Encyclopedia of Pain

2013 Edition
| Editors: Gerald F. Gebhart, Robert F. Schmidt

Female Sex Steroid Hormones and Pain

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28753-4_4933
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Introduction

It widely understood that females are disproportionately affected by pain syndromes when compared to their male counterparts. This clinical skew is notable in conditions such as migraine headache, temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and fibromyalgia (Unruh 1996). In addition to the higher prevalence of females with pain conditions, there have been reports of cyclical patterns of pain onset and severity (Martin 2009). This disparity in pain experience has resulted in a significant body of research comparing gender-specific physiological differences. Most experimental pain studies suggest that females are more sensitive to pain than males, although there are inconsistencies in the literature (Martin 2009; Fillingim et al. 2009). Consequently, researchers have focused on female biology, specifically the menstrual cycle, to untangle this important clinical and biological conundrum. The two main female sex steroid hormones, progesterone and...

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.P.A.I.N. Group, Center for Pain and the BrainBoston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolWalthamUSA
  2. 2.Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and GynaecologyThe Women’s Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of OxfordOxfordUK