this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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The absolute nature of the scale isn't THAT important, yeah it gives you an idea of how the pain feels, but what's more important is how the number changes over time.
If a patient keeps saying "IT'S AN 11!!" for an hour and then now it's a 9? Great, we're moving in the right direction.
If someone starts out saying it's an 11 and suddenly it's a 15? Well, what changed? Did some meds wear off? Did they shift and move something that increased the pain?
Heck, 90% of the time if I get there and it's an 11, then just 10 minutes later it's suddenly a 6 cause they've calmed down now that help is there.
Having just gone through something...I can attest to the fact that when you see no end to the pain, the mental anguish is immense. For some people that means a couple of points.
For me when asked, I always think "could it be worse?" and having never had my balls trampled by a herd of elephants, or been hanged, drawn and quartered....I could never give a 10.
While that's fair, there does exist pain for which you can't really imagine much worse at that moment. For me those have been kidney stones and a broken femur.