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After covering health stories for more than a decade, many involving women\u2019s health, I\u2019ve noticed a recurring pattern: Women living in significant pain can become very good at enduring it.<\/span><\/p>\n One\u00a0<\/span>18-year-old<\/span> <\/span>I interviewed had chronic headaches so severe she spent most of her childhood and teenage years \u201c<\/span>at home, in pain\u201d. <\/span>Others have expressed the relief of finally being believed, becoming emotional as they recount their experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n A\u00a0<\/span>29-year-old<\/span> <\/span>became tearful as she recounted how a doctor finally took her complaints about intense period cramps seriously enough to investigate. It was severe endometriosis, which had invaded her fallopian tube, colon and rectum.<\/span><\/p>\n These stories made me wonder how much pain they were expected to put up with, and why persistent pain seemed more common in women.<\/span><\/p>\n Research has long suggested that women are more likely to develop certain chronic pain conditions, but the reasons are complex<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n A global study published in October in Nature Medicine found that women were more likely than men to report pain across all 11 body sites studied; researchers analysed data from more than six million across 118 countries.<\/span><\/p>\n A study published in February this year in Science Immunology suggested that biological differences may explain why pain can take longer to resolve in women. It\u00a0<\/span>found that pain resolved more slowly in female mice than in male mice, and identified differences in immune cells involved in switching pain off.<\/span><\/p>\n In males, these cells are more active due to higher levels of sex hormones such as testosterone, while females experienced longer-lasting pain because their\u00a0monocytes \u2013 a type of white blood cell in the immune system \u2013\u00a0were less active.<\/span><\/p>\n The researchers also found evidence of a similar pattern in human patients recovering from traumatic injuries.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe difference in pain between men and women has a biological basis,\u201d lead researcher Dr\u00a0Geoffroy Laumet from Michigan State University said in a statement. \u201cIt\u2019s not in your head, and you\u2019re not soft. It\u2019s in your immune system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nWHAT NEW RESEARCH SAYS<\/span><\/h2>\n
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