Ow, It Hurts. REALLY.
Not a surprise but a recent study has found that not only do women react differently to certain medications than men (and are in danger of overdosing on many common over-the-counter and prescription drugs), but we feel pain more, too. According to Tara Parker Pope, women in the study had pain levels 20% higher than men. Doctors put it down to women's hormones, organ size relative to men's, more fatty tissue and other causes that are feminine in nature and may cause medication to be absorbed, or not, differently than for men. Since almost all studies have been based on men (hence, women not realizing they're having a heart attack when they feel nauseous and their jaw hurts vs. men's pain in the chest), there's still an awful lot we don't know about medicine, women, and pain. But here's the worst part. Laurie Edwards notes in the NYT Sunday Review that anesthesia can be a problem for women and even something as relatively benign as Ambien lingers in a w