Indeed, pain scales say more about the patient than the pain. Some people will call a hangnail 10/10, while others can have three limbs violently severed and call it a 3 or 4. (Don’t get me started on pain scores over 10.)
They can be useful, but it’s all in context.
[/QUOTE]
What’s the context where they’re useful? Because as a patient, I find them incredibly frustrating.
I don’t know what a 10 is versus what a 1 is. I don’t know if I’m extraordinarily sensitive to pain, or a stoic. I’ve taken to just relating it to previous experiences and ignoring the numbers they ask for. ‘Hurts more than the time I got kicked by a horse, but less than the time I had a 2 inch scalpal incision cut into my ass without anasthetic.’ Or ‘Hurts more than having a broken nose but less than falling face first down a flight of stairs.’ I don’t know if that makes it any easier for the doctors, but at least I have some idea WTF I’m talking about.
[QUOTE=jacquilynne]
What’s the context where they’re useful? Because as a patient, I find them incredibly frustrating.
[/QUOTE]
The medical people I know who explain the 1-10 system coherently tell me that it’s not so much that you’re a 10 or a 6, but what the current number is versus the previous one. You said it was a 7 earlier, but now it’s a 4? Then they know that your pain has done down by more than just a smidgen. Said it was a 10 earlier and now it’s a 20? Assuming you aren’t exaggerating for effect, now they know things have gotten worse and whatever they’ve done so far either isn’t kicking in or isn’t having any effect.
By doing it that way, looking at the numbers you’re giving relative to each other, it makes it a lot more useful than trying to figure out if your ‘5’ in pain is their ‘5’ in pain or if you rate a hangnail the same place on a pain scale.
[QUOTE=Poysyn]
This fascinates me as well because I have never had any problems getting pain meds, but I don’t like using them. When I have a migraine doctors seem only too happy to drug me up (at the time I am very grateful) but less likely to follow up and try to treat the problem.
[/QUOTE]
I wonder if it’s a regional thing, then. I live in a city where perhaps doctors err on the side of caution. Also, there are lots and lots of teaching hospitals here so perhaps that leads to doctors who are more likely to try to find and correct the source of pain than to just cover it up? I dunno, WAG here. When I’ve been seen for migraines, the doctor has prescribed preventative meds rather than palliative ones.