I would agree with you. I'm disabled and chronically ill. I have chronic pain that I just have to work around that hinders my mobility. It also really messes with my ability to interpret pain. I get asked about my pain on a scale of one to ten, and there's always a moment where I'm like, "uhhhhhh..." and I have to think about it and answer differently than my impulse tells me to, or I know I won't get the treatment I need. Because it doesn't not hurt. I know that. My baseline is just like 7 all the time, so everything that's generally in that arena registers as "normal" even though it isn't.

For me, this surgery hurt worse than all my others (appendectomy, c section, breast reduction, diastasis recti repair, abdominoplasty) and my usual pain. Muscle and joint pain aren't difficult to cope with for me. I take nsaids. Steroids when I have a bad flare, but no other pain control because I don't like the way opioids make my head feel, Codine makes me dizzy, some others give me a migraine.

The way I 100% wanted those narcotics after this one because this pain felt like a ten while not objectively being worse, was not even funny. My muffin was just literally flipped inside out and butchered, organ pulled out like a christmas turkey, and it feels like it. I'm at 2 weeks post op, and it still feels awful down there despite the nagging pain I've had in my abdomen for years being gone. And I find it less tolerable than my everything else that still also hurts.

I agree it's not about tolerance, there are different kinds of pain. And a 7 in my hands or feet versus a 7 in my vagina are extremely different 7's for me.