I think it's a matter of tollerance as well, we have been in alot of pain for a period of time.. your SIL does not have the tollerance you do for pain because of a lack of experience with it mabie.. look at it like child birth Kate the first time you are shure you are dying lol, but by the second or third your body tollerates that kind of pain better, but more so we know the pain gets better and in our subconcious we know how bad it's been. And thats the 10 till you feel more than that and adjust your 10 again. Her 10 is probibly your 7. or at least a heak of alot lower than yours would be.

I see the little one is growing like a weed she is beautiful
Nice to see you posting you are missed.

Hugs and holiday wishes,
Sandra

Hi Sandel,
Thanks for the links you have posted, you are great!!
I would say that my pain is an 8 which is severe.
My doctor using the Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale
I hope you are OK.
Have a lovely, healthy new year
Love
Alison

Hi Ali,

I think the Wong Baker is very successful for young children whose own faces usually tell all and can readily recognise what each face means.

I am wondering if there is any point to us using a pain score and that it is best used in acute situations post op or post accident etc because chronic pain sufferers have so many variables as to why and how they feel pain and why and how some seem to tolerate it better than others.

Ali, if you were to tell a doctor that you had 8/10 pain, according to the common 0-10 pain scale it would mean you would be probably unable to carry on a conversation, let alone sit and write about it on a forum, so he may think you are embellishing your pain.---THIS DOESN'T MEAN IT IS THE CASE. but I do think we are best to use descriptive words rather than numerical scores.
It maybe a reason many of us have so much difficulty making family and friends understand our pain when our behaviour does not match their preconceived idea of what a 8 or 9/10 pain score would feel like.

I hope I am making sense?? I guess what I am really saying is that this way of pain scoring will never truly represent what RSD/CRPS people endure--maybe we should formulate a new way and we may have less trouble getting through to others.
Any ideas?
cheers and Happy New Year
Tayla

I used to talk and think about pain quite a bit as a child to try to understand other people's pain and communicate my own. I'm sure we had no earth shaking insights but we talked about things like frequency, intractability, amplitude, ability to mitigate, type, and nature.

I'm sure a great deal more could be done to communicate this. All the docs want to know is the intensity and as we all know here, that's not necessarily the most important aspect.