High Pain Threshold

      Having a high pain threshold has come in handy many times in my life--15 years of a dislocating kneecap, 3 unanesthetized childbirths, 25 years of chronic migraines, but sometimes that blessing is also a problem. I do not think I was born with high pain tolerance, I credit my knee with that. When I was nine years old, I was playing in a sawdust pit with a friend. She called me and I stood up and turned to her while my foot was still buried in the sawdust, tearing the knee tendons. In my home that was not the kind of event worth the price of a doctor visit, so I just learned to walk, or limp, it off. From that time until I had it surgically repaired at age 24, my kneecap would dislocate spontaneously when my leg straightened too much, like when running flat out. Kneecaps going AWOL can be an extremely painful process and I believe that is when I developed a my tolerance for pain.
     Physical therapists have been surprised that I am silent during procedures that make most of their clients groan. It is not that I cannot feel what they are doing, it is just not intense enough for me to rate it as pain. One deep tissue massage was painful enough for me to not seek to repeat it, but I had to be told that most patients scream. My obstetrician could not tell what stage of labor I was at because I was not making any noise (although I would have if I thought it would help). During the Botox injections I tried for migraine relief, it was not until the doctor was encouraging me as if I were in labor that I realized the process was supposed to be painful. And when I talk to people about having cortisone shots in my knees, I get the impression those are considered painful too.
     The problem aspect of my pain threshold was brought home to me after my recent knee replacement. A few days after release from the hospital while my husband was at church, I thought I was getting sick to my stomach. It was not until I was halfway through my rehab exercises that I realized what I was actually experiencing was knee pain. That left me with forty agonizing minutes to wait for the meds to kick in. Several days later I had to repeat the experience when I mistook pain for tiredness. I am thankful for the discomfort my condition has spared me, but there are times when not recognizing pain is a real pain.