If you go to a doctor with a complaint of pain, the doctor asks you to rate it on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain you've ever experienced.
There are many problems with this, and I think I might have blogged about some of the problems before. But another problem that just occurred to me is that we experience pain differently at different points in our lives.
I've never given birth or had a kidney stone. I have broken a bone, but my only memory of the experience is overwhelming terror - I don't remember the physical pain itself. The worst pain I can remember experiencing is a bout of menstrual cramps at the age of 11 that left me curled up on the floor in the fetal position. If I experienced those same cramps today, I would still go to work and do whatever else I needed to do. I would be watching the clock and popping Midol and thinking lustful thoughts about heating pads, yes, but I wouldn't be curled up in a ball. This is because I've become accustomed to menstrual cramps, plus I can duck out of my office at any time if the cramps start to feel slightly digestive instead of having to wait until the end of my class.
So if I go to the doctor and am asked to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten, is my ten hardcore cramps as I experienced them at age 11, or is it hardcore cramps as I experience them as an adult? I haven't really experienced that much pain as an adult. I can produce pain equivalent to the worst I've experienced as an adult with impractical shoes and too much walking, but it's still pain I can work through. So how would some arbitrary number be helpful to a doctor?
3 comments:
As I have said before. Each medical situation can be rated on a scale of 1 - 10. My boyfriend had a migraine for a very ridiculous amount of time. When we arrived to the hospital, he was asked what the headache felt on a scale of 1-10. He was an 8 or 9. Then he was given needles and half an hour later, a Nurse asked him again, "On a scale of one to ten, how do you feel now?" He answered, "About a 4". So 1-10 itself, seems rather silly if you think of it as encompassing every pain in the world. Every condition is rated separately on their, "On a scale of 1-10, how do your menstrual cramps feel (that have brought you to the hospital)?"
So it's only limited to the specific pain? So if I get some kind of pain that I've never had before, I can't rate it because I have no basis for comparison. Either that, or it's automatically a 10. So if you're in labour for the first time ever "How's your pain?" "10." Labour progresses, the pain is worse "How's you're pain" "10, but worse than before".
I'm sure you can compare pains. I guess it just doesn't make much sense to compare a tooth ache to a ruptured appendix on a scale of one to ten. But then if you have never had a ruptured appendix (it can only happen once) I guess you have to compare it to the worst pain you have ever experienced. Now I have gone and got myself so confused!
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