"Pain is an output of your brain that is designed to protect you" - Lorimer Moseley
Chronic Pain: Pain that persists after the normal healing time... usually if its been around for more than 3 months, we label it as chronic... is this type of pain still designed to protect you?
Pain is vastly subjective. How many times have I asked my clients "can you tell me where you would rate your pain, if 10 is the worst pain you've ever had and 1 is very little" Most of the time I get an answer like "Oh I have a really high pain threshold, I'm used to living with pain soo...." YOU are the one rating it and YOU will also rate it in 3 weeks. It has nothing to do with other people's ratings and its really for me to a) get a sense of how important this pain is to you, and b) as an outcome measure to see if we have made improvements in a few weeks or months when I ask again.
Our language is super important when it comes to pain and that's why I have moved away from using the Pain Scale or even using the word "pain" at all. I like to use outcome measures more based on function https://www.rehab.msu.edu/_files/_docs/Patient-specific%20functional%20scale.pdf and quality of life https://artushealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/SF36-health-questionnaire.pdf (for a few examples). This is where I want to make an impact, so this is what I will use to measure changes.
This video gives a glimpse at the complexity of pain and sheds light on the importance of #psychosocial factors when treating the chronic version.