Man Flu is real, says new study

Actually, very true. Men have one X chromosome, women have two. That means men are far more prone to disorders resulting from an irregular gene on the X chromosome. A easily proven example of this are the common forms of color blindness - while women can be affected by it, far more men are affected by it.

I know.

If I remember correctly, women have been shown to have the advantage in endurance over various adverse conditions also, which has nothing to do with chromosomalabnormalities.



You make it sound like a bad thing. You aren't buying into gender constructs about shrugging off pain being more admirable, are you? Really, there's nothing beneficial about that. Having a high pain tolerance is something that tends to develop if you have enough exposure to pain. It's not necessarily a good thing. And I say this as someone whose splinted a broken bone and hunted down someone who can drive me to the ER without shedding a tear.

Honestly, I tend to have very little patience with anyone, regardless of sex, who makes a big production out of pain. I'm quite a coward myself - I do my best to avoid pain if possible - but once it's there, I deal. It's not as though it's magically going to go away if one cries and groans and laments.

BTW, a year ago last autumn, I fell and broke my right wrist. I was nursing one of my parrots around the clock at the time, so I immobilized it and went about doing what I needed to do, including all of my regular chores taking care of my crew. Two weeks later, when Ziggy was on the road to recovery, I went to the doctor and had surgery - both the radius and the ulna were broken and out of line, together with several of the small bones in the wrist - I now have a metal plate and six screws in that forearm. During that two week period, I drove Ziggy to the avian vet at the U of I (2 hours away) five times. And my car is standard transmission (which I found is quite possible to drive one armed, even if that arm is the left one).

So you'll forgive me if I'm not terribly impressed by your broken arm story. :p
 
Of course you all realize that accepting this data as fact means acknowledging the most important part of the reasoning, which is that men develop bigger brains. Borat was right!
 
I'm the biggest wimp ever when it comes to being ill. I don't get ill a lot but when I get a cold it drives me nuts. This does have the benefit that when possible I tend to relax, eat well and rest when I have a cold so I get over them very quickly. My friends and family who keep soldering on keep their colds for weeks.

I am definitely more prone to "man flu" than my fiance or any of my male friends.
 
I believe people experience things differently and have different thresholds for pain and suffering. To me, it's nothing to brag about if you can be ill and not complain and it's nothing to be ashamed of if you turn into a whiny baby when you do.
The studies show that people have widely varied resonses to pain. As a nurse, the best practice is to ask the patient directly to describe and rate his pain and take his word for it. Some can run around with a fractured cervical vertebrae for two weeks (a friend of mine), others will be hobbled by a relatively minor injury.

Studies show that people heal more quickly and with less infection if their pain is controlled.

I worked pediatrics for years, and one weirdness is how much more the boys hated being stuck with needles vs the girls.

And Neonatal Intensive Care studies show that all things being equal, the premature baby with the best chance of survival is, in order of strongest first 1. Black girl 2. White girl 3. White boy 4. Black boy.
 
I actually thought that the "man flu" was just a silly meme. I don't recall any of the guys I've dated being seriously wimpy or needy when sick.

My own husband actually is way less whiny than I am when we get the sniffles. Although neither of us get sick very often.

(Off to read the whole thread now.)
 
So you'll forgive me if I'm not terribly impressed by your broken arm story. :p

We can compare injuries if you want. The broken arm (ulna and radius) came with several broken bones in the opposite hand, as well as a broken tooth.

But it was the arm that was most impressive. I was in surgery in a matter of days to get that straightened out (quite literally).
 
I've taken one sick day in the 15 years since I turned 18, and I was bitter about being sent home. I don't like to be unproductive when I'm sick. It makes me feel like I let it win or something. I figure I'm gonna be sick either way, but at the end of the day either I accomplished something or I didn't.
 
I think that if one is sick, it makes sense to get rest and do what is necessary/best to get on the road to recovery ASAP, if circumstances permit. I also do not deny that various individuals have varying tolerances for pain - I see that in my animals.

What I have little/no patience for is the crying and whining and general drama for things that are after all temporary and relatively minor. It's a form of egotism, IMO. There's a difference between on the one hand taking to one's bed to nurse a cold or the flu and feeling terribly sorry for oneself because of how miserable one feels, and on the other hand letting the world know that no one could possibly ever have suffered as much from a cold/the flu.

And I'm not talking about people with real and significant chronic pain (which I know I wouldn't have the fortitude to endure) or the kind of pain that comes with burns and the like.

We can compare injuries if you want. The broken arm (ulna and radius) came with several broken bones in the opposite hand, as well as a broken tooth.

But it was the arm that was most impressive. I was in surgery in a matter of days to get that straightened out (quite literally).

You misunderstood me. I didn't go to the doctor until two weeks later, after Ziggy was well enough that I could leave him for a few hours. The doctor immediately sent me across to a specialist, and he did the surgery the next morning.

I told the story only because you seemed to feel particularly tough for having a friend drive you to the doctor rather than, I gather, calling an ambulance?
 
I told the story only because you seemed to feel particularly tough for having a friend drive you to the doctor rather than, I gather, calling an ambulance?

Well, it is rather hard to drive to the hospital when bones are broken in both limbs. It wouldn't be impossible, and I could do it if I had to, but it would be far more risky. I wasn't going to take the risk just to be "manly".
 
Well, it is rather hard to drive to the hospital when bones are broken in both limbs. It wouldn't be impossible, and I could do it if I had to, but it would be far more risky. I wasn't going to take the risk just to be "manly".

I didn't say you should, now did I? You did the reasonable thing - you were the one who posted the story, apparently to show how tough you are.
 
I dropped a keg on my foot at work when I was 16 and rode my bike home after. #Hardcore

I did that with a tire last week, while changing a flat, and walked on it without realizing it.

I'm really hardcore. The temperature being about 5°F (-15°C) without windchill had absolutely nothing to do with it. :p