Pain threshold is not a very specific concept. What patients and doctors understand by this term is somewhat different.
Trying to summarize and generalize the concept of pain threshold, we get a conditional degree of impact on the human body, when exceeding which we feel what is called pain. Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or described in terms of, current or potential tissue damage (as defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain, IASP).
The value of the pain threshold for practical life is somewhat exaggerated. So, in research activities, this is an important indicator in a number of works, along with which the threshold of pain, the threshold of pain tolerance, the threshold of temperature pain, and the threshold of pressor pain are investigated. The threshold for the emergence of protective reflexes arising in response to painful stimulation controlled by force (nociceptive flexor reflex, blink reflex) is also assessed. In practical medicine, such techniques are rarely studied due to the ambiguity of their understanding. In everyday life, the pain threshold is often understood as the severity of the visible - motor or verbal - response to pain, but this is not quite the correct use of the term, it is more consistent with the concept of pain tolerance threshold.
The pain threshold itself, exactly how the perception of pain sensation depends on many factors. The perception of pain is influenced by previous life experience, including the "pain history", sociocultural factors, family traditions, the level of motivation of a person at a particular time, the presence of concomitant emotional or mental disorders (depression or anxiety disorder), sleep disturbance, general level of fatigue the person, the level of perceived stress, as well as hormonal levels (including the phase of the cycle in women).
The response to pain is a behavior that is even more dependent on environmental and cultural factors, as well as individual concepts of acceptable behavior, the level of demonstrativeness, and other factors. Thus, there are religious strata in which pain is perceived as an atonement for sins, there are patients with serious spinal cord injuries, who are informed that the presence of pain is a mandatory indicator of the "restoration" of nervous structures (which is not entirely true). Unknown pain, with which the patient was not previously "familiar", elicits a greater reaction than is known or expected. The pain from physical activity in the gym can be expected as a "symbol" of successful training and the expected increase in muscle mass (which is also not true). Pain that women regularly encounterthey are rarely perceived as a reason for seeking medical help, since this is pain that has already been encountered, with known causes and duration.
In the medical environment, the use of the concept of pain threshold and its application is possible in patients with chronic pain syndromes, including headaches, with the possible presence of emotional disorders, living under conditions of chronic stress, and so on. It is believed that the groups of drugs that maintain and modulate the level of pain threshold are antidepressants and anticonvulsants.