Frazz by Jef Mallett for March 03, 2012

May I suggest using this instead?

Ouch. Just thinking about it gives me a headache too. But here I am, up reading the funnies because dear bod hurteth and tingleth and I’m not sleeping.

I like this pain scale http://youtu.be/5rWs_tncktU

I feel the pain every time I step on a scale.

That “on a scale of one-to-ten” business is one of the most moronic things the medical profession has ever come up with. One person’s “ten” might be a migraine headache, while the next person’s “ten” might be kidney stone. So do you treat both their “fives” the same…??? Stupid!

Good answer.

I wonder if anyone realizes how stupid this is. My brother-in-law died because he said the shooting heart attack pain was a 7-8. Dr sent him home from a fine cardiac facility with a bottle of Malox, for his last hour of life.

Last time I got that question, my replies:

“Linear or Log scale?”

“Let’s just say it hurts more than getting stitches without anesthetic, and less than a total shoulder dislocation.”

They prescribed the good stuff.

Another scale for women. 75 is considered “extreme pain”. A process that woman are well known to do is rated 83.

When my hernia strangulated I rated my pain at a ten when the EMT asked me. While they were taking me out to the ambulance I got a couple gentle bumps and I rerated the original pain at a nine because the new one was a ten.

I have had more kidney stones than I can recount, plus spinal and rib fractures due to multiple myeloma, and despite being in more pain than ever in my life, I have never used 10. I guess I just don’t believe in absolutes. (I often have irony deficient people call me on using the phrase “There are no absolutes”. “Ah, but you just said…” Yes, I know, thank you, Captain Obvious.) Also people act like I’ve made sense when I say “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”

When my pain doctor at the VA asked me to give her a number, I asked her what difference it made. She looked at me funny and I asked, "If I was eaten up with pain, would you give me any more or any different pain medication than I’m getting right now? “No”. OK, what difference does it make???

The really odd thing is that there’s no adjustment for that scale. Not like 10 is fainting from it, 8 cramping, 6 causing nausea, 4 bad headache, 2 mild sunburn. People have varying degrees in being capable to stand pain, therefore considering pain individually is differing. And it seems pain can’t be measured externally.

I had kidney stones several times and experienced all from 6 to 10 according to the subjective scale I’ve mentioned here. Before that happened my most painful experience was an extreme migraine of 7, but asked then I would have rated it 9.