I am sick of 1-10 pain scale!

There is not. The whole point of the scale is that it is subjective to you. You are supposed to “guess” because the measure is your personalamount of distress. Not somebody elses.

I hate the pain scale too. I have a chronic knee problem and I am tired of them asking me!!!

The scale is useful because because it allows for every unique individual to gage their own level of pain in a way doctors can recognize and assess. It’s a way to compare apples and oranges and get a measurable result.

Here’s an example: Melissa and I have the exact same surgery and our doctor wants to assess our pain the next day. I say “11.” My doctor can assume my pain is the worst I've ever experienced and I’m in a significant level of distress. Melissa replies “6”. Her pain may be less than mine, or her perception of her pain maybe
less, or her tolerance higher - whatever it is, the doctor has a frame of reference that says the pain is uncomfortable but not unmanageable, and can treat it as such. Our pain may be exactly the same, but our experiences and our tolerance are going to be completely different.

That number doesn’t have a definition outside of what it means to you. Your doctor hears “9” and knows your current pain management treatment isn’t working; a “3” might mean they’ve hit on the right pain meds, or you feel comfortable with your level of pain and don’t want/need meds. “0” after a bone fracture might indicate a serious problem where nerves are damaged. “10” after a sliver could indicate infection or unknown damage that needs to be investigated.

I appreciate the scale because it allows me to reflect on how I’m feeling and assess how much help I need from my doctor.

If it is any consolation, the medical community hates the painscale and treating pain as a “fourth vital sign” too, and lays a lot of the blame for the opiate addiction epidemic at its feet.

The pain scale can be a useful tool to help people (I am a nurse). Being a tool it needs to be used correctly. When asking to rate pain from a scale of 1-10 number 1 being tolerable and you can still go on about your day to number 10 being mauled by a bear or worse possible pain. Also asking to describe the pain as in burning, ripping, burning, throbbing, etc is using in helping determine the origin of the pain (visceral verses muscular skeletal pain). The faces pain scale is not meant to be demeaning. I have also used it in adults couldn't place a number to their pain. The pain scale used with keen assessment skills can really help people when used properly. Seems like it may not being used properly by some health care professionals.

But they give you smilie faces to help evaluate! When I was in chronic, unremitting pain for a year I always told them it was a 12.

I am NOT trying to belittle your pain. When I had at least a 9/10 pain on a mammogram-guided breast biopsy, and ended up from the psychological trauma, pulling out of the compressed mammogram machine on my next breast biopsy, I found this on the web. It points out some of the inadequacies of the pain scale in a humorous way.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyf...

Leaf, thanks for the laughs! In my case, it only hurts when I move.

That’s a very good question! Ok the way I explain it is each new pain needs to be categorized. Let’s say we are talking about someone’s leg pain, I would ask to rate the pain based on past experiences with having leg pain in the past. I do this thinking most people at some point in their life has strained a muscle or bumped their leg to experience pain there.

There are many pain scales but the one most used is either the faces pain scale ( called the Wong baker pain scale) or the 1-10. So let’s say you have 10/10 pain and I medicate you. A while later I come back and ask you to rate your pain again and you rate it at a 5/10. This let’s me know the medication that I have given you has decreased your pain to 1/2 of what it was (obviously). So this shows the doc what he/she tried worked but needs improvement. There is no drug out there that will take pain 100% away, this is frustrating for both my clients and us health care workers.

The pain scale as you said 1-4 is too narrow of a range to treat pain. Of course we want your pain 100% gone and that’s our goal but we don’t generally hit that often. Over medicating to the point of being unconscious is when the client will not be in pain (of course this is said based on the type of pain as in trauma caused pain or cancer pain are much much much harder to treat verses a twisted ankle). Also life experiences with pain will cause people to over rate or under rate their pain. I personally have given birth and had pancreatitis and the pancreatitis was the worst pain I have ever experienced. Even the Whipples procedure I endured was nothing like the pancreatitis. So my wire guided biopsy/mammogram hardly hurt in my opinion but someone else it may have been the most horrific pain possible.

I hope I explained it and not confused the topic more. I like hearing the opinions as well as it helps me improve my assessment skills and my approaches to helping people with their pain.