I have no concept of the pain scale, like…I just realized that last week I said I was in especially awful hip pain and when my pt asked to rate it I said “3”. And then this week I said I felt a lot better than last week and when she asked me to rate it I said “3”. I really don’t know what the numbers are supposed to be. I know it’s supposed to be out of ten but like. I think I rate the pain by what time of the day it is. Like “i will rate the pain I’m in at a 5 at the end of the day, so compared to what my pain level will be later, what I’m feeling right now is a 3.” I also think i rate in overall pain rather than specific pain? Like, systemically I’m at a five. Some parts will be worse or better but i just rate it all at five because that’s the average
That and the Mankoski pain scale are what I go by! Two important things to note though: make sure your doctors know what scale you’re going by because we, especially women, have to play these mind games to get taken seriously- don’t just say “7″ because they might assume you’re being dramatic, say “7- as in my pain is impossible to ignore and severely restricting activities.” And secondly I don’t know about all hospitals, but at the hospital where I had my surgery my nurse told me to never underrate my pain because their protocol doesn’t have “use your own judgement’ if a patient is requesting more meds, but if you tell them your pain is an 8 or above they’re allowed to put in request for more meds with that as the reason.
