(no subject)

[aroraborealis]

[Poll #1744786]

Comments

[bluegargantua]

I think I manage nausea better than I do pain. Also, I'm assuming a pain as sustained and intense as the nausea.

later
Tom

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Ditto on both counts. I know I'm more likely to whimper and fold in the face of sustained/chronic pain, but I can soldier (miserably) through nausea.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

Sidebar.

http://sesamestreet.tumblr.com/post/4164834949/whats-your-super-power

[metagnat.livejournal.com]

Though they sometimes come together, for me, which is its own special brand of ick.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Ugh, yes. This happens to me when I have menstrual cramps (and when I had my IUD inserted). THE WORST.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever cried from nausea.

[veek.livejournal.com]

I have! It's so much fun that I'm really glad there are people who don't experience it.

[primal-pastry.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

Of course, this depends on the intensity of each. Nausea tops out, in my experience, at a particular badness, whereas pain has more of a range. So there are definitely levels of pain which are worse than any nausea. But I answered based on my usual levels of the two.

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

Also, I hope this is a general question and not inspired by a current state!

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

It's not a current state for me, but it was inspired by a conversation about it with someone for whom it was more directly relevant.

I'm with you: pain CAN get worse, but at the usual levels I experience each ...

[thespian.livejournal.com]

i've never had nausea that wasn't fixable with my finger down my throat when i couldn't take it anymore. so that's subjective, but since I can't stop pain a lot of the time, and indeed wind up on a cane because it's too bad, I'm going to go with pain.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I've been a migraineur (such a snooty term!) since adolescence, so pain seems "normal" to me, whereas nausea is pretty rare and therefore far more miserable.

[catya.livejournal.com]

this is roughly why i picked...

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

I spend time every day managing pain without it being of particular concern to me. Nausea, though, it takes a lot of my attention to deal with, and I have far fewer strategies.

That's roughly my experience as well

[drwex]

Also, I've never voluntarily sought out nausea. Just sayin'.

[cutieperson]

this, mostly.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

My answer may be biased by my experience of the last few days. But pain never stops me from eating, and not eating gets bad fast for me.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

O man, I hope this isn't about your day today!

I can't imagine living with long-term, chronic nausea that random flares up and stabs be a hundred times through out the day and is obviously linked to the activities I love most, like I do with back pain. So I guess I'm going to say nausea would be worse?

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It isn't about my day today, thankfully :)

Yes, exactly. Like you and others, I can function more effectively through pain than through nausea.

Also, I have passed out from nausea, but never from pain (though, holy crap, I hope I'm never in so much pain that I DO pass out from it. THAT is a terrifying thought.)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i'm closing in on 18 years of chronic pain. i can't even imagine 18 years of ongoing nausea. just what it would do to my nutrition is appalling to contemplate...

[mizarchivist]

I chose nausea as worse, although I'm not dealing with chronic pain.
Pain is pretty variable. I can make allowances for it, but barfy? Oh gods... the horror. I panic.

[amber-phoenix.livejournal.com]

nausea is *gross*

also, i've had much more luck with pain meds than nausea meds.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I've had a few incidents of severe pain that were horrible and sent me to the ER, acute-cum-chronic pain that sent me to specialists and months of medication and PT, and milder-but-long-term chronic pain. It all sucks. Even so, nausea is still somehow worse for me. I get wicked seasick, so I mostly avoid boats. I've stopped narcotic pain medication (percocet) post-surgery when the meds started making me nauseated, because I'd rather hurt than feel that way (or than actually vomiting, ugh). The worst was when I was accidentally overdosing on morphine in hospital immediately post-surgery (it was my first surgery and there was no way to know I'm super-sensitive to it); when the medical staff were moving me and trying to talk to me, I actually kind of wanted them to leave me alone so I could die in peace. NEVER AGAIN THE MORPHINE TIMES.

[catness.livejournal.com]

This. Pain makes me stupid, and also nuts. I don't like it at all at all at all. But every time I'm given pain meds, as soon as the nausea starts, I stop the meds. Even post-surgical pain, I'd rather be screaming and crazy than sick and screaming and crazy. I suspect that if pain meds worked better on me maybe I'd feel differently, but they don't seem to do anything but make me sick.

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

Nausea is worse for me for the following reasons:

I just dislike it a lot more.
It's harder to treat medicinally than pain.
I have a irrational fear of vomiting, partly due to the fact that I haven't since childhood.
It does not produce endorphins.

[sweetbaboo.livejournal.com]

Going against the grain, I would far rather the most intense nausea of my life than the worst pain. I expect most people have more experience dealing with moderate pain than moderate nausea so they take it for granted.

[shut-it-already.livejournal.com]

I'm going with pain, because the worst pain I've been through was way more horrible than the worst nausea I've experienced.

I think I'd rather deal with chronic low-level pain than chronic mild nausea, though.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Pain is just so exhausting.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

The thing is, severe pain *causes* nausea for me; it's the nausea that distinguishes "I can take this" pain from "I can't take this" pain.

I've also had more bad experience with nausea -- I had labyrinthinitis issues for a while, and I've passed out from blood pressure drops accompanied by nausea.

In the end, though, I'm not sure pain vs. nausea is the important axis for me -- what's important is acute vs. chronic, psychologically intrusive vs. disassociatable, acclimatable vs. unacclimatable. I've never been able to disassociate nausea (though I've also had chronic undisassociatable pain.)