Pain Scale Guesswork

Today's visual post from io9.com (see link below) looks at pain scales and how random they actually are. Yet so many neurologists and doctors find them very important as a measure of neuropathic pain. We all know that neuropathic pain is rarely constant and one part of your body proabably hurts more than another at any given time, so choosing a number from this sort of chart can be an inexact science. When you think that possible treatment may depend on your response, you may feel entitled to ask the doctor to skip this one and move on to an EMG, or something else slightly more scientific.



 Standard pain scale graphic

 

Personal anecdote

By Walter Glenn, 22June 2011

 

Several months back, I had to take my son (14yo) to the hospital. They asked him:

"How bad is your pain on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is no pain at all and 10 is the worst pain you can imagine."

His answer was:

"Well, if it was 1 I wouldn't be here and if it was 10 I wouldn't be able to answer the question, so I guess you better put me down for a 5."

 

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 This may be a more realistic pain scale for both children and adults to respond to... where are you at the moment?

 

 

http://io9.com/5814581/a-single-mutant-gene-is-responsible-for-30-of-all-mysterious-pain