Pain, on a scale from 0 - 10

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Ok, so I was reading another thread and this was posted:

a bit, but not with putting numbers on the 'pain' i feel, it's the consistency.
i have had my thumb between a (locked) door and bumbed my head on a metal pole while cycling, yet those pains barely entered the scale, being 1's, maybe 2's (with sipping tea that's too hot being a 4), yet a nurse wiping sweat off my forehead during minor surgery, the sweatwiping was a 9, becouse it was doen carefully (the surgery itself was only about a 5), and the sound of a dying fluorescent tube or an old tv registrers a 12; boy do i love sensory integration disorder

For me level of pain and level of discomfort aren't completely synonymous. The sensation of being forced to hold my breath or drowning is probably worse than any pain I can imagine. Also, a constant medium grade pain like that from a sciatic nerve damage or dislocated joint can be worse than something more excruciating, like a kidney stone spasm, just because it lasts so much longer.

I've actually heard the worst pain known to human beings is that of a cluster headache. It's more likely to drive a person to suicide than any other kind of pain. Luckily I'm fortunate enough to have never experienced that.

What most people would call "10" on this scale, I would call a 7 or 8.

10 is supposed to be the WORST PAIN IMAGINABLE. If I can imagine worse pain, it is not a 10.

This doesn't completely rule out me ever saying 11 or higher, though. It's possible that I could, at some point, get pain worse than I could have even IMAGINED before! That's when I'll say 11 or 12.

The worst pain I've ever felt to date? Probably about 8.

This is a common AS trait of being either Hypo or Hyper sensitive to pain.

If you find your #/10 estimates to always be perceived as low, then you may have to increase your numbers to effectively communicate the actual amount of pain you're feeling relative to what NT's would report to a doctor.

While I tend to agree that 10 is reserved for something rather extreme, 8, 9, 10 shouldn't all be reserved for pain levels you've never experienced. I think the typical NT response would be to rate the pain from 1-10 on a scale of reference to their lifetime's experiences. So, if the worst pain you've ever experienced is something you'd report as a 7, most NT's would probably report it as a 9-10. Your 6 is probably more like an 8-9 etc.

If I were you, the next time I was asked this on a questionnaire I would bump the numbers up a bit even if it's very tolerable to you. This isn't just to get attention in a "woe is me, I'm in pain," sense, but rather to get proper medical attention you may need in terms of medication or other treatments, as if the pain you experience truly only feels like a 5 or 6 to you, and that number is an indicator to the doctor that nothing is wrong enough to treat with meds (besides painkillers, I'm talking infections.) or to further explore the issues for possible necessary medical intervention.

You may also want to explain this to whatever doctor you're seeing, as well, especially your regular doctor, as you may have been underreporting pain levels consistently due to not being able to perceive them stronger with the root cause being hyposensitivity to pain as an ASD trait.

I've read about some parents who's ASD kids are so oblivious to pain that they have to check on them regularly to ensure they're not in pain they're not aware of. ie There have been cases of males having twisted testicles that would cause excruciating pain for others, yet they had no idea since they don't feel pain.

On the other end of the scale, my sister is like your wife.. barely touch her and she'd be screaming bloody murder as a kid. We always just figured she was an overdramatic liar, but now I think she may have actually felt a really high level of pain from very small things & reacted the way she did because of it.

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No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

I hate pain.

Pain hurts.

i don't find my pain difficult to describe on a scale. i can easily say that my pain is a 4 or 5. but i've learned that what i call a 4 or 5 other people might call an 8 or a 9.

when i broke my collarbone in a car accident i wasn't going to bother going to the ER as i figured i'd just bruised it. i would describe that pain as a 2-3, maybe. i only went to the hospital for a ct scan to check for concussion (i'd scraped my face up pretty badly too -- didn't notice that until i looked in a mirror)... they did an xray there and discovered it was broken. made it through recovery without as much as a tylenol.

i've ended up with ferocious bruises from absentmindedly stimming -- not noticing the damage i'd done until much later. i used to self-harm by cutting - again, absentmindedly, and more for stimulation than anything - and when i was found out people were horrified at the depths of my cuts & the number of them -- i was quite surprised at their reactions because to me it was nothing -- it barely hurt at all...

i've playfully scratched and bitten partners and even when i think i'm being very gentle they tell me i am way too hard... and i tend to leave marks. it's kind of mystifying to me because my inner 'pain scale', so to speak, seems to differ so much from everyone else's, and what to me seems intuitively, obviously true -- "this hurts this much" -- is so wrong for most of the population.

until recently i'd considered myself lucky not to have any of the sensory manifestations of ASD -- but i've come to realize that i do, quite severely in fact. hyposensitivity can be insidious.

the only time i've experienced pain that i'd describe as severe is during bouts of abdominal distress - this pain can make my face contort, my eyes water, and force involuntary wails from my throat; it has made me come close to losing consciousness on several occasions. still i would only describe this as 7, maybe 7.5 -- because i can conceive of pain that is much worse and it would be wrong to say that this is close to the most severe pain. this is an example of literal thinking, i suppose. i don't think a 10 on the pain scale literally means that this is the worst pain your body is capable of experiencing -- saying your pain is 10/10 to a doctor is just a way of communicating that the pain is really bad. of course, such imprecise usage pains our pedantic minds.

the question at the core of the op is essentially: "why do we have difficulties expressing the level of pain that we experience?"
and i think that it is a combination of both sensory issues (as many previous posters have pointed out) and literal thinking/nonadherence to NT norms -- we don't like to think of the pain scale as a vague descriptor of distress but rather a precise measurement tool. we would prefer it if there were some mathematical equation to determine one's universal pain value to the fifth decimal place.

To me 5 on the scale of 1-10 is the benchmark for where the pain starts getting severe enough that I feel there is some urgency to have it relieved within hours or a few days or else life will constantly be unpleasant. And I have little hesitation describing a pain as 10 or close to 10 even if I may rationally think there are worse pains I could be in--maybe because I am on the hypersensitive side of things?? I know my hypersensitivity has something to do with why I recommend abolitionism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitioni ... oethics%29

pain is a pain. the 1-10 scale needs an 11. nevertheless, i am fortunate in that i have never experienced "worst pain imaginable" for that is reserved for those tough souls called expectant mothers in the throes of childbirth. or those poor souls getting unanaesthetized chest tubes inserted for pneumothorax. THOSE are like being in a torture chamber.

I hate going to doctors and descriptions of pain is at the top of my list of why I hate going to see them. Sometimes I wish I could punch a doctor in the face and ask them to rate the pain so I can get an idea of what they consider pain to be because to me pain is like describing what the color green looks like.

Recently I’ve been coming to a conclusion that I’m probably experiencing more pain subconsciously, but it is just not registering consciously. I recently bought my first bottle of over-the-counter pills at the age of 33 because I promised my mother I would take an Advil for a sinusitis. A couple years ago I had a cavity in a molar and I felt it from time to time. I let it rot away for two years for complex reasons: part of me wanted to feel the pain because I was often depressed and it made me feel something and another part of me wanted to know and experience what happens when someone doesn’t have access to a dentist (the archaeologist in me). Eventually it cracked and my dentist had to pull it out because a crown and root canal would not likely save the tooth. He thought it should have hurt immensely. It hurt every now and then, but I suspect that it didn’t hurt as much as it would for an average person.

Most of the time I fear that the doctors think I’m a hypochondriac because I do not describe pain with my other symptoms. Maybe I should begin with a statement like "Just to let you know I'm intensely stoic when it comes to pain and because of my Aspergers I don't yet understand the normal conventions of exaggerating descriptions of pain so you will be able to understand them; just being here is painful enough, so even if I can't describe the pain I'm experiencing you can be assured it does exist or I wouldn't be here."