- cross-posted to:
- chronicpain@lemmy.world
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I encountered these kinds of diagrams with smilies next to a 1 to 10 scale more often at doctors and thought these were pretty helpful:
Can a medical professional explain why they still do this? I’m very logical with my rating, so it explains the situation well. Having a femur compounded through my vastus medialis, “About a 5.5. When I have to move the leg, up to an 7.5.”
There are much worse things for 8, 9, and 10, but having all the fresh nerve damage, swelling,.and moving the muscle and bone was enough to really grit my teeth and get me shaking—moderate to severe. But it was only after more visual inspection in the ambulance they immediately gave me morphine.
I assume this is because of all the idiots that say a stubbed toe.is like a 7 and their rolled ankle is a 9.
It’s for (subjective) improvement. If the patient is getting better (pain scale going down), then great! If not, we can try alternative therapies.
Simple example is someone with back pain. We give them ibuprofen. Pain still the same. We give them a toradol shot. Pain goes down. Now we have an idea of the severity.
If the pain still persists with toradol or even tramadol or something, now we should definitely look into complex imaging (e.g. MRI) to see objective facts about their anatomy - is there visibile compression on a nerve? Is there a slipped disk?
It’s just to get an idea of a subjective pain scale and to mark progress.
I’m not a doctor but I’m assuming it’s because the pain is relative. It gives the medical expert a value that’s relative to the patients pain tolerance, how the pain effects that individual.
I have nerve damage. I had no choice but to rethink my scale so I can accurately convey my new spectrum of pain. Now 10 is passing out from the pain, 9 is light-headedness with tremors and full body chills, etc.
This is how I pitch it to all my patients - 0 is no pain and 10 is incapacitated.
So 0 is full HP and 10 is down and actively making death saving throws every turn. Got it.
It’s funny explaining to people how my constant droning 5 pain is worse than the sudden 7 I get from moving the wrong way. My 5 is a lot higher than they’d think, and persistent pain with no release is far more maddening than sudden electrical shocks from time to time.
Persistent pain is debilitating. Most senses can be adapted to - your brain stops listening to it. Smells, touch, hot, cold, sounds, lights - all these senses can be adapted to and you stop noticing them after a few minutes.
Pain cannot be ignored. Your brain will never stop listening to it. It’s why it’s so important for people who suffer from chronic pain to be referred to pain management to have someone who can treat it specifically.
Most senses can be adapted to - your brain stops listening to it. Smells, touch, hot, cold, sounds, lights - all these senses can be adapted to and you stop noticing them after a few minutes.
Tell that to drag’s autism. Noise is worse than pain. Drag can adapt to pain easily enough. Not noise.
That’s one of the difficulties with autism
Consistency helps, i hope. I try to keep my personal scale the same. I figure if im doing ok at 2 for a couple weeks, then 6 will mean a big jump. Regardless of what a 2 or 6 really means.
I only know the pain rating from kink and I don’t want to compare deliberate to inescapable pain, but IMO pain ratings require a time dimension. 10 seconds of a 9 might be tolerable once, 10 minutes of a 9 is extremely bad and hours or days of a 9 are indescribable.
I’ve seen others say comparing one person’s score over time can be useful. So like if you were a 3, but now you are a 5 something has gotten worse.
Also, it can be one aspect of determining if someone needs pain killers apparently.
But it was only after more visual inspection in the ambulance they immediately gave me morphine.
Can relate. When I broke my left wrist, I probably would have described the pain as a 1 at the ER if they had even bothered to ask; instead they just brought painkillers to me (just something like codeine) after seeing it (the x-ray tech was a bit surprised they didn’t go with an injection). When I broke my collar bone, I said 2-3 because I was afraid I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I said 1-2 at the ER (if I had seen a mirror with my shirt off beforehand, I might have been a less worried about that).
would ypu be willing to try again in a later date sir?
but with rice?
