I think I manage nausea better than I do pain. Also, I'm assuming a pain as sustained and intense as the nausea.

later
Tom

Ditto on both counts. I know I'm more likely to whimper and fold in the face of sustained/chronic pain, but I can soldier (miserably) through nausea.

Sidebar.

http://sesamestreet.tumblr.com/post/4164834949/whats-your-super-power

Though they sometimes come together, for me, which is its own special brand of ick.

Ugh, yes. This happens to me when I have menstrual cramps (and when I had my IUD inserted). THE WORST.

I don't think I've ever cried from nausea.

I have! It's so much fun that I'm really glad there are people who don't experience it.

Ditto.

Of course, this depends on the intensity of each. Nausea tops out, in my experience, at a particular badness, whereas pain has more of a range. So there are definitely levels of pain which are worse than any nausea. But I answered based on my usual levels of the two.

Also, I hope this is a general question and not inspired by a current state!

It's not a current state for me, but it was inspired by a conversation about it with someone for whom it was more directly relevant.

I'm with you: pain CAN get worse, but at the usual levels I experience each ...

i've never had nausea that wasn't fixable with my finger down my throat when i couldn't take it anymore. so that's subjective, but since I can't stop pain a lot of the time, and indeed wind up on a cane because it's too bad, I'm going to go with pain.

this is roughly why i picked...

I spend time every day managing pain without it being of particular concern to me. Nausea, though, it takes a lot of my attention to deal with, and I have far fewer strategies.

Also, I've never voluntarily sought out nausea. Just sayin'.

this, mostly.

My answer may be biased by my experience of the last few days. But pain never stops me from eating, and not eating gets bad fast for me.

O man, I hope this isn't about your day today!

I can't imagine living with long-term, chronic nausea that random flares up and stabs be a hundred times through out the day and is obviously linked to the activities I love most, like I do with back pain. So I guess I'm going to say nausea would be worse?

Thank you! It isn't about my day today, thankfully :)

Yes, exactly. Like you and others, I can function more effectively through pain than through nausea.

Also, I have passed out from nausea, but never from pain (though, holy crap, I hope I'm never in so much pain that I DO pass out from it. THAT is a terrifying thought.)

i'm closing in on 18 years of chronic pain. i can't even imagine 18 years of ongoing nausea. just what it would do to my nutrition is appalling to contemplate...

I chose nausea as worse, although I'm not dealing with chronic pain.
Pain is pretty variable. I can make allowances for it, but barfy? Oh gods... the horror. I panic.

nausea is *gross*

also, i've had much more luck with pain meds than nausea meds.

I've had a few incidents of severe pain that were horrible and sent me to the ER, acute-cum-chronic pain that sent me to specialists and months of medication and PT, and milder-but-long-term chronic pain. It all sucks. Even so, nausea is still somehow worse for me. I get wicked seasick, so I mostly avoid boats. I've stopped narcotic pain medication (percocet) post-surgery when the meds started making me nauseated, because I'd rather hurt than feel that way (or than actually vomiting, ugh). The worst was when I was accidentally overdosing on morphine in hospital immediately post-surgery (it was my first surgery and there was no way to know I'm super-sensitive to it); when the medical staff were moving me and trying to talk to me, I actually kind of wanted them to leave me alone so I could die in peace. NEVER AGAIN THE MORPHINE TIMES.

This. Pain makes me stupid, and also nuts. I don't like it at all at all at all. But every time I'm given pain meds, as soon as the nausea starts, I stop the meds. Even post-surgical pain, I'd rather be screaming and crazy than sick and screaming and crazy. I suspect that if pain meds worked better on me maybe I'd feel differently, but they don't seem to do anything but make me sick.

Going against the grain, I would far rather the most intense nausea of my life than the worst pain. I expect most people have more experience dealing with moderate pain than moderate nausea so they take it for granted.

I'm going with pain, because the worst pain I've been through was way more horrible than the worst nausea I've experienced.

I think I'd rather deal with chronic low-level pain than chronic mild nausea, though.

Pain is just so exhausting.

The thing is, severe pain *causes* nausea for me; it's the nausea that distinguishes "I can take this" pain from "I can't take this" pain.

I've also had more bad experience with nausea -- I had labyrinthinitis issues for a while, and I've passed out from blood pressure drops accompanied by nausea.

In the end, though, I'm not sure pain vs. nausea is the important axis for me -- what's important is acute vs. chronic, psychologically intrusive vs. disassociatable, acclimatable vs. unacclimatable. I've never been able to disassociate nausea (though I've also had chronic undisassociatable pain.)