Doctor: "What is your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?"
Me: "Honestly, 47!"
Doctor: "Let's not be dramatic."
Me: ".....That's really an understatement...but I guess on your scale
an 8."
I hate when people ask me to
rate my pain. Why, you may ask? First of all I think all chronically ill people
that have constant pain hate this question and the vagueness that people
associate with the irrelevant charts they show you with the smiley faces
ranging from smiling to crying. On a doctor's scale of 1 to 10 my ten is not me
crying with a frowning face, my "ten" is me blacking out because I'm
in so much pain. So when people ask me to "rate my pain" I always
answer "On your scale about an 8." I say 8 because to people who have
not experienced pain, and don't deal with it daily they don't understand that
what they may call an 8 or 10 is my 1, my constant. So to them an 8 is pretty
bad. When to me, it’s an everyday, all the time, consistent annoyance.
Secondly I find the answer
that people are looking for much more complex than the broad question. So what's the correct way to ask this
question?
Doctor: "So we will go from head to toe. What type of pain are you
having in your head and how bad is it?"
Me: "Let's see, the front of my forehead feels like someone is hitting
me with a hammer, that's about a 6. Then there is the pain at the base of my
skull that feels like a session of acupuncture that has gone horrible wrong and
the needles are stabbing my brain. I'd say that’s a 7. Oh and the vibrating and
the feeling like my brains been put in a blender, that is about an 8. Then
there is my light sensitivity where everything looks like I’m starring into a
flashlight, then the pressure and tightness in the back of my eyes like someone
is squeezing my eyeballs as if they were stress balls, that’s an 8. Then there
is the phone in my ears that no one will ever answer and the feeling that I’m
scuba diving underwater, that's an 8 too."
Doctor: "......Umm, okay. Any neck pain?"
To go through the whole body, this process takes about 45 minutes on a good
day. I know because I have literally thought through every part of my body that
hurts and what I would rate it (on a doctor’s scale). Trust me, it takes a
while. It is much faster to think about what doesn't hurt. That list is pretty
short. Finger nails, eyebrows, eyelashes... some day’s that sums up that list.
Another question that I was recently asked related to the 1 to 10 pain
scale is what is my Pain Goal? I had a new nurse that asked me this question and
to her it was very routine but I had never been asked before and had difficulty
answering. Me, either suffering severely from Lyme brain that day or just being
completely oblivious had to ask her what she meant. She replied that if I could
have my pain be lower than what it usually is what would it be? I said, which
to me is an obvious answer, zero! Clearly my pain goal would be to be pain
FREE. This was apparently not the answer she was looking for. She explained to
me again that if my pain could be lower what would be a level I could tolerate.
Well to this my immediate answer was; I am tolerating my pain level now otherwise
I would be screaming and going insane. By this point I was clearly confused by
the question and the nurse was not finding my answer sufficient so after about
a 3 minute conversation of trying to explain to me what the term “Pain Goal”
meant I gave up and said well I guess I five, just because I have no idea what
you mean. So maybe this just isn’t a question for people who deal with chronic
pain or maybe I am just endlessly confused. However my pain GOAL is zero... I
find that logical!
A much more realistic pain scale!
