This is interesting to me because both my brother and sister have red hair. My sister's hair is a deeper red, and she had green eyes, whereas my brother's hair was strawberry blond most of his life, and he has pale blue eyes.

I felt that I was lucky by having blond hair at birth and hazel eyes, but then my hair started darkening around the age 10 and became auburn to ash brown, and my eye color changed to be closer to green, with specs of amber. My eyes were pretty much pale brown (which is the color of hazel nuts) when I was young, but then green started creeping in around the periphery.

I wonder how they measure the amount of pain that people can tolerate. I did see a test that was done on identical twins by putting their hands in ice water, but both of them could tolerate the ice water longer than the tester allowed.

I see - what's your and your sib's pain tolerance? (Though with guys there are more factors which come into play - such as testosterone and higher extracellular water which acts as a buffer. I once read that there's three factors which buffer men, so they tolerate alcohol better (one is the ECW, another is hormones, and i forget what the 3rd was).

I asked my brother about it, and he said that he thought that redheads had lower pain tolerance, but we really do not know.

I think that at least one of the articles on the topic said they have higher tolerance for some things, and lower tolerance for others. It's not so clear.

I'm still curious about the lower 2 links i posted of tanned-redheads, and non-tanning brunettes. How do they fit into the picture.

Strawberry blonde from birth. Hair deepened a tish in my teen years but not a typical "carrot top". Smattering of freckles, hazel eyes hair straight and bodiless as hair gets. Pain tolerance discussions fascinate me. How do people compare pain? No one has a CLUE what I feel when I say my hip jolts me as I try and stand up. As far as I know another may be wheel chair bound if they felt my hip pain. NO way to compare apples to apples where pain is concerned. I can say I have had physical therapists and doctors tell me "you have a high pain tolerance" but those are meaningless words. I have NO IDEA what other people's pain is like. BTW I don't tan, I sun burn BAD!! SUN BURN was a constant summers when I was pre-teen, STUPID. And yes it hurt A LOT! IMHO I have NO tolerance for mouth/tooth pain. The Dentist often doubles up on the Novocain when trying to finish a procedure. That and headaches. Can't tolerate a head ache. OH and these days the strawberry comes from a box. Has for 20 years. I haven't noticed my pain tolerance changing. I have taken seriously the adage that red heads bleed easier/more than most. THAT has been true a couple of times in my life. Once when giving birth and another time when giving blood.

I have heard of these studies and I find it hard to believe that pigment has anything to do with pain tolerance. I don't see the logic.

Have to agree Elizabeth, I have very high pain tolerance. My hair isn't red and I tan very nicely.

I have albinism. Near-white hair, blue eyes. I have burned all my life, I have to wear sunblock or long sleeves when I go out. I also have had at least 4 rounds with skin cancer, which luckily hasn't been a big deal, so far. Not sure about my pain tolerance, not as high as my mother's was, I know that.

I have dark brown hair and green eyes, I tolerate pain well. I've had many surgeries and drs. are astounded at how fast I heal. I'm 82 now, no gray hair and I can do almost as much as a healthy 50-year-old. I'm very blessed that way. Oh now I have blonde highlights as I'm very white and dark hair doesn't flatter older faces.

Can't recommend Siddhartha Mukherjee's book "The Gene" highly enough. It's about how the science of genetics developed, and continues to advance. Amazing. I'm still never going to have the depth of understanding that an genetic scientist has, but I can better appreciate their work after reading this book.

I clicked on the first link, and the key sentence to me was “These findings describe the mechanistic basis behind earlier evidence suggesting varied pain thresholds in different pigmentation backgrounds, ...” As implied in the article, there is still a long way to go before it has any human application, but I'm glad people are doing such research because you have to start somewhere. Legitimate* genetically-targeted medicine is the wave of the future, if we want it to be.

*meaning scientifically valid, not "polly tickle" motivated.

I didn't read the studies, but as someone who has been an anesthetist for almost 30 years, I can tell you that we dread anesthetizing red heads, especially young redheads. They have a myriad of complications, from being "oozy" meaning bleeding where another patient would not bleed. And also airway complications. Redheads tend to have reactive airways, which makes intubating and extubating them a challenge. Pain is so subjective, especially after surgery, so I can't comment on that.

Well here's another data point: I have dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and very pale skin (as Woody Allen once said, I don't tan, I stroke). I also have a high pain tolerance.

My two children that were born redheads feel pain more than the rest of us. My blonde child and I are both fair complected, but will tan a little, but we also burn fairly quickly. We both have high tolerances for pain which can be a bad thing.

I don't believe higher pain threshold means one does not feel pain, but that pain is better tolerated.

I know a few people who would LOVE to test their siblings' pain tolerance :-)

My endocrinologist was adamant that she see my roots while getting my patient info ready for my surgeon. Her reasoning was that reds are harder to anesthetise (sp). She also was of the mind set that during the course of her many years of practice she noticed reds are more likely to have autoimmune diseases. She also felt that reds had a lower pain tolerance. What is that info is worth? Is it true? I don't know.

Thanks for all the feedback! (With emphasis that only some aspects of being redhead is associated with more pain tolerance, as per that study.

Now regarding pain, here's something that may be of even more interest:

https://www.nuvospineandsports.com/blog/a-new-blood-test-to-measure-pain-is-coming-heres-how-it-works

But even more amazing than that are various "biofeedback" devices based on quantum physics, which of course, weren't ever permitted to be called diagnostic devices. Such as the L.I.F.E. system, QXCI and so forth.

Yayagal, I found your post very very interesting, because I suffer from loads of severe pain of all sorts, caused mostly by environment/lifestyle (terrible back, severe varicose, many painful foot conditions, arthritis, FMS, CRPS, eye conditions, and severe migraines which are helped by maxalt, and lots more.

And i'm more than 20 years your junior, yet I have mostly white hair, with hardly any pigment left. Despite what the med.field claims, i'm positive that stress and pain are just as much a cause of white hair as genes. Most practitioners really are clueless and satisfied to remain that way, as i know from experience.

Unlike you, i don't tolerate pain well, and once something sets in, I don't heal easily, if at all. I read that those few who are born without nerves which detect pain, are happy people, even if they're a mass of wounds. (Or at least i once read a story like that about a young boy). So why the heck does the medical field insist that's worse than extreme pain? After all, such people are happy, while severe-pain patients are not! So i challenge these preachers to get out of their ivory towers, and put their money where their mouths are (in this case, substitute money for the willingness to endure a torture rack for even a week!

Patriciae, thanks for the interesting feedback. And I do realize that numbness and paralysis are also bad at the other extreme. Hey! I even once had a scary experience with sleep paralysis, so yes, i know. Not to mention the short-term numbing given by dentists!

Note the "solutions" on the following Mayo link, are a joke.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/expert-answers/pain-and-depression/faq-20057823

For example, i left physical therapy worse off than when i started. They had me keep pulling on a pulley as "therapy" for my back. Well, not only didn't it help my back, but the 1st knuckle of my left ring finger was left permanently swelled up with painful arthritis. Likewise, a podiatrist a few years ago insisted on putting an Ace around my ankle, even though i hadn't visited him about my ankle, rather about my feet. Well, the result was that the same permanent swelling and damage happened to my ankle, as happened w/ finger.

So i totally disagree with all these"good doctors". What fixes a severely broken body and its accompanying depression, is usually real repair, not "talking" therapy, nor torture-by-exercise, (nor torture by tight bandages, as Sister Kenny of polio-fame proved, however much various authorities attempted to hush it up.) I mean, do car mechanics "talk" to a car to fix it? Do they tell the car "get some exercise"? If anyone thinks that hush-ups of real-repair haven't been ongoing to this day, not just Sister Kenny, think again.

That's not all Mayo got wrong. Their site's EMG info gives no warnings that a small minority of patients can suffer long-term repercussions from EMG. I only found out through digging deep on the www, which yielded me one solitary testimonial site, wherein several testimonials of long-term reactions to EMG proved Mayo's site to be irresponsible. And i thoroughly believe those minority-testimonials, because i experienced the same repercussions from acupuncture. (Yes, i'm aware that most people, yes even fibromyalgics like me will testify that acupuncture is relieving and with no bad reactions. And in fact, i myself had varying experiences during three separate acupuncture sessions - with one being neutral, another one fairly uncomfortable - whereas a third one caused me over a decade of lasting pain. Perhaps it's because most people don't have CRPS. But all this is just semantics, not true science, which would be to show an accurate picture of the source(s) of pain. Such as a too-acid body whose root cause is XYZ, combined with congenital-or-malnutritional narrow vessels, combined with XYZ-blockages such as heavy-metals/plaque/parasites, combined with structural-damage, leaky valves, leaky gut, etc.

But at least, Nuvo Spine's technique is a start. (see my previous post). Even if it's not mainstream. And will it ever become mainstream, that's the Q.