Pain Scale
“How would you rate your pain on a scale of 1-10?”
I detest this question. But I get asked it all the time from my doctors. How can you apply a pain scale to chronic pain? I don’t even remember what no pain feels like. So the whole scale seems to shift. Pain is so relative. I have gotten used to being in pain all the time. I’ve gotten used to the constant stomach pain from the Autoimmune Pancreatitis and the debilitating joint pain that keeps in the wheelchair. Not something you want to get used to. But it’s amazing how much I can even take my normal level of pain for granted.
The last 3 days I was without my pain medication due to a major pharmacy mess up coupled with a significant insurance snag. My stomach hurt and my joints seemed to be screaming with pain. In more pain, I was more drained, more cranky, more emotional. I couldn’t sleep well. I’m yawning even now from the last few nights of poor sleep. But strange thing was, I didn’t let myself realize how much pain I was really in until it was over… after I finally got my pain meds today again.
The sudden relief from pain was dramatic. It’s amazing what you can live with when you have no choice, but I won’t be taking my “normal” level of pain for granted so quickly again.
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Well said..
My understanding is that the pain scale is *meant* for acute pain. It has been transferred to chronic pain as well, which seems silly to me as since we have constant pain and we get used to it our pain threshholds when it comes to our normal pain is much higher. I can give you an accurate measure on the pain scale if I break my toe or something, but when it comes to chronic pain it is very objective to me… what used to make me feel a 9 now is around a 5 because I’ve dealt with it so long…
They need make sure they understand that when dealing with chronic pain it varies patient to patient, and that our answers are based on adjusting pain levels…. !!!
health care is much better before the disease, whatever its scale
I, too, live with several chronic pain conditions: rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, raynaud’s, chronic marginal ulcer + permanent damage to entire digestive system due to complications from several reconstructive surgeries, and I am deathly intolerant of all medications that can raise serotonin even incrementally (they speculate may have been caused by a head injury at age 5), so I can so relate to you on pain scales! I get angry about what they hope to accomplish with getting some number from my mouth, as if that tells them anything useful? I have become more patient and resigned to the question being asked, but I still struggle with an answer that would make the information something they could actually use to help me. Let me know if you have found an answer to that for you! Glad I found you–I feel less alone with this now!