How do you feel? Revistited

More on "How do you feel". Is there is another way to get the answer to "How do you feel?" 

I'm not sure if this problem (How do you feel?) is in other professions,  But it's sure prevalent in the world of medicine. 

I am going to bother you with another story, but it is necessary to make my point. I will leave some facts out to shorten it.

Some years ago, we rented a beach house. I fell down 26 stairs head first. I know it was 26 because I counted each one as I was going down. (this is a true story, and I am not sure if it had anything to do with my MDD.) 

I broke four ribs, had a separated shoulder, and dislocated a finger. I didn't hit my head, I did not become unconscious. That is good, otherwise becoming unconscious could explain some of my problems.  I'll leave out the fact that we didn't immediately go to nearest hospital, but drove a 100 miles home. Just before we got home, I started to hurt, so we went to the emergency room.  

Needless to say there was some skepticism among the doctors about what really happened and why we were so stupid to have driven 100 miles. A number of doctors examined me, and made me tell the story again, I guess they thought that if they could ask often enough they would get to the truth. I always told the same story. 

This same question "why were you so stupid to have driven 100 miles?" was  repeated, when I was sent to a trauma center hospital. 

At each hospital, as all the doctors and nurses were running around, I would be asked: "How bad is the pain? On a scale of 1 to 10 ?"

I tried to be as accurate as I could. I think the answer was based on how much pain medicine they would give me.

If I just had pain medication, but I could still feel pain, I would say: "about a 3". If the pain medicine had worn off, I would say: "about a 7". That seemed reasonable to me. That should be easy to understand. Now sometimes the pain would be a little more, and sometimes a little less, but whatever, is was close , so I used my "3 or 7" answer.

Now I wasn't just picking those numbers out of the air. I based it on a pain scale chart that I had seen as a youth after I hurt myself enough to go to the doctor.

The chart was made up of 10 circles. The first circle was a nice happy face. The other the circles became less happy faces until the tenth circle which had a screwed up face. I could only assume that the screwed up face represented feeling really a lot of pain.  At this point I would like to use the example I made about "How do you feel?" really, really, really -- with the "reallys" going up to 10 "reallys", meaning the worst.  

Oh, I had another pain story that might have been better, and I  am tempted to tell that one too, but maybe another time.

After I got well, sometime later, I had occasion to visit my primary care giver and guess what he had on the wall of his examination room? If you don't know I will tell you.

It was the "Comparative Pain Scale" chart below, they had changed the meaning of "1 to 10" and no one had told me. I was certainly embarrassed, I think I gave the wrong answers to those other doctors. 

As you can see, a 3 on this new chart could be acceptable, but the 7, it was way off and probably my answers should have been a 4. 

It's no wonder when visitors came to visit they found me in really good spirits, and joking around, (there's that really again, I could have said: "really really" and you would know where my spirits were). I was having a really good time. 

To make matters worse, read the stuff about a 7, which includes the 6 stuff. It sounds pretty serious, but here's the kicker, (get ready)it's comparable to an average migraine headache.

So the next time you get hurt and the doctor asks you a question like this: "Is the pain comparable to an average migraine headache?"  Now you just might be at the doctor's office with an "average migraine headache" what would you say? As for me I would be a little confused. Or maybe a lot a lot confused. 

Read 8 on the chart, it's comparable to a real bad migraine headache, or childbirth, or a reason to commit (The big S word) . Do you see why I get confused at times, when a doctor asks me a question?