At most doctor appointments, I’ve been asked to rate my pain between 0-10. It goes like this:
Dr.: How would you rate your pain?
Me: Which one?
Dr. Ummm….Overall.
Me: Like an average of all my current pains right now? Or the worst one I’ve experienced today? Or a median of my pains on a typical day? Or-
Dr.: ???????????
The doctor usually tells you to rate your pain with 0 representing no pain, and 10 being the worst pain you’ve experienced in the “pain numeric rating scale.” But by asking patients to rate their current pain as one reductive, simplistic overall number, your doctor may miss the multi-dimensional impacts of living with chronic pain.
I’ve Got PainS
Chronic pain fluctuates widely across the location(s) in the body where it is experienced, and over time. Right now I have a 7 in my right SI joint/sciatic nerve, 5 in my right shoulder, 4 in my left pelvis, 4 in my right wrist, 3 in my neck, and 3 in my right foot. In a few hours, those numbers will change completely, and perhaps even become inverted. So knowing how I would rate these pains in this moment doesn’t really indicate anything about the clinical significance of the pain. For example, I experience my most significant pelvic pain at night, so asking me to rate it at my afternoon appointment will not accurately reflect the severity of the pain. Intermittent pain, breakthrough pain, and pain flare-ups are not captured in present moment pain ratings. It would be more accurate to record each pain over a week or month in a pain journal, to see how each part of my body is affected over time.
If you’re trying to understand the cause of pain, the knowing its quality or characteristics – aching, throbbing, shooting, stabbing, etc. – gives important clues. The 0 to 10 rating scale misses this important aspect of the experience of pain.
Most chronic pain patients have multiple overlapping conditions. You lose the ability to understand and treat these very different issues when you ask the patient to lump all their pains together and give one overall number. My pelvic pain and sciatic pain is neuropathic, the shoulder, wrist and neck pain is muscular, and my foot is mechanical pain from uncomfortable positioning. The doctor cannot determine how a treatment is affecting the pain levels of a specific condition, such as endometriosis vs mechanical joint problems vs neuropathy, if you average all body pains together.
My Pain Isn’t Your Pain Isn’t My Pain
Or being the worst you can imagine. These are two very different 10s. Since the onset of my chronic pain, I’ve experienced worse pain than I ever could have imagined in my life before illness. And now, I can imagine the worst pain I’ve ever experienced expanding to affect every part of my body, and it fills me with terror. In other words, my ‘worst pain I can imagine’ 10 has been recalibrated by my experience of having chronic pain. You can’t really compare these two 10s to each other, given how subjective and experiential pain is. Comparing 10s between patients only multiplies these discrepancies and confusion.
You are asked to rate pain between 0-10, where 10 is the worst pain you’ve experienced. Or 10 is the worst pain you can imagine. These are two very different 10s. Since the onset of my chronic pain, I’ve experienced worse pain than I ever could have imagined in my life before illness. And now, I can imagine the worst pain I’ve ever experienced expanding to affect every part of my body, and it fills me with terror. In other words, my ‘worst pain I can imagine’ 10 has been recalibrated by my experience of having chronic pain. You can’t really compare these two 10s to each other, given how subjective and experiential pain is. Comparing 10s between patients only multiplies these discrepancies and confusion.
Missing The Impact Of Pain On Daily Functioning
Why are we rating pain at all? In order to evaluate the severity of pain as a symptom on the health and daily functioning of a person. Put differently, we rate pain in order to evaluate its clinical significance, which can be defined as ” (1) pain that interferes with functioning and (2) pain that motivates a physician visit” (Krebs et al., 2007).
One study assessed the primary care pain numeric rating scale as a screening test for accurately identifying clinically significant pain in patients seeking treatment at a primary care clinic. They found that it was only modestly accurate, and it “missed [identifying] nearly 1/3 of patients with clinically important pain” (Krebs et al., 2007).
The core failing of the pain numeric rating scale is that it completely misses the impact of pain on daily functioning. And in doing so, it misses the clinical significance of pain in the lives of patients. In the 2007 study, they compared the 0-10 pain ratings with ratings from an alternative pain assessment tool called the Brief Pain Inventory interference. The BPI “measures pain-related functional impairment in seven domains: general activity, mood, walking ability, normal work, relations with other people, sleep, and enjoyment of life” as a rating between 0 (does not interfere) to 10 (interferes completely)” (Krebs et al., 2007). They found that the pain numeric rating scale missed almost 30% of patients which the BPI showed had pain that significantly interfered with their daily functioning.
How To Make An End Run Around the 0-10 Scale At Your Appointments
- Always list the worst pain you have experienced today, or this week, not the current pain, or the average of current pains.
- Make comparisons like, “it’s worse than when I broke my finger” or “it’s worse than when I was in recovery coming out of surgery.”
- Don’t go with 10 unless you are in a crisis where you pain is about to kill you. Unfortunately, credibility, involves not saying “15 out of 10”, because pain patients are not given grace or understanding.
- Do give pain descriptors like aching, burning, shooting, stabbing.
- Make a list of the limits on your daily functioning caused by your pain, like, “My neck pain is so bad I can no longer hold a book and read more than 1 page.”
- Bring a pain journal you’ve kept over the past week, and a list of your worst pain levels, your average pain levels, in all your pain areas, and what limits these impose on your life.
Krebs, E. E., Carey, T. S., & Weinberger, M. (2007). Accuracy of the pain numeric rating scale as a screening test in primary care. Journal of general internal medicine, 22(10), 1453–1458. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-007-0321-2
Walsh, John (2017, Jan 10). How Much Does It Hurt? Independent. Retrieved from:
Skillfully Well & Painfully Aware 