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Tuesday, May 13, 2014

How the heck do you put a number on pain?

Almost any one who is reading this was perhaps asked on a scale of 1 to 10, what is your pain level?

Sometimes, they say 0 is no pain
and 10 is "take me to hospital", "worst you ever experienced"

A paranoid person could ask to be taken to hospital for fever over 100 and
some body ache.

A very tough woman could say that birth of a child was 5 compared to broken bones.

Obviously the numbers can be all over the map. So, I did some internet search and came across these helpful links for which I take no credit.
healthcentral
The max I ever felt was a 8 based on this. So, we have to really communicate
the pain as accurately as possible.

If you say 8 and you are in a hospital after a surgery they could give you morphine and it would stay in your system for about 4 weeks it seems.

Hope a standard chart is used to help patients communicate.

Disclaimer: I am retired engineer. I try to put a number on everything which is not really easy and can get you into trouble :-)

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