03/23/2026
We are making much-needed strides in researching women’s health.
I will take this new finding into my practice and utilize it!
Fact: women experience pain longer than men. Even when the two sustain identical injuries, a woman’s pain is more likely to linger.
Usually, this is brushed off as women being “more dramatic.” But research is flipping that assumption on its head, showing that men’s immune systems appear to have a built-in mechanism that helps shut off pain signals, likely influenced by higher levels of testosterone.
In the study published in the journal Science Immunology, 245 people who had experienced traumatic injuries (primarily car accidents) rated their pain over the course of three months. While men and women reported similar pain levels on day one, men’s pain resolved faster.
Blood tests revealed that men had higher levels of interleukin-10, a molecule that helps switch off pain signals to the brain. What influences this molecule is testosterone. Men simply have more of it than women.
The silver lining? This could help the development of new treatments for chronic pain in women, including therapies that target this immune response and employ testosterone-based interventions.