What type of pain is the strongest for humans: scientists have an answer

Everyone has experienced pain in their lives. This is how the body reacts to irritation of the nervous system. The intensity of unpleasant sensations depends on nervous activity, psychological mood and emotional background.

There is a high and low pain threshold, and for some people, a small irritation can cause indescribable discomfort, while others will not even feel it. IFLScience has published a study by scientists on what kind of pain is the most severe for a person.

CRPS disease

CRPS is a complex regional pain syndrome that can occur due to minor or moderate tissue damage. This disease is usually characterized by continuous burning or throbbing pain that has no specific cause. Sometimes you may experience pain after you have had surgery or a heart attack, but this syndrome can also appear without any good reason.

Those with this condition may experience spasms, tremors, and muscle atrophy. It may be painful to put on socks.

According to scientists, CRPS is one of the most painful conditions, with a score of 42 out of 50 on the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ). This is worse than the pain of amputating a finger or a toe without anesthetic.

Worst of all, the disease is accompanied by unbearable and prolonged pain that is likely to last a lifetime.

Urolithiasis

According to the urologist, this disease causes unbearable pain. Kidney stones are formed due to the accumulation of waste in the blood. When solid particles are in the kidneys, they usually do not cause pain, but when they begin to block the flow of urine and enter the ureter, a small tube, the body tries to get rid of them. And this is where the real test for the body begins. If the stone is large, it can clog the ureter, causing the kidney to swell and leading to indescribable pain.

This can lead to serious kidney problems and even death if left untreated.

In 2018, the National Health Service of Great Britain published a list of the 20 most painful diseases, the most popular of which are:

• bone fracture;
• migraine;
• trigeminal neuralgia, a pathological condition characterized by the sudden onset of severe burning pain;
• sudden and severe pain in the face, which can occur even from the wind;
• endometriosis is a gynecological disease in which endometrial cells grow outside the inner walls of the uterus, causing a chronic inflammatory process.

Insect venom

Entomologist Justin Schmidt specialized in the study of insects and spent his entire adult life getting bitten in various exotic ways. This led to the creation of the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, a scale from zero to four that measures the degree of pain of different types of insect stings.

For example, a honey wasp and a bald hornet have a two on the scale. A three is for the Florida harvester ant, and only three species have reached a four: the warrior wasp, the bullet ant, and the tarantula hawk wasp. According to the researcher, the bullet ant causes the most unbearable pain.

Earlier, OBOZ.UA published a study showing that excessive salt intake increases the risk of type 2 diabetes.

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