Pain

today is a 1

the worst pain i've experienced in my life is a kidney stone, i guess i'd use that as my mark for a 1 to 10 scale if asked

I would say that a "1" is daily aches and pains. I had a kidney stone also, and it immediately came to mind as a 9 or a 10. I guess I would give it a 9, only because I didn't quite pass out from the pain.

yeah i never passed out, the only time pain ever made me feel nauseous was when i ripped my thumb nail off, it never really hurt until the freezing wore off (the doctor had to stitch up a tear in the nail bed), i was on my way to the pharmacy to get some pain meds and the freezing started to wear off, it went like a wave up my arm and literally felt like my thumb had exploded as sensation returned, after that it was cool and it never really bothered me again

mentally, today- a 10.

Physically, I live in hope that one day someone will invent a personal pain monitor.

You know, they ask you "on a scale of 1 to 10" blah.... what would be good is to have a little thingymajig that they could attach to you to show how bad the pain is for you. I could say 2 or 3 on a good day, or 8 or 9 on a bad day - or somedays 'just enough already' - but my pain threshold is particularly wimpy or unbelievably good - I'm not sure which one - so what may be excruciating for me maybe would not be so bad for someone else or what I have daily and am used to, may affect someone else in a worse way if they've not experienced pain before. If someone invented a personal pain threshold monitor that would be good.

ya know, there are instruments to measure pain tolerance...

I would like to have someone create a colour detection personal pain monitor.

i'd like one that you could just put your finger on and it would say "go for it day (bright saffron yellow)" or "ah, bearable today (jade green)" or "yikes, you are really hurting today a? (dull grey)" and perhaps a "sheeit, shot a morphine on it's way! (black with red polka dots)"


the un-joy of physical pain is that no-one can really take that away other than with drug or some kind of medical/alternative intervention and that's hard for you and family to watch or feel helpless and it's oh so tiring

i hear meditation can help, i've never been able to do that tho

now mental pain - that's immeasurable - yet can be assisted hugely with a l'il dose of friendship, a l'il love, an ear, a shoulder, a hug, an acknowledgement.

Funny 'ole thing the whole pain caboodle.

A muscle pull in my back was a definite ten. Onliest ten I can recall. I once nearly died with an infected tooth, but it did not really hurt.

Twice I had medical procedures without anesthesia when I had hoped they would use anesthesia (a prostate biopsy and an ileoscopy).

We are lucky to live in an age where anesthesia is available. That is why I was astonished by these 2 procedures where anesthesia was not used (not even local anesthesia).

Burning or boiling any part of my body I'd rate as a 10.
A urniary tract infection was somewhere around 8 or 9.
Morning lower back pain I rate around 1 or 2.

the three other questions I get asked at the same time, every time I go in are:

How much do I drink?
Am I depressed?
Have I been abused lately?

Can't wait to find out what intrusive question gets added to the list next.

Well, lately, I've been dealing with unexplainable headaches, and since a week ago, lower back pain.

All very annoying, for sure, but hard to rate. If I had to put a number to it, probably a 5.

Daily pain--2-4. Depends on how much talking I do.

After surgery pain--I once gave it an 8.

dys, Not sure I understand why you can't rate pain. You've had a splinter. How much did that hurt? What about a headache? In relation to the splinter? They cut you open and did some messing around with your innards. Gotta be more than a 3.

After surgery, when they tried to get me to stand. 11.

Today, eh, a fraction of 1.

Boy, do I hear that. Post surgery for the first two days after I had the cyst removed, hernia repaired and total hysterectomy; all at the same time, my pain levels were about a 15. Massive amounts of very strong drugs kept me from punching nurses and physical therapists who attempted to get me to move slightly. The pain didn't get down below a 7 until about the 10th day in the hospital. It was a 10 when I went to the ER before being admitted.

A few years before that, while driving to work one morning I had a sudden gallstone attack that felt like a heart attack. Pulled to the side of the road to ask someone to call an ambulance for me. That was a 10. Had the gallbladder removed and felt fine.

These days, most of my daily aches and pains are in the 3 to 5 range.

I get about one day a week when the pain levels are a 1 or 2.

It's hell getting old...

Sign up as a blood donor. Then you'll know about intrusive.

there is a reasonable reason to ask those questions of donors....to keep the blood supply safe because our blood guardians historically either can't or won't properly test the samples.

What happens in the doctors office is a paternalistic insult to my individual self, it is the extension of the nanny state, which I despise. If I have concerns I will bring them up. Fishing through my psychological and emotional state looking for things about me to fix is OFFENSIVE!

Izzie, you hit the nail right on the head. At times, mental pain can be the worst of all. Depression is known affect the intensity of pain more than it is for those who are not depressed.

Dys and I were talking about his pain and I remember being shocked when he was in the hospital and replied "3" when asked how much pain he was in. Everyone there looked almost sick when they saw the x-ray of his hip. The doctor said it was as if Dys' hip didn't break, but that it exploded. This is why I wonder how effective it is asking a patient to describe a pain level since it is so subjective. The good nurses will ask for a comparison--djjd's thumb would
certainly alter his comparison of pain when asked how much it hurt. I'm such a wimp that his description of his thumb almost made me sick.

So today, I am feeling a five, like Reyn. Headache for a couple of days. On good days it can be zero. Most of the time I've learned to ignore the various getting old pains.

Raboida and I have had meaningful discussions about getting up there in age and all that goes with it. The younger people on this thread might not realize just how satisfying having a really good bowel movement can be.....but I digress.

I promise, I'll stop now.