You can find innumerable books and articles intended to help patients talk about pain with their healthcare team. Yet pain continues to be under-reported by many patients. Here's a resource that may help: ACP Health TiPS on Pain.
The American College of Physicians (ACP) Foundation developed a simple one-page information sheet to help patients begin the conversation with their healthcare team. Unlike many that have too much information crammed on one page, this has just enough to be useful: a graphic pain scale, 4 key points (e.g., "Pain can be treated. It should not ruin your life."), 4 tips and 9 questions to ask your healthcare team.
This TiPS sheet on pain is but one of a series of HEALTH TiPS developed as part of the ACP Foundation's mission to improve health literacy.
These free-of-charge TiPS sheets are geared to a "fifth-grade reading level, in English and Spanish, and are designed specifically for the 90 million people who have difficulty understanding and acting on health information- nearly half of all American adults. The clinical content of HEALTH TiPS is evidence-based...has been graphically enhanced and is available in color for downloading."
Keep this resource in mind if you know people who have trouble communicating with their healthcare team.
I find that the opposite is true - doctors usually brush your reports of pain aside, especially if you recently had surgery. I told every single doctor I saw about my pain while I was going through chemo. Not one took me seriously. They consistently offered medications that I was already taking, and they wrote my pain off as a "low pain threshold" following surgery. It took a visit to the ER for them to finally take me seriously.
Also there are many different kinds of pain. It took me 2 years and $400 for me to learn the magic word. Allodynia. I wish I had known it at the beginning. It really gets their attention now.
Well - live and learn...
Dianne Duffy
Posted by: Dianne Duffy | August 30, 2011 at 09:47 PM
Dianne,
I'm sorry you had that experience. Sadly, you are not alone. Researchers have repeatedly documented physicians' poor performance on treating pain.
I'm glad your knowledge of "allodynia" -- i.e., pain in response to a stimulus that is not normally painful, such as touching skin with a feather -- has been helpful. Sadly, again, using medical terminology may cause some clinicians to suspect a well-studied malingerer.
Pain remains a challenging issue in modern medicine.
With hope, Wendy
Posted by: Wendy S. Harpham, MD | August 31, 2011 at 06:10 AM
I have been so bewildered in the past but now it all makes sense!
Posted by: Vina | September 05, 2011 at 02:32 AM