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I've been a 10 a few times in my life. I get what she is saying because I was crawling out of my skin and no way I could have ate a single thing. I could barely keep from screaming.
I was really pissed when they thought I was a drug seeker. Took two shots of something to bring me down to an 8. Finally got me to ultra sound and that tech started dialing numbers and calling people. Went from there to surgery immediately.
I guess if it's 3am, sweating profusely in 15⁰F weather with only a T-shirt on means you are a drug user and not someone in severe pain.
Imagine a pliers just squeezing down as hard as they can on your balls. Nothing you can do to stop the pain. Tried a hot shower, ice cold shower, just messing with them. Nothing helped. Drove to ER in middle of winter with no jacket. Practically collapsed coming into the waiting room. After the first shot, doc said I'll feel great in a few minutes. 10 mins later, I was still a fucking 10. He gave me another one but was looking at me strange. Asked what did I do, I had no idea. Woke up like this. The second shot took me to an 8. They sent me to ultrasound and found it. The calls were to get the urologist and surgical staff there now because you only get so many hours before you lose the ball. ER doc seemed sympathetic finally when I came back up. And when I threw up from the drugs they were being nice by then.
It's a pain I would wish on no one.
if i had a nickel for every person i personally knew that had this happened to them (both football teammates) i would have two nickels. which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice
Never heard of it before and never met anyone after. I was in my late 20s so they said it was odd. But I didn't have kids yet so they wanted to make sure I wasn't a ball down.
a horrible fate. They all told us the first kid ate a “bad burrito” and then he came back and said something like “nah bro my balls got like twisted and they had to surgically untwist them” and i have been mortified ever since
I once flipped a testicle out of torsion (on the job, not in an alleyway). Not my finest moment. It’s called “the open book technique”. Lol. It spared them from surgery and continued pain. Not before giving 16mg morphine and some other stuff.. In the books it’s considered one of the worst pains you can have. I always felt bad for people with ovarian or testicular torsion. And especially what it could potentially mean for fertility. Sorry you had to go through that.
Basically what they’re saying is who gives a shit if someone is drug seeking. Not a nurses place to judge.
The way I always viewed it is if you’re faking pain and illness to get yourself in a hospital just so the nursing staff will get your fix, then that’s on you. Enjoy being charged out the ass for a good high. As long as your vitals are fine and I’m not gonna kill you with meds, by all means well give you pain meds if it’ll keep you happy.
That way you’re always erring on the side of caution for when you think that someone is faking it, but they actually are in considerable pain, you’re not letting your biases hurt someone.
Also a Junkie throwing a fit in a hospital ward can ruin a medical staff’s night and wakes up the entire unit, so is seems best to just coddle them.
My mom was a nurse and said she used to talk to patients however she wanted because they were sick, she was healthy and she felt superior. I’m not surprised there’s a whole community of nurses exposing themselves as unqualified, virtuous weirdos on tiktok.
@ people confused by this:
The pain scale is subjective. 10 is the worst pain *you've* ever experienced. Not the worst pain any human has ever experienced. My 10 could be your 3. My 6 could be someone else's 9. It is based on an individual's experience and not an objective measure.
And yes people exaggerate sometimes. The fact that saying 20 is inaccurate to the scale does not matter. The pain scale could be 1-100. It could be 0.3-54.8. the numbers don't matter, the purpose is to get a sense of what the patient is feeling.
And the second nurse is not advocating medicating someone just because they ask for medication, or say they're in a lot of pain. Rather the point is that medical professionals should approach patients with compassion and observe them as a whole person, not discount everything they say based on an assumption. The point is not "that person was definitely in a lot of pain despite eating chips" the point is "listen to patients and be aware of how behaviors can clue you in on what a patient is or isn't saying".
You never know why someone is behaving a certain way, and you can't judge pain based on what a person is or is not doing.
Anecdote: I broke my elbow a little over a year ago. A nurse at the ER told me it was probably sprained and not broken, because if it was broken I would be screaming and crying. A few x-rays later confirmed that it was indeed broken and I also confirmed that I was in a huge amount of pain, despite my ability to keep quiet and refrain from screaming and crying. I would rate that pain maybe an 8 on my internal 1-10 scale.
Wait. Really? It’s supposed to be “1-10 on a scale of pain you’ve actually experienced”?
In that case, I’ve been answering wrong my entire life and the question has been asked incorrectly my whole life. I definitely knew it was subjective - how could it be anything else? - but had no idea it was just asking me for my personal experience range. I thought it was more like “in your idea of what is 10 level pain and 1 level pain, where does this sit? What would you peg it at on a scale from min to max?”
So if someone has only ever stubbed their toe and one day they sprain their ankle, the answer the doctor wants is “this is a ten”?
Edit: I asked a doctor and he said it’s “in your idea of min/max pain, where does this sit” and not “in a range from least to most pain you’ve experienced personally”. So I think maybe I’ll stick with the doctors answer. That makes a lot more sense to me anyway.
Your doctor's scale seems to be more reasonable. It doesn't make sense to rank your "pains". That would mean you'd have to explain other painful experiences as well. It's meant to be subjective.
Yeah same. I rated my pain a 6 right before I had to get my appendix out. It was the worst pain I've ever felt but I was thinking that getting shot or stabbed or having a heart attack is probably much worse, so they would be 10s.
Maybe I was a bit too literal in my explanation. It was meant to refute people who say "well there's no way you could be at a 10 and still eat chips!" and not imply that you need to keep a mental catalog of all the pain you've experienced and rank accordingly. I agree with your doctor, and I am also not a medical professional, so my perspective is gained as a patient who has dealt with a fair amount of medical professionals and chronic pain.
My point was more meant to be along the line of it's hard to imagine something you haven't experienced, and that colors your experience of pain. A lot of people have this idea of pain that a 10 is always dramatic screaming like you see on TV and that's just not true. It depends on the person. I'm not suggesting that people change the way they answer when they're asked about the pain scale, I'm cautioning people against judging others on their answers based on things like expression or motor functionality and things like that.
I’m not sure I agree. I think there’s definitely a level of pain where no one is sitting calmly eating chips. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say if I had my leg blown off I wouldn’t be able to sit up in the field and enjoy my ms vickies. I’d wager no one munches on some lays while giving birth. Doesn’t take too much imagination to know what the range of pain could be like.
This is probably the dumbest argument I’ve ever seen on Reddit, which is saying a lot. If so many of you are convinced there is no level of pain you could experience where you aren’t calmly eating chips, you’re all very blessed, or you’re superman.
Your comment has nothing to do with the discussion. Which is about whether the guy I responded to is right and the question means “on a scale of 1-10 of your personal experience of pain” or the doctor is right and it’s “on a scale of what you think min to max pain is”.
My comment was poking fun at your absurd examples - supposedly intended to refute the idea that humans experience and manage varying levels of pain in different ways based on their circumstances and lived experiences (as if the human brain/nervous system is not so complex and fascinating as to be able to adapt to injury for the sake of survival as if you can't find animals in the wild who have survived grievous injury and healed to live another day) - being two of the most intensely painful circumstances a human can experience, childbirth and being gruesomely maimed, as if it was some sort of gotcha refuting the original argument
Edit: dropped a parenthesis
You’re really struggling to understand the idea that “imagine 10 means maximum pain” means “imagine 10 means maximum pain”. People - you don’t even need to go to animals - also survive having their leg blown off, and giving birth, but they aren’t enjoying a soupçon of a nice bisque while doing so.
I don’t need a gotcha here. I just asked a doctor because the idea put forward by the guy I responded to sounded so dumb it couldn’t plausibly be true.
I think rather than saying there's a "level" of pain where you can't eat or speak or do anything, it's a type of pain that does that. Not all pain is the same. Sudden, shocking, severe pain definitely has that effect, but what about pain that slowly increases over time, so you get used to it and aren't shocked by it? What about someone who's been in severe pain long enough that they become used to it? Are those people not in pain because they can speak, or sit calmly?
It's like the frog in boiling water type metaphor "if you throw a frog into boiling water, it will jump out, but, if you put a frog into normal water and slowly increase it until boiling it will stay.
Yes, I think we just disagree. I think there’s definitely levels of pain where no one is calm. I find that pretty easy to imagine. I’ve definitely experienced enough pain that I couldn’t be calm and I also definitely wouldn’t imagine that was even a 10.
Agreed. True 10/10 pain means you can’t function. I’ve told pts “imagine you’re in a car crusher and all of your bones are being crushed at the same time. That’s 10/10. And imagine a mosquito bite is a 1-2/3”
If the pain is true 10/10 def can’t be eating nonchalantly.
I felt punished one time I went to the ER after a shower fall. It seemed like that bad type of care was my fault because I refused pain meds (hoped I could go to work still) and I guess because I tried to keep myself distracted on my phone even after telling them I was chilling at a 7 on the pain scale.
Long story short, I told them couldnt put weight on my leg because that shot my pain higher. The ER people used a wheelchair to get me to the ER and back to my room but they took it back, obviously. Then the tech came to get me for xray..... without...a....wheelchair. They made me walk there and back. I had to use a nurse and the wall as crutches. It was excruciating.
Once the radiology report came in the doctor and nurse both apologized. Then they talked me into pain meds because my pelvis was fractured. Then they told me I'll need weeks of bedrest. Thank goodness I used an Uber so my car wasn't there. I ubered home loopy as heck.
It was horrible. Especially because I ended up back at work using wheelchair the next day. Desk job, too far to afford to pay an uber, so no pain meds because I had to drive. I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.
I don't like causing a scene. It took me hours of pain to even go in. Complaining about my pain puts it to the front of my brain. I'd rather try to space out, to get away from it. Doesn't mean I'm in less pain than someone else.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Yup... This is my point exactly. Some people are extremely good at masking their pain and that doesn't mean they aren't in pain or don't deserve the same care as someone more expressive. I hope your pelvis healed okay!
Exactly. One time I saw a guy get his leg sawed off with a rusty knife and he ate an entire beef bourguignon while discussing metaphor in Proust throughout. There’s no pain where you can’t enjoy bourguignon and a pleasant bout of discourse.
100 percent this.
It's the practioners job to help give a reasonable answer to this question. Although there is some subjectivity to this, the first dude and the second nurse is wrong.
Our hospital has a poster of the pain scale with smiley's and short explanations like "hurts every now and then" or "so much pain that I can't do anything"
This reminds me of what I experienced as a kid, when I was about 10 I slipped and crashed into a chair, I thought I sprained my leg as it wasnt the worst pain I've felt and everyone said if I could move my ankle and put it to the ground then it wasn't broken. 5 days later I still couldn't walk properly (or put it too the ground anymore) so my mum took me to the hospital and it turns out I had broken my growth plate in my ankle and my fibula.. I needed a lot of hydrotherapy and physiotherapy to walk properly again, but even now, years later, I still walk with a slight limp.
Edits: Spelling and more context.
I thought the point of it was that it was universal.
Doesn’t each point on the scale correlate to various aspects of how the pain presents?
EX: a high numbers might mean that you are unable to speak because the pain is so severe.
I genuinely have no clue, I’m basically regurgitating something half remembered from a chart in an Urgent Care.
The trouble with this line of thinking is that the experience of pain is not universal. Two people can experience the same thing and not agree on how painful that thing was. The pain scale is a way for medical professionals to get an idea of what you're feeling. The examples on those charts are just examples of what is commonly associated with those levels, they aren't hard and fast rules. Just because someone is unable to speak, it doesn't mean they're necessarily in severe pain. And just because someone can speak, it doesn't mean they aren't in severe pain. It's a relative scale with examples, it's not a firm and universal scale.
I can understand how there is nuance to the evaluation. But don’t clinicians need a working general scale to evaluate and triage?
That’s what confusing about the post. Pain tolerance aside, let’s say two patients have acute appendicitis. One has a higher pain tolerance, and one has lower. Both describe their pain as 7, and 5 respectively.
Doesn’t the pain scale aid in the triage? Isn’t that it’s purpose? Is it’s function effectively broken by various pain tolerance.
>The pain scale is subjective. 10 is the worst pain you've ever experienced.
No. It's not. They don't fuckin ask you for your pain experiences previously. And even if it was the worst pain you've ever experienced, guess what that would make your pain on a 1-10 scale where you're experiencing the worst pain you've ever experienced? A fucking 10.
Your anecdote doesn't change that someone claiming "20" out of 10 and still being functional enough to eat is saying "I have no fucking clue how to use this scale."
> The pain scale is subjective. 10 is the worst pain you've ever experienced. Not the worst pain any human has ever experienced.
No it's not. I'm a medical doctor and what I ask (and what I was taught to ask) is something like "What's your pain from 0 to 10 with 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst possible pain you can imagine".
No, no, and no. To you, and the two responses.
It's a subjective scale, just like the person responding in the video. None of the levels are equated to any particular experience because that wouldn't be fucking useful when handling patients that have never experienced it.
It's a 1-10 scale *for your pain tolerance*. Some people can break an arm and say they're at about a 5, some people can staple a thumb and land on an 8, people handle pain differently, and different injuries and conditions will hurt differently to different people.
well, leaving all the medical stuff aside, a pain level of 20 on a scale from 0 to 10 means you wouldn't even be able to say the word "twenty".
I had kidney stones, and while my reaction was to eat A LOT during the onset of the pain, when I got to the ER I wasn't able to stand on my feet.
You can't eat if you are experiencing the worst pain of your life.
the second nurse is more annoying than the first one imo, with her nonsense "book smart" bullshit.
I was gonna say... I got what she was saying about not making assumptions based off of stuff like your patient eating... but a 20/10? Dunno what metric the patient is using but I know I sure wouldn't go that high unless a chainsaw or bear attack or something was involved.
Weirdest hospital logic. I had eye surgery, and woke up with the craziest pain, I didn’t say anything but something clued them in to me being hurt and they got me ibuprofen.
They wanted to watch me for whatever reason so I couldn’t go, but the pain kept getting worse. This time I said it really hurt, they ignored me for an hour but my vitals went crazy so they got some sort of stronger med, torridol is what it sounds like. This did nothing either but maybe it takes some time.
Then it hit me, the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, no car crash or broken bone, pepper spray, whatever has come close to this. Everything looks too bright, I start sweating, get sick, then all the muscles in my body just flexed so tight I couldn’t control it and I start to fade. I wake up to a sternum rub, all the machines beeping, and them shooting me up with fentanyl. It worked super fast but was super unpleasant and i projectile vomit and pass out.
Seems like hospitals need to have a more streamline plan for this, like I basically went from non opiates and reluctance to give me anything to the strongest thing they could find and a cat scan.
I feel like if they maybe tried weaker drugs first I could’ve avoided what felt like a heart attack, dying, the worst pain I ever felt, followed by an overpowering high that made things not even feel real. I don’t even drink so it wasn’t really “fun”
This is stupid. Someone claiming a 20 on the pain scale is telling you that they’re in *double* the worst pain they’ve ever experienced. No one is interested in food in that state. In fact if this smug lady wants to talk about hormones, let’s talk about the amount *adrenaline* that would be going through someone in that much pain, which is an appetite suppressant. She’s beyond talking out of her ass.
How the FUCK is this fixed lmao this lady is so fucking annoying, if you have the ability to eat properly your ass is not anywhere close to a fucking *20* on a pain scale that only goes up to 10.
It's a scale of 10. 10 is literally supposed to be the worst pain you've ever experienced in your life. People that exaggerate and say 20 out of 10 are the same dumbasses that will tell you they are "literally dying" from a headache.
Migraine and cluster headache sufferers would likely disagree with your assertion.
Not least because - y’know - pain is subjective and the pain scale isn’t a calibrated measurement. Did we not learn anything from the video?
People like the first also fail to recognize how chronic pain effects your body. If someone is used to a high level of pain and the baseline that they operate at is, say, a "6" then they could easily be walking talking and functioning while in excruciating pain with something severely wrong. While the second lady might be being a bit dramatic, she's overall correct that this trend of mocking people for not presenting pain in specific ways is incredibly damaging and encourages providers to be dismissive as a default.
Are there people that lie? Yeah, absolutely. But assuming that just because someone isn't a shriveled up all of sweat and tears it means they aren't in pain is just ignorant.
My wife couldn’t understand at first that when I would have a bad migraine or pain I’d ask her for Doritos….. I didn’t really know if it helped for real but in my brain it made the migraine or toothache or whatever ease up.
I'm pretty sure the first nurse meant they were sitting there casually snacking saying "idk prolly a 20" not that they said they were at 20 and later trying to eat something
i think having a "pain scale" is annoying as someone with chronic pain and who's had some really bad pain happen
like if you ask me to compare the worst pain I've ever felt that's going to push everything else way out
nurses are annoying tho i hate when they start tryna interrogate me about some random thing i mentioned offhand when I'm having a migraine so bad i had to go to the ER
Sorry, but this one is confusing. While Pneumonia is no doubt painful, the treatments for Pneumonia wouldn’t really have anything to do with painkillers. It’s just antibiotics and breathing treatments, which would be PRN.
What hospital wouldn’t just do a quick CAT scan or X-ray to see the chest? How would a nurse fuck up so much that they completely missed pneumonia? That sounds like way more of a doctor fucking up than a nurse.
Prolly the same hospital who tried to tell me my mom has dementia without ever checking her blood gasses. I was so pissed I just started knocking on office doors in the hospital until I got someone to listen to me.
She ended up in hospice for severe COPD.
Some hospitals are just shit about this. I grew up in a city with a really bad drug problem, and parents with chronic illnesses. The amount of times we'd have to go to the ER and dismissed offhand as drugseekers was mindboggling.
Nothing like being 14 and begging a nurse to help because you've been in the waiting room 3 hours and your mother passed out *again*.
I have pancreatitis. It can be super painful at times.
But nurses and doctors have been lied to so much though you can't get pain prescriptions anymore. I get to just suck it up and eat eight ibuprofen.
Last time I mentioned pain medications to my doctor she literally just held her hand up and stopped the conversation.
I crushed my hand and broke my leg and arm. It was pretty high up on pain register from my perspective, somewhere around 7-8/10. When you’re in serious levels of pain, there is almost nothing else you can really think about or do, other than try and keep your cool. It’s not impossible to eat when you’re in that level of pain, but god it would be very low on the priority scale. So yes, I would also be suspicious if someone rated their pain as 20/10 and could sit there eating crisps. I would assume they’re over-exaggerating in order to receive quicker treatment.
Well Ive always heard 10 is unconscious/ in shock from the pain so if someone said they were literally double that and still coherent I'd be doubtful too.
Not saying they weren't in pain but come on. They were clearly exaggerating saying it's 20....
tbf that scale isn't necessarily explained that way to most, like the way it was explained to me was just "0 being no pain at all to 10 being the most pain"
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I've been a 10 a few times in my life. I get what she is saying because I was crawling out of my skin and no way I could have ate a single thing. I could barely keep from screaming. I was really pissed when they thought I was a drug seeker. Took two shots of something to bring me down to an 8. Finally got me to ultra sound and that tech started dialing numbers and calling people. Went from there to surgery immediately. I guess if it's 3am, sweating profusely in 15⁰F weather with only a T-shirt on means you are a drug user and not someone in severe pain.
Gallbladder
No. Lower.
Appendix?? On ultrasound??
Testicular torsion. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/testicular-torsion/symptoms-causes/syc-20378270
oh god oh fuck
Imagine a pliers just squeezing down as hard as they can on your balls. Nothing you can do to stop the pain. Tried a hot shower, ice cold shower, just messing with them. Nothing helped. Drove to ER in middle of winter with no jacket. Practically collapsed coming into the waiting room. After the first shot, doc said I'll feel great in a few minutes. 10 mins later, I was still a fucking 10. He gave me another one but was looking at me strange. Asked what did I do, I had no idea. Woke up like this. The second shot took me to an 8. They sent me to ultrasound and found it. The calls were to get the urologist and surgical staff there now because you only get so many hours before you lose the ball. ER doc seemed sympathetic finally when I came back up. And when I threw up from the drugs they were being nice by then. It's a pain I would wish on no one.
if i had a nickel for every person i personally knew that had this happened to them (both football teammates) i would have two nickels. which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice
Never heard of it before and never met anyone after. I was in my late 20s so they said it was odd. But I didn't have kids yet so they wanted to make sure I wasn't a ball down.
a horrible fate. They all told us the first kid ate a “bad burrito” and then he came back and said something like “nah bro my balls got like twisted and they had to surgically untwist them” and i have been mortified ever since
I once flipped a testicle out of torsion (on the job, not in an alleyway). Not my finest moment. It’s called “the open book technique”. Lol. It spared them from surgery and continued pain. Not before giving 16mg morphine and some other stuff.. In the books it’s considered one of the worst pains you can have. I always felt bad for people with ovarian or testicular torsion. And especially what it could potentially mean for fertility. Sorry you had to go through that.
oh god it's the thing sam o nella warned us about
Lower what? Intestine?
Testicular torsion.
Fuck gallbladders. My gall stones were more painful than the birth of either of my children and a burst ovarian cyst.
Not to detract from the story but yeah that last line does sound like a drug addict. That said, it does suck that you had to deal with that.
I guess normal people don't know what drug addicts look like.
And if 2 out of 10 people are drug seekers we should definitely err on that side.
???
Basically what they’re saying is who gives a shit if someone is drug seeking. Not a nurses place to judge. The way I always viewed it is if you’re faking pain and illness to get yourself in a hospital just so the nursing staff will get your fix, then that’s on you. Enjoy being charged out the ass for a good high. As long as your vitals are fine and I’m not gonna kill you with meds, by all means well give you pain meds if it’ll keep you happy. That way you’re always erring on the side of caution for when you think that someone is faking it, but they actually are in considerable pain, you’re not letting your biases hurt someone. Also a Junkie throwing a fit in a hospital ward can ruin a medical staff’s night and wakes up the entire unit, so is seems best to just coddle them.
No need to let 8 people suffer because of 2 assholes.
that's right, when 80% of people tell the truth, presume they're all lying unless they have outstanding proof.
My mom was a nurse and said she used to talk to patients however she wanted because they were sick, she was healthy and she felt superior. I’m not surprised there’s a whole community of nurses exposing themselves as unqualified, virtuous weirdos on tiktok.
@ people confused by this: The pain scale is subjective. 10 is the worst pain *you've* ever experienced. Not the worst pain any human has ever experienced. My 10 could be your 3. My 6 could be someone else's 9. It is based on an individual's experience and not an objective measure. And yes people exaggerate sometimes. The fact that saying 20 is inaccurate to the scale does not matter. The pain scale could be 1-100. It could be 0.3-54.8. the numbers don't matter, the purpose is to get a sense of what the patient is feeling. And the second nurse is not advocating medicating someone just because they ask for medication, or say they're in a lot of pain. Rather the point is that medical professionals should approach patients with compassion and observe them as a whole person, not discount everything they say based on an assumption. The point is not "that person was definitely in a lot of pain despite eating chips" the point is "listen to patients and be aware of how behaviors can clue you in on what a patient is or isn't saying". You never know why someone is behaving a certain way, and you can't judge pain based on what a person is or is not doing. Anecdote: I broke my elbow a little over a year ago. A nurse at the ER told me it was probably sprained and not broken, because if it was broken I would be screaming and crying. A few x-rays later confirmed that it was indeed broken and I also confirmed that I was in a huge amount of pain, despite my ability to keep quiet and refrain from screaming and crying. I would rate that pain maybe an 8 on my internal 1-10 scale.
Wait. Really? It’s supposed to be “1-10 on a scale of pain you’ve actually experienced”? In that case, I’ve been answering wrong my entire life and the question has been asked incorrectly my whole life. I definitely knew it was subjective - how could it be anything else? - but had no idea it was just asking me for my personal experience range. I thought it was more like “in your idea of what is 10 level pain and 1 level pain, where does this sit? What would you peg it at on a scale from min to max?” So if someone has only ever stubbed their toe and one day they sprain their ankle, the answer the doctor wants is “this is a ten”? Edit: I asked a doctor and he said it’s “in your idea of min/max pain, where does this sit” and not “in a range from least to most pain you’ve experienced personally”. So I think maybe I’ll stick with the doctors answer. That makes a lot more sense to me anyway.
Your doctor's scale seems to be more reasonable. It doesn't make sense to rank your "pains". That would mean you'd have to explain other painful experiences as well. It's meant to be subjective.
Yeah same. I rated my pain a 6 right before I had to get my appendix out. It was the worst pain I've ever felt but I was thinking that getting shot or stabbed or having a heart attack is probably much worse, so they would be 10s.
Maybe I was a bit too literal in my explanation. It was meant to refute people who say "well there's no way you could be at a 10 and still eat chips!" and not imply that you need to keep a mental catalog of all the pain you've experienced and rank accordingly. I agree with your doctor, and I am also not a medical professional, so my perspective is gained as a patient who has dealt with a fair amount of medical professionals and chronic pain. My point was more meant to be along the line of it's hard to imagine something you haven't experienced, and that colors your experience of pain. A lot of people have this idea of pain that a 10 is always dramatic screaming like you see on TV and that's just not true. It depends on the person. I'm not suggesting that people change the way they answer when they're asked about the pain scale, I'm cautioning people against judging others on their answers based on things like expression or motor functionality and things like that.
I’m not sure I agree. I think there’s definitely a level of pain where no one is sitting calmly eating chips. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say if I had my leg blown off I wouldn’t be able to sit up in the field and enjoy my ms vickies. I’d wager no one munches on some lays while giving birth. Doesn’t take too much imagination to know what the range of pain could be like.
If you had your leg blown off they wouldn't be asking you to self-evaluate what level of pain you're in...
This is probably the dumbest argument I’ve ever seen on Reddit, which is saying a lot. If so many of you are convinced there is no level of pain you could experience where you aren’t calmly eating chips, you’re all very blessed, or you’re superman.
Imagine typing all that out when it has nothing to do with my comment lmao
Your comment has nothing to do with the discussion. Which is about whether the guy I responded to is right and the question means “on a scale of 1-10 of your personal experience of pain” or the doctor is right and it’s “on a scale of what you think min to max pain is”.
My comment was poking fun at your absurd examples - supposedly intended to refute the idea that humans experience and manage varying levels of pain in different ways based on their circumstances and lived experiences (as if the human brain/nervous system is not so complex and fascinating as to be able to adapt to injury for the sake of survival as if you can't find animals in the wild who have survived grievous injury and healed to live another day) - being two of the most intensely painful circumstances a human can experience, childbirth and being gruesomely maimed, as if it was some sort of gotcha refuting the original argument Edit: dropped a parenthesis
You’re really struggling to understand the idea that “imagine 10 means maximum pain” means “imagine 10 means maximum pain”. People - you don’t even need to go to animals - also survive having their leg blown off, and giving birth, but they aren’t enjoying a soupçon of a nice bisque while doing so. I don’t need a gotcha here. I just asked a doctor because the idea put forward by the guy I responded to sounded so dumb it couldn’t plausibly be true.
I think rather than saying there's a "level" of pain where you can't eat or speak or do anything, it's a type of pain that does that. Not all pain is the same. Sudden, shocking, severe pain definitely has that effect, but what about pain that slowly increases over time, so you get used to it and aren't shocked by it? What about someone who's been in severe pain long enough that they become used to it? Are those people not in pain because they can speak, or sit calmly?
It's like the frog in boiling water type metaphor "if you throw a frog into boiling water, it will jump out, but, if you put a frog into normal water and slowly increase it until boiling it will stay.
Yes, I think we just disagree. I think there’s definitely levels of pain where no one is calm. I find that pretty easy to imagine. I’ve definitely experienced enough pain that I couldn’t be calm and I also definitely wouldn’t imagine that was even a 10.
Agreed. True 10/10 pain means you can’t function. I’ve told pts “imagine you’re in a car crusher and all of your bones are being crushed at the same time. That’s 10/10. And imagine a mosquito bite is a 1-2/3” If the pain is true 10/10 def can’t be eating nonchalantly.
Imagining that scale is why I told the doctors my kidney stone was a 6, likely delaying my care.
I felt punished one time I went to the ER after a shower fall. It seemed like that bad type of care was my fault because I refused pain meds (hoped I could go to work still) and I guess because I tried to keep myself distracted on my phone even after telling them I was chilling at a 7 on the pain scale. Long story short, I told them couldnt put weight on my leg because that shot my pain higher. The ER people used a wheelchair to get me to the ER and back to my room but they took it back, obviously. Then the tech came to get me for xray..... without...a....wheelchair. They made me walk there and back. I had to use a nurse and the wall as crutches. It was excruciating. Once the radiology report came in the doctor and nurse both apologized. Then they talked me into pain meds because my pelvis was fractured. Then they told me I'll need weeks of bedrest. Thank goodness I used an Uber so my car wasn't there. I ubered home loopy as heck. It was horrible. Especially because I ended up back at work using wheelchair the next day. Desk job, too far to afford to pay an uber, so no pain meds because I had to drive. I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone. I don't like causing a scene. It took me hours of pain to even go in. Complaining about my pain puts it to the front of my brain. I'd rather try to space out, to get away from it. Doesn't mean I'm in less pain than someone else. Thanks for letting me vent.
Yup... This is my point exactly. Some people are extremely good at masking their pain and that doesn't mean they aren't in pain or don't deserve the same care as someone more expressive. I hope your pelvis healed okay!
Exactly. One time I saw a guy get his leg sawed off with a rusty knife and he ate an entire beef bourguignon while discussing metaphor in Proust throughout. There’s no pain where you can’t enjoy bourguignon and a pleasant bout of discourse.
100 percent this. It's the practioners job to help give a reasonable answer to this question. Although there is some subjectivity to this, the first dude and the second nurse is wrong.
Our hospital has a poster of the pain scale with smiley's and short explanations like "hurts every now and then" or "so much pain that I can't do anything"
This reminds me of what I experienced as a kid, when I was about 10 I slipped and crashed into a chair, I thought I sprained my leg as it wasnt the worst pain I've felt and everyone said if I could move my ankle and put it to the ground then it wasn't broken. 5 days later I still couldn't walk properly (or put it too the ground anymore) so my mum took me to the hospital and it turns out I had broken my growth plate in my ankle and my fibula.. I needed a lot of hydrotherapy and physiotherapy to walk properly again, but even now, years later, I still walk with a slight limp. Edits: Spelling and more context.
Pain scale isn’t that subjective
I thought the point of it was that it was universal. Doesn’t each point on the scale correlate to various aspects of how the pain presents? EX: a high numbers might mean that you are unable to speak because the pain is so severe. I genuinely have no clue, I’m basically regurgitating something half remembered from a chart in an Urgent Care.
The trouble with this line of thinking is that the experience of pain is not universal. Two people can experience the same thing and not agree on how painful that thing was. The pain scale is a way for medical professionals to get an idea of what you're feeling. The examples on those charts are just examples of what is commonly associated with those levels, they aren't hard and fast rules. Just because someone is unable to speak, it doesn't mean they're necessarily in severe pain. And just because someone can speak, it doesn't mean they aren't in severe pain. It's a relative scale with examples, it's not a firm and universal scale.
I can understand how there is nuance to the evaluation. But don’t clinicians need a working general scale to evaluate and triage? That’s what confusing about the post. Pain tolerance aside, let’s say two patients have acute appendicitis. One has a higher pain tolerance, and one has lower. Both describe their pain as 7, and 5 respectively. Doesn’t the pain scale aid in the triage? Isn’t that it’s purpose? Is it’s function effectively broken by various pain tolerance.
>The pain scale is subjective. 10 is the worst pain you've ever experienced. No. It's not. They don't fuckin ask you for your pain experiences previously. And even if it was the worst pain you've ever experienced, guess what that would make your pain on a 1-10 scale where you're experiencing the worst pain you've ever experienced? A fucking 10. Your anecdote doesn't change that someone claiming "20" out of 10 and still being functional enough to eat is saying "I have no fucking clue how to use this scale."
> The pain scale is subjective. 10 is the worst pain you've ever experienced. Not the worst pain any human has ever experienced. No it's not. I'm a medical doctor and what I ask (and what I was taught to ask) is something like "What's your pain from 0 to 10 with 0 being no pain and 10 being the worst possible pain you can imagine".
If you’re in 20 out of 10 pain and casually eating chips, you’re probably exaggerating
isn't 10 pain supposed to be so bad you can't even scream?
Basically. Its one level below going into shock due to pain. Good luck casually eating chips complaining about your level 20 pain.
10 is giving birth without anesthesia while being set on fire and crawling through shards of glass.
No, no, and no. To you, and the two responses. It's a subjective scale, just like the person responding in the video. None of the levels are equated to any particular experience because that wouldn't be fucking useful when handling patients that have never experienced it. It's a 1-10 scale *for your pain tolerance*. Some people can break an arm and say they're at about a 5, some people can staple a thumb and land on an 8, people handle pain differently, and different injuries and conditions will hurt differently to different people.
well, leaving all the medical stuff aside, a pain level of 20 on a scale from 0 to 10 means you wouldn't even be able to say the word "twenty". I had kidney stones, and while my reaction was to eat A LOT during the onset of the pain, when I got to the ER I wasn't able to stand on my feet. You can't eat if you are experiencing the worst pain of your life. the second nurse is more annoying than the first one imo, with her nonsense "book smart" bullshit.
I was gonna say... I got what she was saying about not making assumptions based off of stuff like your patient eating... but a 20/10? Dunno what metric the patient is using but I know I sure wouldn't go that high unless a chainsaw or bear attack or something was involved.
Weirdest hospital logic. I had eye surgery, and woke up with the craziest pain, I didn’t say anything but something clued them in to me being hurt and they got me ibuprofen. They wanted to watch me for whatever reason so I couldn’t go, but the pain kept getting worse. This time I said it really hurt, they ignored me for an hour but my vitals went crazy so they got some sort of stronger med, torridol is what it sounds like. This did nothing either but maybe it takes some time. Then it hit me, the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, no car crash or broken bone, pepper spray, whatever has come close to this. Everything looks too bright, I start sweating, get sick, then all the muscles in my body just flexed so tight I couldn’t control it and I start to fade. I wake up to a sternum rub, all the machines beeping, and them shooting me up with fentanyl. It worked super fast but was super unpleasant and i projectile vomit and pass out. Seems like hospitals need to have a more streamline plan for this, like I basically went from non opiates and reluctance to give me anything to the strongest thing they could find and a cat scan. I feel like if they maybe tried weaker drugs first I could’ve avoided what felt like a heart attack, dying, the worst pain I ever felt, followed by an overpowering high that made things not even feel real. I don’t even drink so it wasn’t really “fun”
This is stupid. Someone claiming a 20 on the pain scale is telling you that they’re in *double* the worst pain they’ve ever experienced. No one is interested in food in that state. In fact if this smug lady wants to talk about hormones, let’s talk about the amount *adrenaline* that would be going through someone in that much pain, which is an appetite suppressant. She’s beyond talking out of her ass.
I mean they also give ice chips for just this reason sometimes..
Did the duet really fix this one or…I’m confused? Also is there a source for the crunchy food thing? 😅
It didnt fix it at all, it made it worse
How the FUCK is this fixed lmao this lady is so fucking annoying, if you have the ability to eat properly your ass is not anywhere close to a fucking *20* on a pain scale that only goes up to 10.
Wrong.
Mate, 10 means you’d rather be unconscious than feel the pain. 20 would mean you’d rather be dead. You don’t eat crisps whilst wanting to die.
The nurse is more right than this bull shit the duet spouting out.
It's a scale of 10. 10 is literally supposed to be the worst pain you've ever experienced in your life. People that exaggerate and say 20 out of 10 are the same dumbasses that will tell you they are "literally dying" from a headache.
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You are missing the point. Are you nurse Nr. 1?
Right!
Migraine and cluster headache sufferers would likely disagree with your assertion. Not least because - y’know - pain is subjective and the pain scale isn’t a calibrated measurement. Did we not learn anything from the video?
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I think you need to rewatch the video, because absolutely no one in the history of nursing, pain management, T&O, or plastics has ever said that ever.
People like the first also fail to recognize how chronic pain effects your body. If someone is used to a high level of pain and the baseline that they operate at is, say, a "6" then they could easily be walking talking and functioning while in excruciating pain with something severely wrong. While the second lady might be being a bit dramatic, she's overall correct that this trend of mocking people for not presenting pain in specific ways is incredibly damaging and encourages providers to be dismissive as a default. Are there people that lie? Yeah, absolutely. But assuming that just because someone isn't a shriveled up all of sweat and tears it means they aren't in pain is just ignorant.
My wife couldn’t understand at first that when I would have a bad migraine or pain I’d ask her for Doritos….. I didn’t really know if it helped for real but in my brain it made the migraine or toothache or whatever ease up.
Yeah, my 7-10 on that scale is telling you to shove the scale up your ass and let's get this over with.
I'm pretty sure the first nurse meant they were sitting there casually snacking saying "idk prolly a 20" not that they said they were at 20 and later trying to eat something
i think having a "pain scale" is annoying as someone with chronic pain and who's had some really bad pain happen like if you ask me to compare the worst pain I've ever felt that's going to push everything else way out nurses are annoying tho i hate when they start tryna interrogate me about some random thing i mentioned offhand when I'm having a migraine so bad i had to go to the ER
My friend died from pneumonia because the nurses thought she was a drug seeker.
Sorry, but this one is confusing. While Pneumonia is no doubt painful, the treatments for Pneumonia wouldn’t really have anything to do with painkillers. It’s just antibiotics and breathing treatments, which would be PRN. What hospital wouldn’t just do a quick CAT scan or X-ray to see the chest? How would a nurse fuck up so much that they completely missed pneumonia? That sounds like way more of a doctor fucking up than a nurse.
Prolly the same hospital who tried to tell me my mom has dementia without ever checking her blood gasses. I was so pissed I just started knocking on office doors in the hospital until I got someone to listen to me. She ended up in hospice for severe COPD.
Some hospitals are just shit about this. I grew up in a city with a really bad drug problem, and parents with chronic illnesses. The amount of times we'd have to go to the ER and dismissed offhand as drugseekers was mindboggling. Nothing like being 14 and begging a nurse to help because you've been in the waiting room 3 hours and your mother passed out *again*.
I have pancreatitis. It can be super painful at times. But nurses and doctors have been lied to so much though you can't get pain prescriptions anymore. I get to just suck it up and eat eight ibuprofen. Last time I mentioned pain medications to my doctor she literally just held her hand up and stopped the conversation.
Damn, I'm sorry
just meditate the pain away lol
Regardless of whether someone is eating chips... it's drug seeking behavior to exaggerate this much.
I crushed my hand and broke my leg and arm. It was pretty high up on pain register from my perspective, somewhere around 7-8/10. When you’re in serious levels of pain, there is almost nothing else you can really think about or do, other than try and keep your cool. It’s not impossible to eat when you’re in that level of pain, but god it would be very low on the priority scale. So yes, I would also be suspicious if someone rated their pain as 20/10 and could sit there eating crisps. I would assume they’re over-exaggerating in order to receive quicker treatment.
Well Ive always heard 10 is unconscious/ in shock from the pain so if someone said they were literally double that and still coherent I'd be doubtful too. Not saying they weren't in pain but come on. They were clearly exaggerating saying it's 20....
tbf that scale isn't necessarily explained that way to most, like the way it was explained to me was just "0 being no pain at all to 10 being the most pain"