alt Hacker NewsI read a neat trick someone had for the ambiguous "out of 10 where is the pain" question doctors give you. Find a reference point first: "If five is a broken leg, I am at a 7"
Otherwise my 3 could be someone elses 7, as someone who has had chronic pain and a shifted pain tolerance it's proven pretty useful as even doctors struggle to convey what a worrisome level of pain would be without knowing what you have been through.
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Cordiali • today at 7:03 AM
I'm on a waitlist for this. I went to hospital for an attack about six months ago, and I started overthinking this question afterwards. Wondering silly things like 'is the scale linear or logarithmic?!'
As a doctor, that is a great way to report pain. Most of the time we’re asking for ballpark and trend reasons though. If I come and it’s a 3 first time, then a 5, then a 7, that’s good and I can do something about that. If it’s a 8-9 and the patient is in their phone, and it stays 8-9, well the absolute magnitude may be less of a concern to me.
Regardless, if someone comes in and reports high pain I am going to administer strong painkillers (I work in emergency departments)