I grew up thinking that I had a high tolerance to pain. The older I got, the more tolerance I thought I had. Part of that reason is that I try not to complain about pain. I don’t seem to have the same reactions as many do to pain. So in my mind, it meant that I dealt with pain in a better manner, and thus my tolerance was higher.
Lately though, I’ve been dealing with increasing amounts of back pain, which stems from me missing a portion of a disk in my back. So I decided to see if there was a relation between pain tolerance and autism, as that is a new standard that I simply do.
It turns out that I was wrong though. The manner in which many people who have autism deal with pain is different from those who don’t have autism. But they still feel that pain, and sometimes more so than others. It’s not just physical pain that is effected by this though, but the entire perception of pain can be different.
Now, not everyone who has autism is hypersensitive to pain. Even if they are hypersensitive to one form of pain, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are hypersensitive to all types of pain. Conversely, some with autism are hyposensitive, and they experience one or multiple types of pain less. Simply, it’s a bit of a mess when talking about pain perception and people with autism. This gets more complicated when other issues are put into the equation, such as various disorders that are more associated with people with autism.
When autism was first defined, it was believed that they didn’t feel pain. That was because those being studied were observed doing things like going outside naked and rolling around in the snow. They seemed impervious to both heat and cold. And often, when inflicted with pain, they didn’t show the common signs of pain. That view has changed, but studies still show that children with autism are often not given the same sort of attention that non-autism kids are because they don’t show that they are in pain, or they can’t communicate what they are feeling effectively.
That is one of the big points too; that people with autism often lack the communication skills they need in order to effectively let others know how they feel. They don’t talk about it as others would. Their facial and body expressions often don’t get the point across.
There is another thing at play though. New studies are being done that are really looking at pain perception in people with autism. One recent study compared brain imaging of people who have autism, as well as others you did not, while they were feeling pain. The study was relatively simple in that the individuals would undergo an MRI while they had a piece of metal strapped to their leg that would be heated up to a point where it was painful, but not damaging.
What the researchers found was that both participants had the same area in the brain light up, an area associated with processing pain, as the heat was beginning to ramp up. But while the participant’s brain who didn’t have autism would continue to be lit up, the brain with someone with autism would go dark. The way that the brain handled pain was simply different. These studies will need further research, as it is relatively new, but it’s showing that someone who has autism has a brain that simply works differently.
But it gets more complicated than that as well. It’s not just physical pain that is perceived differently. This can be even what most would consider an annoyance. One researcher who is making breakthroughs in this field has autism himself, and he describes that when he was young, his mom would vacuum the floors, and it would set him off. It was too much. He eventually learned to deal with this, but it resulted in him becoming numb.
The reason for that is that he was hypersensitive to noises, and to other stimuli, as many people with autism are. This is complicated in that people with autism often have a hard time distracting themselves, and instead they focus on the annoyance, which intensifies it.
All of this means that people with autism have to be treated differently from a medical standpoint, while they also have to use different ways to cope. And that is all a learning experience.
