Extreme difficulty concentrating when in pain (people)

[ragnarkar]

This probably affects everyone but it seems to affect me more than others.

I can endure pain fine. But ask me to do anything that requires even moderate thinking or metal exertion afterwards and it becomes a great chore.

By pain, I mean pain suffered from everyday injuries, not serious injuries or pain from chronic illnesses.

It seems pain tends to consume a disproportionate amount of my attention. If everyone has about 7-10 "units" of attention, being in pain reduces those units in half for me.

For me, doing any thinking while in pain is like trying to work a math problem while listening to 2 different songs in each earphone.. the constant mental distraction vastly ramps up the difficulty of maintaining concentration.

[harhar]

It depends on what kind of pain, the intensity and the level of question one is trying to ask me.

If I have a bad headache, most times I'm insufferable. Any question is a bad one.

If my shins hurt from over-exertion from the day before, I'd probably still be able to hold a relatively deep conversation.

If I immediately stub my toe why are you asking me a question in the first place?

So are you talking about immediate injuries? Getting a cut on the hand? Stubbed toe? Hitting your head under a table? Because any time thereafter you're not going to be in the mood to answer questions. It's your body's natural response to "assessing the situation," and usually that takes precedence over your other modes of thinking.

The below example is kinda graphic:

Spoiler

When I injured my arm at work by slicing it open on the edge of a sharp piece of aluminum, I thought..."Oh that hurt, but it feels like when a dog scratches you and leaves a welt, or a long raised bump..." When I looked down, my arm was open with a cut about three inches long. It was bleeding, and I thought "Oh no!" because it was by and on my vein (where people commit suicide)...

Although I'm otherwise very squeamish about these sorts of things, I went into a "mode." I put pressure on my arm, found the closest person I could and we went over to the urgent care. It ended up not being on the vein and I didn't even need stitches because it was a 'clean' cut.

In any case, I think there's even certain levels of pain. Anything over that threshold and it all feels the same. The duration is what 'kills' you. After it was bandaged up, for the next few weeks I had a pulsing pain in that arm until it was healed.

So the above is just an example of how I think we focus on the different types of pain for a reason. We focus on it, to remind ourselves, "Let's not do this again." And in "serious" injuries, our body recognizes that and basically "tells" us what to do; so we should listen.

Yes, you the OP might have different pain tolerances than others, but I'd think most of us are around the same.

[Billy_J]

Some people are more sensitive to pain than others.

For example a neighbor of mine had ALL his teeth pulled so he could get dentures. They gave him pain medicine, but he never took one pill! (Pull just one tooth from my mouth and I will many times need pain medicine for a day or two. One time it hurt for a week!)

Anyway I don't know what to recommend. Maybe see if over the counter pain medicines work. I like to read books and can't concentrate very well when taking narcotic pain medicine. Can't drive, etc. So I wouldn't want to be on those a lot of the time.