The conference was the first to be wholly devoted to this topic. Some 500 persons attended the 2-day meeting. More than 30 researchers and clinicians described recent findings and progress toward developing safer and more effective ways to relieve pain. Women report pain more often than men do, she said, and in more body regions. They also have more severe and more persistent pain.
Women discriminate better between types of pain.
D ., research professor of oral medicine, at the University of Washington School of Dentistry, Seattle, Washington. Migraine headache, as one example, affects mainly women in their childbearing years, decreasing with age. This pattern suggests hormones may play a role in migraines. That is less likely to be true, she said, for a pain problem that continues to rise with age, such as joint pain. Despite their greater pain burden, speakers said, women handle pain better than men do.