So they pulled four of my wisdom teeth out of my jaw on Tuesday. The pain was bearable before with pills, afterwards it was really painful. What I couldn’t understand was a little sign next to my bed which categorized pain. The worst pain ‘excruciating’ was 5 and the least pain, slight pain was 1. Part of the sign read that if you were in pain you should call the nurse and tell her what level of pain you were feeling. The medicine’s and I guess the solution was then provided accordingly. However a few things bother me about this. Firstly you’re self diagnosing yourself, what happens if you cheat because you want the strong drugs because they make you feel good, and you are not feeling any real pain. Or the other possibility where you could be in pain and misdiagnose yourself and not get enough medicine. This second point, on how do know which pain category you are in. For me this was not an easy question. Maybe for you its obvious when you’re in excruciating pain, extreme pain, terrible pain, mild pain, just slight pain. The first thing I think about is how can I know the difference between mild and slight pain if I don’t know what the worst pain is, excruciating pain. I believe therefore I have to know the limits to know the middle ground.
I guess pain is felt differently. For some people their awareness is much greater than others, and pain is a hugely important part of their lives, at least the pain management, avoidance or mitigation. For others and in some bizarre cases, pain is neither a worry or even felt. I guess every one feels emotional pain in some way, or maybe there is an example / outlier which freakily also this strange pain is not prevalent in.
I should like to understand everyones pain on a threshold scale, base units, so I have a universal constant base line to reflect too, but I know this would be hard even anti-humanitarian. People differences genetically and mentally are what keep us interested in life, and pain usually bad has a major part to play.
