Gp explains why you should never tell doctors you have a 'high pain threshold'

An NHS GP has dismissed patients' need to tell doctors they have a "high pain threshold". Dr Tim Mercer took to TikTok to claim it's a "learned behaviour" used

in hope that doctors will take them "more seriously" during consultations. "I spend between a quarter and a third of my day every day dealing with people who have painful

problems," he began. "Invariably, one or two of them will say: 'I've got a very high pain threshold'." However, he explained most of us experience pain at the

same level, using examples of stubbing your toe or trapping your finger in a door to make his point. "Really what people are talking about is pain tolerance," Dr Mercer added.

"This can definitely be changed by various things." READ MORE: THIS ONE FRUIT IS 'SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN' TO LOWER YOUR CHOLESTEROL READ MORE: GP CLAIMS SUPPLEMENT HE

WOULD 'NEVER, EVER' TAKE CAN 'INCREASE YOUR MORTALITY RATE' He stressed: "Certainly there are people who have experienced extreme pain in the past who are much more

tolerant of it in the future. If you've given birth to a child or had kidney stones, then stubbing your toe might not comparatively be a significant problem - and therefore me having

never been through either of those, could be come extremely upset at stubbing my toe." Due to this Dr Mercer says his "low tolerance" has become a "great advantage"

as it means instead he's been "rewarded" when it comes to seeing the dentist and "sympathetic clinicians with huge doses of local anaesthetic". He continued:

"So perhaps patients coming in and telling a doctor they've got a high pain threshold is some sort of learned behaviour that they'll only be taken seriously if the doctor is

told the pain is way out of the ordinary kind of pain they'd experience. This would fit better with saying 'my pain tolerance is really high, but this pain is actually really

hurting me'." Dr Mercer acknowledged, however, that people who suffer with chronic pain can have "different things happen" which vary their experience so they feel pain

in different ways to others. While people with exposure to lots of pain in the past can experience different levels of pain from different painful stimuli. Summing up, he closed: "So

while it may be useful to tell your doctor that you've got a very high pain threshold, as a sympathetic listening doctor with a very low pain tolerance myself, it may be better to say

something like, 'I've usually a very high tolerance of pain, but this actually is really crippling me and I really need your help'." The video's comments section was

filled with sorry tales from TikTok users describing the circumstances in which they have to deal with pain on a day-to-day basis, meanwhile. "I haven’t got a high pain threshold, I

have a warped perception of pain from living with a chronic pain condition," one person explained. "I present differently to acute pain patients at the same pain levels." A

second added: "I know GPs are getting in the neck, so sorry for that. However, my pain tolerance is high because I can't get any help." A third cursed: "Turns out it’s a

massive disadvantage, ending up with it taking six years to be diagnosed with Coeliac disease because I didn’t present as being in 'enough pain' for the medical teams." And a

fourth claimed: "People with Asperger's can literally tolerate high pain. I had masses of stomach ulcers that perforated and almost killed me. GP didn't believe me as the pain

didn't appear bad." While a fifth told a similar story: "I'm a chronic pain patient. I'm in constant pain. So if I'm complaining that something hurts, it

really freaking hurts. But my doctor doesn't believe me. apparently I'm lying and if I was in that much."