The past several years ive been observing the relative tolerances for pain of my grandmothers, Betsy and LaVerne. One of them appears has a very high tolerance while the other has a very low tolerance for pain. Betsy is seemingly not bothered by complicated and intrusive surgeries, while LaVerne complains greatly over something as common as a sliver. The idea of gaining higher tolerance for pain through painful experiences is thwarted by the fact that they both have had many of the same injuries and surgeries and have gone through childbirth many times, so what is the difference between them? Maybe Betsy is just less likely to make her pain known than LaVerne. Afterall, nobody likes a whiner. Maybe there is some difference physically. To gain insight into this, I have devised an experiment (hypothetically of course).

The goal of the experiment is to determine whether Betsy truly is more tolerant to pain than LaVerne. A small electrode will be attached to the tip of each subject’s nose. Electrical pulses will be sent through the electrode and into the nose in intervals, starting with no power and increasing gradually. The subject will be given a stop button that will turn the power to the electrode off and instructed to only press the button when they experience pain. I believe that LaVerne will press the stop button at a lower level of power than Betsy.

A possible problem with this, aside from the fact that I doubt that either of them would agree to participate, is that this would not distinguish whether the difference is in the nerves in the nose, or if it is something in the brain that causes one to be more tolerant than the other. Also, it does not account for temporary desensitization. Future studies could focus on the location of the differences or use different stimuli on different parts of the body.