Women and Chronic Pain in Vacaville

Women in Vacaville are more likely to experience chronic pain than men. Unfortunately, doctors are less likely to consider their pain a serious matter and treat it aggressively.

According to research, women can experience more often and more intense pain than men and their response to pain medications and pain management therapies differ from each other.

Women are also more likely to have several chronic pain conditions than men. They are prone to suffer from fibromyalgia than men, according to a 2009 study.

Why more chronic for women in Vacaville?

Medical experts have found several possible reasons why women experience more pain and respond to medications differently than men. These include:

• Genetics: Several chronic pain conditions are linked to genetics, and those conditions vary between genders.
• Sex Hormones: Doctors believe that there is a strong connection between pain reception and female hormones like progesterone and estrogen. There are some neurochemical changes that happen in female hormones, which intensify pain sensations. Some of the breakdown products of progesterone prevent the proper functioning of the inhibitory neurotransmitter. Once this happens, the nerves just keep firing.
• Biological Differences: Biology is another reason why women tend to experience more pain. It's because they undergo painful processes like childbirth, menstruation, and pregnancy.
• Brain structure and chemistry: According to researchers, the central pain processors of women have greater activity compared to men who are also experiencing similar pain levels. There are also studies that found that men and women respond better to different types of opioid painkillers, possibly because those pain medications work on different areas of the brain.
• Gender roles and societal conditioning: Some doctors believe that women share their pain more often because society has taught them to be more expressive than the opposite gender. They are also more self-aware and more in touch with their bodies.

Gender bias and pain management

Research has found that some bias exists in medicine regarding the way doctors handle the pain in men and women. Some physicians don't consider pain complaints of women more seriously and they don't seek aggressive treatments to relieve the pain.

There are several reasons why this bias exists, including:

• Men are able to explain their pain better in ways that doctors could understand. This could be because there are more male physicians than women physicians, even though that the number of female patients is greater than men.
• Traditional American societal attitudes have shown that women are more emotional and overly sensitive, which factors in on how doctors interpret their pain and manage it. A doctor may even assume that the pain a woman feels is "all in her mind" and would barely investigate it.
• Women can experience more chronic pain conditions that are difficult to diagnose and treat. Conditions like fibromyalgia is treated as hormonal or mental, instead of it being a true disease or disorder.

How women can receive better pain management

Women who don't receive proper treatment for their pain should do the following:

• Change doctors: If you're dissatisfied with your doctor's care, you should take action in changing to a better one right away. Staying with the same doctor won't improve your pain and you'll just spend your money for nothing.
• Express their concerns to their doctor: You need to be more comfortable in talking to your doctor about your condition. If you're not being taken seriously because you're a woman, you should know how to stand up and address this concern.
• Reach out to a pain advocacy group: If you feel you're getting unreasonable treatment, there are certain groups that you can talk to to get some help and perspective. They'll look into this matter and once they found there's a problem, they can make a complaint about it.

The main point is that you have the right to get your pain diagnosed and treated. Don't be shy about getting the medical attention that you need and deserve.