Comparing people's pain seems very invalidating to me. How can you even compare people's pain? Nobody can really know what it feels like to another person. I've just been reading "Listening to Prozac" where it talks about "rejection sensitivity." Oh boy do I relate to that. It was found that antidepressants reduce sensitivity to rejection. But is do they decrease perception of cues of being rejected, or do they decrease the painfulness of being rejected? I think it's the second. People can experience the same thing, but one is hurt by it more than another is. Even the same person is hurt by the same thing more when not medicated than when he or she is medicated.

I think that we have different tolerances for different kinds of pain, Physical pain, for instance, has to be pretty severe before I notice it or care about it. I broke an ankle a couple of years ago, and didn't get it treated, and I fell on it again a couple of months ago. If I pay attention to it, I can still feel something. But it doesn't actually bother me. I can have a headache all day long and not realize it until I notice that I'm acting irritable at everybody, and then it comes to me that I have had this headache all day. Some people are not as sensitive to emotional pain, but I have very little tolerance for that kind of pain. Maybe that's why I prefer to exchange emotional pain for physical pain.

Nobody can say how much you hurt, because you are the only one who can tell. And since you can't really tell how much someone else hurts, even if they have a similar source of pain, there is nol way to compare in any kind of meaningful way.

I had excema too, and it was significant to me. It went away by the time I was 30. I think that it bothered my mother more than it bothered me, although the itch was pretty bad, and I would scratch it and then it hurt, and people were afraid to get near me because they wouldn't believe that it wasn't contagious and it did look pretty bad. That hurt sometimes. My brother had pretty bad excema too at times, and he scratched, and his whole legs would stay bloody for extended periods of time. So two out of six of us had it. As far as we know, neither parent had excema, but there does seem to be a connection with other allergies. My mother is fairly severely allergic to cats, one sister is severely allergic to antibiotics, and my other brother was so allergic to mosquito bites that once he had one leg swell up to three times the size of the other. I'll take excema over allergies like that. As for my children, one out of three has something on his legs that I saw yesterday that reminded me of my brother's excema. I don't know if it is, but he's been scratching something.

The decision whether or not to have children is yours. If you have suffered with something so much that you don't feel right about passing it along to children, then doctors should respect that. It would be appropriate to explore your feelings with you, and maybe see if you would be interested in adoption, or if you just don't want to have children. If you don't, then they should respect your choice.

I had children when I did mostly because I didn't question that having children is expected. I didn't see that I had options at the time. I delayed for a little while, wanting to finish school first, and felt guilty and decided not to wait. I wish that I could go back and do that differently. Excema is not the issue for me, but I needed time to mature, and it was important to me to finish my education and start a career. It isn't fair to them. I am also more concerned about the heritability of mental illness than about excema. I have struggled too much with depression, anxiety, and personality disorders, and I do not want my children to go through what I have. We also have a family history of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, ADHD, etc. I didn't think back then to consider that (or know about the family history then).

But, Fuzzy, if you did or still do want to have children, that is okay too. Whether or not your choice includes bearing children yourself. And it isn't too late. If it is something you want, you can adopt or take foster children or be a mentor to a child who needs support. You would be wonderful, if that is something you want to do, that is.

Back to your question, though, I don't think that doctors should compare pain, or lie, or disregard your concerns. If you feel something, or you are concerned about something, then it is important to you and should be taken seriously.