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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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aroraborealis) wrote2011-05-24 09:54 am
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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
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http://sesamestreet.tumblr.com/post/4164834949/whats-your-super-power
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I'm with you: pain CAN get worse, but at the usual levels I experience each ...
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That's roughly my experience as well
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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?
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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.)
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Pain is pretty variable. I can make allowances for it, but barfy? Oh gods... the horror. I panic.
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also, i've had much more luck with pain meds than nausea meds.
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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.
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I think I'd rather deal with chronic low-level pain than chronic mild nausea, though.
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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.)