I'll never forget. I had an teacher in junior high school who one day said to the class "none of you have ever been hungry." I suppose she explained that she meant a level of hunger far beyond being an hour or two past your accustomed meal. She was referring to people who are seriously malnurished, people who experience real starvation. I never have, for sure.
The teacher probably used a poor choice of words. However, her point remains. I also have never been "starving" either, as in, near death. It is my understanding that at some point, it no longer hurts to starve. with one exception: You have small amounts of food, which never lets the digestive system shut down. You become largely lifeless, lethargic and not all there. This is general apathy, and occurs even while fasting. I have experienced this.
After you stop eating food, at some point the digestion system shuts down (24-48 hours) and shortly after, it stops sending painful signals of hunger. Certainly your body isn't stupid, so it isn't going to stop all warnings. You will feel tired, apathetic, your body will hurt, joints, muscles. You will barely want to move, because even that is a monumental effort. But the pain, if one does not want to die, would be largely psychological, but without energy to care, you just exist in a near vegetative state.
A personal anecdote: During my longer fasts, I would experience this "apathy". I wasn't physically in pain, but psychologically, I was. Imagine sitting in a chair as a paraplegic see other kids run. You want to run. But you can't. However, you know that if you do XYZ, you will be able to run. The temptation to do XYZ becomes psychological as you are in no physical pain.
While cutting, I sometimes feel so run down on energy, where I can't even muster the energy to do things that I *love* to do, and this creates a temptation to eat a large of food, because I know that my energy will return and I can do XYZ. Sure enough, when I do this, my energy returns and I am back to doing the things I love. But am I experiencing pain in these energy deficient stages? No - not physical pain, just the pain of being unhappily bored and uninterested in things that I enjoy.
You may find this interesting:
Starvation Painful?