counting back from 100 and still being awake (to their surprise)they decided to dose me again with a lot more medication and i got to 40 the second time before the was knocked out. i awoke as the were pushing me into my room after the operation which which they said i should have been still out for some time still. upon waking up i could see and hear everything normally .. only when i tried to speak i came out as gibberish and i couldn't sit up for more than several seconds as i my muscles would just give out. this effect wore off after 10 minutes and i asked if i could go home. they said i was supposed to stay at least overnight .. but i finally convinced them to let me go if i could keep there food down.

10 years later i cut my tendons in my hand (didn't feel any pain either) and when i got to the hospital they took hours to get me into the emergency department because i wasn't jumping up and down and complaining about pain. when i finally did get to see a doctor he had a look and was going to stitch me up (didn't ting anything major was wrong because i wasn't in any pain). after about 15-20 minutes of trying to convince the doctor something wasn't right as i couldn't move my fingers he checked it out again more thoroughly and found i had cut my tendons in my hand and that i had to go into surgery straight away to reattach them.

2 years after that i had an accident, jumped 3m and landed full body weight ( i'm 6'5" and weight 125kg) on one foot and there was a depression on the ground you couldn't see because the grass was freshly cut and appeared and level. my foot twisted back and touched my leg. walked 2klms back to car and drove to hospital to get it checked out as i thought i must have torn ligaments in my foot as couldn't apply nay pressure on it at all without it collapsing although the pain wast bad. when i got to the hospital after examining it they said it must be a sprain because if it was more serious i wouldn't be able to walk and the pain would be to much :S, i explained about high pain tolerance which they just ignored. it took 2 years of rehab on ankle before i could put pressure on it without it collapsing. (it's fine now).

if you have to deal with medical people they seem disinclined to do much for you unless you lied about being in pain because they don't think anything is wring unless you do.

i also have a high tolerance to alcohol as well as medication though i don't take either very often, used to drink with friends when younger but as it dint do anything it was kind of pointless, never had a hangover either even after drinking two 700ml bottles of rum in 2 hours while my tree friends managed 1 1 1/4 between 3 of them.I don't drink at all now and haven't for over 10 years.

was wondering if anyone else had similar problems, from what i have seen from googling usually people high tolerance to medication have a lower tolerance for pain then others.

Hello djorn,

Welcome to the NeuroTalk Support Groups.

I can't really help you with your questions I'm sorry but I just wanted to mentioned that a long time ago when researching some info for someone I read that people with Fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions had increased amounts of something called Substance P.

Perhaps you have the opposite and have decreased amounts of Substance P for some reason.

I have absolutely no idea if this is something worth investigating but thought I'd post for you anyway.

Welcome djorn.