WARNING WARNING WARNING: BEWARE OF THE WAY YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PAIN TO YOUR DOCTOR!
The forms you are forced to fill out when you go to certain kinds of physicians specifically for pain — are a government idea that, as I showed you IN THIS POST, are arguably the single biggest cause of our nation’s ‘Opioid Epidemic’. A week ago, Patti Neighmond, writing for NPR (Words Matter When Talking About Pain With Your Doctor), said this about the pain scale….
“If you’re in the hospital or a doctor’s office with a painful problem, you’ll likely be asked to rate your pain on a scale of 0 to 10 – with 0 meaning no pain at all and 10 indicating the worst pain you can imagine. But many doctors and nurses say this rating system isn’t working and they’re trying a new approach.”
What is this “new” approach? Instead of doctors simply having patients rate their pain 1 to 10, they are now asking whether their pain is tolerable or not, and then providing some “flowery” descriptors in their own customized scale (“Many health care providers are trying to come up with a system that involves words, not numbers“), such as aching, burning, waxing & waning, moving around, etc, etc.
The final bit of advice to patients was to, “share other treatments you’ve sought… Let the doctor know what you’ve done and whether it was effective.“
Firstly, as to the initial part of this (using descriptors beyond numbers), while it’s certainly a great idea, none of it is even remotely new. Physicians have been asking patients to describe their pain and find out what makes it better or worse for as long as physicians have been treating people with pain. However, I’ve actually warned my readers to be careful how they go about these descriptions.
For those of you struggling with various sorts of CHRONIC PAIN, be aware that if you describe your pain in ways that are not common or standard), you are much more likely to be labeled. Labeled? You know, hypochondriac, drug seeker, crazy (HERE is an example), lazy (trying to get SSI disability), or any number of others.
Secondly, after almost three decades of doing what I do, I’m not too convinced that the average doctor is very interested in what helps your pain if it falls outside the mainstream. Although some would argue with me (HERE for example), the more “natural” or outside-the-box the treatment that helped you, the less interest your doctor is likely to show . Case in point, two of the three examples from the last red sentence two paragraphs above were acupuncture and massage.
Also realize that doctors are highly discouraged (in many cases they are banned) from referring to anyone outside their network (especially to someone who talks a lot about FASCIA, GUT HEALTH, SYMPATHETIC DOMINANCE, or just how dadblamed dangerous most drugs really are — HERE or HERE) . I completely agree that doctors should be told. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for an earth-shattering reaction TO ASTOUNDING RESULTS.
Also remember that it’s not really the doctor’s fault. Not only are doctors burned out and swamped by ignorant amounts of moronic paperwork (HERE and HERE), the system itself is corrupt and geared toward keeping you alive for a very long time via taking drugs — lots of drugs (HERE).
Mind you, while these drugs are not making you healthy (YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR DOING THAT), they are turning you into what could only be described as a cash cow. You can’t possibly be shocked considering I’ve shown you time and time again that Big Pharma will do whatever it takes to maintain / expand market share (read my posts on “EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE” if you think I’m being harsh).
My advice to anyone who’s read this far? Realize that even though there is really no such thing as ‘average,’ I’ve created a generic protocol that will get the ball rolling as far as helping the average patient is concerned in dealing with your pain. Just remember that before you do anything radical like trying to get off of a particular prescription or starting a “WEIRD DIET,” it’s always a good idea to talk to your doctor first — even though they might just know less than you if they haven’t been keeping up with current research (HERE).
Today would be a great day to START CONTEMPLATING A CHANGE since it’s the first day of the month. After all, you owe it to yourself to address your pain because no one can address your pain better than you. And if you know someone else who owes it to themselves, be sure to reach them by showing us some love on FACEBOOK
