's description of pain.
Pain Vision Analog Scale.
People will experience pain more or less in their lives. Many diseases are discovered because of pain. Correct description of pain can help doctors find the reasons behind it more accurately. However, many patients spend a lot of time and can't explain how they have a pain. Don’t worry, here is a “5-step description method” that allows the doctor to quickly understand your pain.
Step 1: Tell the doctor the pain part
is the neck, rib fork, hip shaft, or the skeleton cover or ankle? If you can't explain clearly, you can lift the clothes to the doctor on the spot.
If you are a patient who is undergoing a follow-up visit online, you can draw a schematic diagram or find a human photo to mark the pain area to help the doctor understand.
Step 2: Think about the duration of pain and frequency of attack
"Duration" refers to the time when the pain first occurs, such as 1 week ago, 2 months ago, half a year ago, 3 years ago, 5 years ago, etc.
"Frequency of Attack" refers to whether the pain is constant (persistent) or a burst of (parallel)? If it is paroxysmal, how long is each attack? How long is the interval between each clade?
Many patients need to understand that sometimes after treatment, the pain level may not be significantly relieved, but the frequency of pain attacks and the time of attack are also signs of improvement in the condition.
Step 3: Try to describe the nature of pain
This is what doctors often ask about "how to hurt".
patients with strong expression ability usually give various vivid descriptions. The more representative and professional descriptions are roughly as follows: soreness, swelling, burning pain, needle pricking, electric pain, ant crawling, colic, pain when touched, knife cutting...
Step 4: Advance to describe the "level of pain"
This is commonly known as "how painful it is."
describes how painful it is to the doctor, just remember the following "rule" - the visual analog scale. Divide the pain level into 10 levels, with the most painful hit score of 10 points, without any pain, look at the continuous numbers in the middle, and then look at the expression of the villain. How many points can you give your pain level?
If it is still difficult to judge or describe, it is also OK to tell the doctor whether it affects sleep at night and whether it affects work and life during the day.
Step 5: Recalling the triggers and factors that aggravate or relieve pain
"Inducement" refers to the possible inducement when symptoms first appear, such as fatigue, strenuous exercise, trauma... "Aggravate or relieve pain" refers to the situation after the pain occurs, under what circumstances will it be lighter and under what circumstances will it be heavier? For example, rest, bent over, defecate, take medicine and get better, and it will worsen after pressing, exercising, and lack of sleep.
Learn the "5-step description method" above, and you will be very familiar with your pain. If you can bring your own notebook and record the changes in pain dynamically, it will be more conducive to the doctor's comprehensive understanding of your pain.
Cui Xulei Chen Si
The author is a member of the multidisciplinary collaboration pain science popularization team of Peking Union Medical College Hospital. The pictures in this article are provided by the team
Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition
