The Subjectivity and Relativity of Pain

By Amanda Workman

2 min read

When it comes to analyzing our pain, we consider both the subjectivity and relativity of that pain. A subjective view of pain is based on your personal opinions and experiences. An individual’s pain tolerance comes into play with the subjective viewpoint. This evaluates how painful the pain you are experiencing is compared to another person’s same experience. The relative view of pain means that we each suffer in our own way. We all have different pain experiences and pain tolerances.

What is a pain threshold?

An individual’s pain threshold is the amount of pain that they can reasonably tolerate. This is something that is completely subjective. Somebody with a high pain threshold will consider an injury less painful than somebody with a lower pain threshold. Due to this, doctors ask patients to rate their pain on a pain scale. For example, two people could have the same exact break in their ankle, one individual could consider the break to be a 9 on the pain scale, and the other person could consider that pain to be a 5.

Can pain tolerances change?

Our pains can be subjective due to how long we have been chronic, any other additional health issues we may have, and ultimately how much we are able to push through despite the pain. “Something that’s painful for one person may not be for another. Even from a medical standpoint, pain is subjective to the person experiencing it.”¹ This is where the mind frame of not comparing your pain to somebody else’s pain comes from. This means you cannot tell me that your pain is worse than my pain, and I cannot tell you that your pain is less than my own. There is a psychosocial element to pain tolerance. The CEO of Morphic Therapeutic, Praveen Tipirneni explains that your “pain tolerance rises and falls depending on what’s happening in the rest of your life."¹

How has my chronic migraine pain changed?

My personal pain tolerance has increased over the years. When my migraines initially became chronic, I could not function. My life was drastically affected. I have been living with chronic migraines for almost 12 years now. Most of the time I can function some during migraines. In addition to the migraines, I also have fibromyalgia, which forced me to adjust to a different kind of persistent pain.

How does age play a role?

It is typically understood that our pain tolerance increases with age. An example of this would be that a small pinch would hurt a baby much worse than that same pinch on an adult. This pain component is an example of relative pain. It is relative because a baby has very little, if any, pain experiences while an adult has several pain experiences to pull from.

A key thing to remember is that we all feel pain differently. It is also important to remember that even though an injury may seem minimal to you, it could be extremely painful to somebody else.

This article represents the opinions, thoughts, and experiences of the author; none of this content has been paid for by any advertiser. The Migraine.com team does not recommend or endorse any products or treatments discussed herein. Learn more about how we maintain editorial integrity here.

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glassmind Member
When asked by medical professionals to rate my pain I take one of two approaches. Either I concentrate on the pain and let my fave genuinely match my distress. Then I ask what face on the scale am I making? It’s usually 6-8. My other approach is based in the intervention I need from others. I once suffered a large deep second degree burn that was extremely painful and might have sent many folks to the emergency room. Having the first aid training and experience and pain tolerance, I dealt with the injury myself. It healed well with noticeable but minimal scarring. I would say it was a “face pain 9” but “intervention need pain 2” Any medical intervention pain below an 8, I take care of myself regardless of the actual pain level. So for me the pain scale is 10: I am unconscious and am taken to a hospital 9: I am conscious but someone else must take me to a hospital 8: I am conscious and I can take myself to hospital 7: I am in severe pain I will treat it myself unless it worsens or treatment fails 6: I am in moderate pain and I will treat it myself unless it worsens or treatment fails. 5: I am in moderate pain that will likely resolve or lessen with self care 4: I am in moderate pain that is my daily chronic pain level 3: I am in minimal pain and can enjoy something “extra” in my day 2: I have noticeable minimal pain that will pass with no intervention (I have stubbed my toe, perhaps or torn a cuticle) 1: I doubt this level exists. 0: This is impossible. For migraine I have always experienced head pain of 7 or greater along with other non pain symptoms. Thank you for the opportunity to share and to anyone reading. I am interested to read how others relate to or define the “pain scale”.
1. glassmind Member
 P.S. The “face pain scale” of 6-8 applies to regular doctor visits for bon migraine conditions. If I am at the er with a migraine the pain is 8 or 9.
2. Amanda Workman Moderator & Contributor
 I am so glad you decided to share this with us. Your scale definitely makes a lot of sense. I always think it is helpful to see how other rate their pain. I hope you are having a low pain day amanda (migraine.com team)
brownt Member
Interesting approach to pain. I used to consider how much pain I was in and rated it one to ten. As you say this was variable and would change as per other things in my life and how long the pain has existed. Having chronic pain for more than 25 years, my relationship to the pain has changed. About 8 years ago I was in the hospital for 5 days after having a stroke. The Dr though he would try to break through my pain because he could give me interventions drugs for multiple days. On the fourth day I woke up without pain. It felt amazing. Colours were brighter. Light was brighter. I had more energy than I ever remember having. It lasted all of two hours and my pain came back again. Ever since it has reminded me what being pain free feels like. Since then I have observed that light is brighter when I am feeling less pain. Other days it seems the lights are dimmed. I have also developed a scale that I can use subjectively that measure my state of how I am dealing with the pain. For instance my steady state pain is a 4. It is when I am aware of pain but not distracted. Going up from this point is how much the pain distracts me from my surroundings. 5 is when pain is interfering with my thinking somewhat 6 is when pain is about interfering with my thinking about half the time 7 is when pain has most of my attention 8 is when pain is pretty much all I can think about (for instance I cannot comprehend anything I am reading) 9 is when pain has me mostly unaware of my surroundings and it is challenging to respond to a nurses questions about how much pain I am in 10 is where I a so flooded with pain that outside does not exist and I am basically non responsive to anyone. I find this scale helps objectify the pain and although I may be in much pain if I can still function fairly well it may be a 5 or a 6. I also recognize that pain fluctuates and an answer like my pain is between a 5 and a 6 is a good answer as is my pain is mostly a 7 and flair to an 8 also works. Please add how you perceive pain as this has been a great interest of mine. I have also recognized how elastic pain can be and that a 4 can be very succinct but a 9 can cover a huge amount of territory as in 9.1,9.2,9.3 etc.