Fibromyalgia Pain Scale
When you go to your doctors, one of the first things they will ask you is: "On a scale of 1-10, where is your pain level?" But they fail to give you any degree of pain measurements to go by, so our support group has come up with our version of the Pain Scale.
Level 1: You experience very minor pain in parts of your body. You don't have to take any pain medications and you can do your work with no problems.
Level 2: The minor pain has increased to dull aches in some parts of your body. You don't have to take medication and you still can work as usual but you don't want people 'in your face'!
Level 3: Your minor pain is strong enough to get your attention. You resort to Over the Counter medications. You are getting grouchy now.
Level 4: Now you can only ignore the pain if you are involved in activities at work or home. You are taking more Over the Counter medications but they don't last long. You begin to cut back on your activities in favor of just sitting down.
Level 5: You can't ignore this pain for more than an hour, even with Over the Counter Medications. You cut back of all activities except the most important ones. Work is possible, just barely.
Level 6: You simply can not. Ignore your pain for even a few minutes. But with prescription pain medications you have limited functioning abilities.
Level 7: This level of pain is the kind that keeps you awake at night, makes it hard to think and act. Your prescription medication only dulls the pain for a short time,. You limit your activities in order of importance. You really can't work well.
Level 8: This is serious pain. You don't want to do anything or be bothered by anyone. You have taken so much pain medication you are unable to fully concentrate on anything, Work is out of the question.
Level 9: Very serious pain here. You can not concentrate on anything but pain. You should not do business transactions or make any important decisions because of your limited mental state. You might want to give some one Power of Attorney. You can not go to work and you shouldn't drive a car. At this point you begin withdrawing from the world around you.
Level 10: Pain has made you totally unable to function. You don't want to deal with or talk to anyone. Even with narcotic pain medications you are still in horrible pain. You go to bed or go to the emergency room for any help you can get.
This is how we have divided the pain scale into a workable reference guide for our group and our medical staff. We hope you can use this as a guide when you visit your doctor and have to describe your pain. Our optimal goal of course, is to stay with in the range of 1-4 or even to get to PAIN LEVEL 0, which is NO PAIN!
By Carol J.Johnson
What is Paintracking?
Deborah A. Barrett
Paintracking is not about dwelling on your pain -- to the contrary! It is an approach to help provide individualized information that increases your control over your condition and your life. "Paintracking," or studying your body's responses, helps increase the number and duration of pain-free times.
The idea for paintracking grew out of my own struggles with fibromyalgia. At first I had no idea what hit me! Most days I hurt so badly I could barely take care of myself, let alone accomplish any work. Meanwhile I bounced among treatment programs, doctors, medicines, exercise and bed rest. It was extremely frustrating to try so hard, and yet be so confused about what helped, if anything. To top it off, every so often I experienced a day where my pain was manageable. I was plagued with questions! Why would I occasionally have a good day? What made me feel better? What determined the length of my bad periods? I eventually realized the only way I would improve was if I donned the investigator's hat and tracked my own experience.
As a sociologist, I knew to understand the effects of the various strategies I would have to collect daily evidence on my experience. Yet as a person who felt exhausted with my entire situation, I was not eager to devote time or energy to examine my pain. I disliked the daily worksheets I had been given by a pain clinic. They looked so dreadfully boring and time consuming. I wanted to think less about my pain, not more! So instead I sat down and devised a simple form for myself that addressed my immediate concerns. Thus I began the data collection that turned around the way I live my life. Based on overtime trends, I adjusted the way I exercise, made informed decisions about medications and doses, and found a daily rhythm that works best for me.
I am now writing the book that I wish someone had handed me when I first encountered mysterious, overwhelming pain. The book is still in progress. In the meantime, I offer some articles on this Web site about living with fibromyalgia that all include the idea of paintracking, or devising a worksheet to figure out what works.
By continuing to learn from your body, you learn not only how to live better with your current body, but also how to improve through a regimen geared specifically to your needs and abilities. Information gained from this simple daily exercise provides answers to perplexing questions about the effects of various medicines, therapies, activities, and environmental conditions on our well-being. Paintracking helps you figure out how to improve the quality of your sleep, increase your stamina, and discover what works best for you. This understanding allows you to predict and prepare for bad periods when you cannot prevent them. At the least, it should eliminate the unnecessary and frightening experiences of "out of the blue" pain flare-ups. All the while you can focus on continuously increasing good periods through ongoing adaptation.
Paintracking also provides a panoply of information, tips, and advice about leading the most comfortable and productive life we can in a changed body. Paintracking focuses primarily on fibromyalgia, regarded as the most prevalent cause of persistent muscular-skeletal pain, and my personal demon. The strategy of tracking one's symptoms however is not limited to fibromyalgia. Paintracking's system of monitoring one's symptoms and any potential explanatory factors allows people to adjust to changed circumstances, whether due to a stroke, the onset of diabetes, or a traumatic event. Paintracking is especially applicable for conditions that share particular characteristics with fibromyalgia, notably, its "invisibility," chronicity, and uncertainty.
This chart is rather helpful when wanting to document your current pain and pain history. I am using it now and documenting my pain from each day and submitting it to my Lawyer for my Social Security Hearing. This chart is very helpful when trying to explain to a doctor where you hurt and how it feels. As you know, one of our hardest problems to deal with is comprehension and cognitive problems. This chart may be your voice for when you can't explain it all!
~Carl'a
Wellesley Worksheet