Published on 12, July, 2020
Tried to look for a thread on this but couldn't find one. I have an abnormal pain threshold, I know this is something that can go hand in hand with ASD.
I have suffered some very serious injuries without so much as a "brofen". It has largely served me well in my sporting endeavours being able to push through the wall or what not. What I find weird though is I had for example what is known to my work colleagues as the "First blood" incident after falling through a double glazed window, I lacerated my arm so badly colleagues ran for a second meeting with breakfast whilst I calmly stood their considered the injury and proceeded to repair it myself before a more stomach hardy colleague suggested he take me to A&E and let the professionals deal with it.
What I find odd though is none of that kind of stuff hurts, injuries happen fairly regularly for me as someone seems to have forgotten to programme me for danger, but everyday stuff does, I find it particularly painful lying or sitting for any period of time over 10 minutes and spend much of my time with just all over dull pain? I woke last night convinced I had broken my collar bone during the night obviously I had not.
I'm not worried it anything, it just seems weird and wondered if anyone else was the same in this respect as it's kind of difficult explaining to people because I don't know anybody the same.
I am like that as well. There always seems to be pain somewhere in my body and my nerves seem on edge 24/7.
But I cut myself and bleed and won't feel a thing. And end up bleeding without noticing, leaving trails and spots :-) I bump into things on a daily basis and always have bruises somewhere (and most often don't know where they stem from).
Injections or needles don't bother me much and you can draw my blood any time. Even an acute appendicitis didn't seem to hurt as much as it should have.
It just doesn't make sense, does it?
I have fibromyalgia, so chronic dull pain is not new for me - I think this in part raises the pain threshold. I often have pseudo-sciatica (same pain as normal sciatica but caused my cramping muscles not a damaged disc) and I still go to work and walk around with it, albeit very grumpily at times and having only taken Naproxen (stronger version of ibuprofen) as a painkiller.
Reading around there are more links being made between autism and fibromyalgia (especially in women). Fibromyalgia is generally related to issues with the nervous system not sending signals correctly, the idea being as autism puts strain on the nervous system this strain results in fibromyalgic episodes. I have noticed my chronic pain is definitely worse after a meltdown, sometimes the increased chronic pain is a warning signal of a period of shutdowns. I am waiting for more studies to be done.
I'm like that - I've had some terrible injuries that I barely notice andf just go into fix mode and deal with it. I've had a 4" nail through my foot, burn the size of my hand on my neck from a firework, ripped my leg open from hip to ankle when a ladder collapsed, broken my hand, wrist, a bunch of ribs etc, pulled the skin from the palm of my hand to see the mucles beneath, sliced deeply into my foerarm etc. - survived all of them without hospital visits or any real problems - they started calling me Captain Scarlet.
Which is all a bit strange because I suffer from chronic pain all the time (imagine falling down 10 flights of concrete stairs and that's my start point every morning).
I wonder if there's a difference between the way the brain processes internal pain and external injury?