Little strikes fear into the heart of someone with chronic pain than questions like “what number is your pain now”. It feels like such an arbitrary question. I used to panic, trying to remember what I’d rated it at before, scared if I said the wrong thing I’d not be taken seriously. It wasn’t that I was being dishonest, or was trying to give an over- or under-inflated idea of my situation – the numbers just didn’t mean anything.
Recently, on a Facebook page for people living with chronic nerve pain, I saw this scale and it finally made sense. Now I don’t have to panic, and I don’t need to worry about what I’d said before. Using this scale I can give a meaningful response to those questions every time.
Feel free to share with anyone you think may benefit from having this scale.