I’m a little surprised that those uncalibrated pain scales enjoy such wide use; with no obvious anchors, I’d expect people’s subjective responses to them to vary quite a bit. Since this doesn’t seem to be the case, I suppose most people are anchoring on something I’m not.
The last time I was asked for a pain rating (doctor’s visit following trauma to an eardrum), I hemmed and hawed over it for a while and finally interpreted it as a quasi-logarithmic scale with 1 being the least perceptible discomfort definable as such. This seemed to confuse the nurse.
A friend of mine in college had a story about a dislocated elbow. The conversation was early in the diagnostic process, possibly over the phone:
Friend: “I have a dislocated elbow.” Nurse: “On a scale of one to ten what’s your pain?” Friend: “Seven.” Nurse: “Then you don’t have a dislocated elbow. Those are very painful and people say ten when it happens.” Friend: “Kidney stones are a nine. I’m saving ten for something worse than that.” Nurse: “Oh… [stops to think] Then I guess you probably do have a dislocated elbow.”
My answer at one point (when I was in a rehab center recovering from a stroke) was something like “if 10 is, say, having a burning building collapse around me, this is a 3. Maybe a 2. I’m not sure… I’ve never had a burning building collapse around me, but I’d expect it sucks.”
Eventually I calibrated my answers against the pain meds they were giving me and just started giving them numbers.
Based on this, I assumed the pain scale was something like
0 = I was unaware that receiving oral sex is part of the evaluation process, but thank you, nurse. 2 = The mild irritation of needing but being unable to sneeze. 4 = This is actually just ennui. 6 = The stupidity of your diagnosis would cause me to facepalm if my hands were not so badly burned at the moment. 8 = I’ve recently been smashed in the face with a cast-iron frying pan. How do you think I feel?... 10 = …and now my eyes are leaking pimples on to my face as well. Dammit!
I was talking to a paramedic, who uses a 1-10 pain scale as part of his patient assessment. He said that it’s common to have a patient reply “ten” and then the paramedic would say something like “When your wife gave birth to your child, that was a ten. Are you sure this is a ten?” after which the patient decides that the pain is actually more like a five.
I’m a little surprised that those uncalibrated pain scales enjoy such wide use; with no obvious anchors, I’d expect people’s subjective responses to them to vary quite a bit. Since this doesn’t seem to be the case, I suppose most people are anchoring on something I’m not.
The last time I was asked for a pain rating (doctor’s visit following trauma to an eardrum), I hemmed and hawed over it for a while and finally interpreted it as a quasi-logarithmic scale with 1 being the least perceptible discomfort definable as such. This seemed to confuse the nurse.
A friend of mine in college had a story about a dislocated elbow. The conversation was early in the diagnostic process, possibly over the phone:
Friend: “I have a dislocated elbow.”
Nurse: “On a scale of one to ten what’s your pain?”
Friend: “Seven.”
Nurse: “Then you don’t have a dislocated elbow. Those are very painful and people say ten when it happens.”
Friend: “Kidney stones are a nine. I’m saving ten for something worse than that.”
Nurse: “Oh… [stops to think] Then I guess you probably do have a dislocated elbow.”
My answer at one point (when I was in a rehab center recovering from a stroke) was something like “if 10 is, say, having a burning building collapse around me, this is a 3. Maybe a 2. I’m not sure… I’ve never had a burning building collapse around me, but I’d expect it sucks.”
Eventually I calibrated my answers against the pain meds they were giving me and just started giving them numbers.
Based on this, I assumed the pain scale was something like
0 = I was unaware that receiving oral sex is part of the evaluation process, but thank you, nurse.
2 = The mild irritation of needing but being unable to sneeze.
4 = This is actually just ennui.
6 = The stupidity of your diagnosis would cause me to facepalm if my hands were not so badly burned at the moment.
8 = I’ve recently been smashed in the face with a cast-iron frying pan. How do you think I feel?...
10 = …and now my eyes are leaking pimples on to my face as well. Dammit!
I was talking to a paramedic, who uses a 1-10 pain scale as part of his patient assessment. He said that it’s common to have a patient reply “ten” and then the paramedic would say something like “When your wife gave birth to your child, that was a ten. Are you sure this is a ten?” after which the patient decides that the pain is actually more like a five.