Get The Right Help For Your Pain

How Much Does It Hurt?

Sometimes, a medical professional will ask us to “rate your pain on a scale of 1–10”.

It can be tempting to avoid rating one’s pain too highly, because if we say “10” then where can we go from there? There is always a way to make pain worse, after all.

But that kind of thinking, however logical, is folly—from a practical point of view. Instead of risking having to give an 11 later, you have now understated your level-10 pain as a “7” and the doctor thinks “ok, I’ll give Tylenol instead of morphine”.

A more useful scale

First, know this:

Zero is not “this is the lowest level of pain I get to”.

Zero is “no pain”.

As for the rest…

My pain is hardly noticeable.

I have a low level of pain; I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.

My pain bothers me, but I can ignore it most of the time.

I am constantly aware of my pain, but can continue most activities.

I think about my pain most of the time; I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.

I think about my pain all of the time; I give up many activities because of my pain.

I am in pain all of the time; It keeps me from doing most activities.

My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.

My pain is all that I can think about; I can barely move or talk because of my pain.

I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain; I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.

10almonds tip: are you reading this on your phone? Screenshot the above, and keep it for when you need it!

One extra thing to bear in mind…

Medical staff will be more likely to believe a pain is being overstated, on a like-for-like basis, if you are a woman, or not white, or both.

There are some efforts to compensate for this:

Some other resources of ours:

The 7 Approaches To Pain Management ← a pain specialist discusses the options available

Managing Chronic Pain (Realistically!) ← when there’s no quick fix, but these things can buy you some hours’ relief at least / stop the pain from getting worse in the moment

Science-Based Alternative Pain Relief ← for when you’re maxxed out on painkillers, and need something more/different, these are the things the science says will work

Take care!

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