Sorry! - I still think “pain scales” are utterly useless. I have had PN for 15 years now and about ten years ago I reckoned my pain level at about 8 or 9. Were that to have been true I cannot imagine where I would be now – 120?

I really am supportive of your position and agree with all you say with this one exception. If I want my doctor or neuro or wife or neighbour to know how much pain I am in (especially when I look ok in every other way) I just tell them it is excruciating but life has to go on for as long as I can stand it. To tell them I gauge my pain as 9 ½ out of 10 means nothing to them or anyone else because if it gets worse next week and again the week after what rating do I tell them it is then?. This is how I see it but please accept that I respect your view whilst disagreeing with it.

David – thank you for your good wishes but I fear I am doing far from well. I must add that if I showed any relevant papers extracted from the internet to either my neuro or my GP they would quickly laugh and show me the door. They think I spend my life researching the net for a cure. I can’t change them (or their opinions) any more because the notes are handed from one to the other and I will find myself in the same situation with a new doc. I am indeed resigned to this disease now and rely on sleep, reading, my computer and TV to help me through the day. My wife believes she is the sickest of the two of us and after 44 years who am I to disagree – I only live with her?!!! That is however another problem altogether.

Leaving my troubles to one side David, I am happy to see that your pain still allows you your daily walks. Long may it be so.

I would just like to add that I feel humbled by Billye and others who are suffering multiple health problems. They are a wonderful example to us more fortunate ones especially when one considers that most of them also have very little family back up or domestic help. They are permanently in my thoughts and I read their postings with the constant hope of an improvement in their various troubles.

Tony