transcript: In the battle of the sexes we are
fiercely divided, who has a worse when it comes to pain? On the one hand women are left with the
task of fitting a watermelon sized object through a coin sized hole. On the
other hand, males protest that even the slightest nick of their family jewels
can leave them incapacitated. So which hurts more, childbirth or getting kicked in the balls? Before we begin there is a rumor that is
circulating the internet claiming that the human body can take up to 45
del units of pain and yet a mother feels up to 57 del of pain during
childbirth, which is apparently equivalent to 20
bones being fractured at once. The claim then goes on to suggest that
being kicked in the balls brings more than 9000 del of pain. Now
apart from the absurd logic that both of these events can surpass the alleged
human limit it, actually uses a unit of pain, the del, which doesn't even exist.
There is a unit of pain once devised called the dol, from the latin word for
pain "dolor" but we will discuss this later. To really evaluate this question we
first need to understand what pain is, which isn't an easy task. There is actually a group of specialized
nerve cells in your body called nociceptors that react to pain. Unlike other nerves which readily fire in
response to normal touch or temperature, nociceptors will only fire once a certain
pain threshold has been passed. Some of these nociceptors respond quickly sending
signals to the spinal cord and brain which produce sharp and sudden pain, allowing you to react quickly while others transmit more slowly and are
responsible for the prolonged dull ache you feel. For males, testicles are
internal organs that have migrated out of the body cavity which we explain in
a previous video you can check out here. And well some internal organs such as
the liver feel no pain, others like the testicles are covered with many
nociceptors making them extremely sensitive. Afterall their well-being is of the utmost importance. Furthermore the testicles are attached
to many nerves in the stomach as well as the vagus is nerve which is directly
connected to the brains vomit center, and this is why when hit the pain spreads
throughout the abdomen. The fact that testicles have minimal
protection only strengthens the accompanying symptoms of nausea, increased
blood pressure, heart rate and sweating. But not so fast gentlemen, even though
childbirth may not be facing a direct blow to any internal organs, the
mechanical distension of the uterine area also triggers nociceptors and
causes the same kind of visceral pain. Also consider that throughout evolution
female human hips have become smaller while babies heads have become
larger. And not to mention labor lasts 8 hours on average with a mixture of
nausea, fatigue and pain. On top of it all, tension and stretching
of muscle and tissue increase as labour intensifies creating sharp and localized
pain. Okay, so both obviously hurt and have a
lot of mechanical stimulation sending signals to the pain centers of the brain. But this is where it gets tricky, because
the pain isn't simply a physical response but rather a partially
perceptive or subjective experience. This means that every single individual
perceives pain in a slightly different way. And not only between individuals but
depending on your mood, alertness or even previous experience pain may affect
you differently. It's for this reason that so many
attempts to objectively measure pain have failed including the dol system which
we mentioned earlier. Interestingly nearly 80% of
upper limb amputees experience a phenomenon known as "phantom limb pain". That is they feel pain in a limb that is
no longer there. And while little is understood about the mechanism for the
pain, it is clear that there is no particular input to trigger the response
and yet they still feel a very real pain. As such pain is not a stimulus it is an
experience that is different for everybody. Suffice to say both instances
of childbirth and getting hit in the balls can hurt alot. So we call this one at tie, apart from
the fact that the experiences are completely different and there is so many
variables to consider. In some instances a man could
experience more pain than his female counterpart and vice versa. The main
difference being one results in a newborn baby, while the other potentially
results in a decreased the chance of having one. Got of burning question you want answered?
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