I'm not sure where I found these online but someone finally got around to putting mote than facial expressions behind the 1-10 pain skale. It gies something like this:
0 - Pain free
1 - Very minor annoyance - occasional minor twinges.
2 - Minor annoyance - occasional strong twinges.
3 - Annoying enough to be distracting.
4 - Can be ignored if you are really involved in your work, but still distracting.
5 - Can't be ignored for more than 30 minutes.
6 - Can't be ignored for any length of time, but you can still go to work and participate in social activities.
7 - Makes it difficult to concentrate, interferes with sleep You can still function with effort.
8 - Physical activity severely limited. You can read and converse with effort. Nausea and dizziness set in as factors of pain.
9 - Unable to speak. Crying out or moaning uncontrollably - near delirium.
10 - Unconscious. Pain makes you pass out.
So.... Using this scale I would have to rate my chronic pain as always being between 6-8. My physical activity is always limted, it almost always interferes with my sleep, and while I can still function with effort, the mental effects of taking enough drugs to be able to function leaves me unable to write or converse afaquatly without constant corrections to my statements. Just writing this paragraph required a huge reliance on my phones spelling correction as well as numerous edits in an effort to sound coherant.
And you can forget a social life. With the exception of Thanksgiving day family gatherings and medical related appointments I haven't made itvto a social gathering in months....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment