So if each individual has a totally unique experience of pain, how then do you and your doctors, therapist etc measure your pain? Who decides what is a high or low pain threshold?
There are a vast array of pain measurement systems used by the medical profession in order for them to gauge a person’s level of pain. Some of them are very simplistic and simply ask you to give your pain a score from 0 to 10, 0 being no pain at all and 10 being the worst pain imaginable. This simple test is probably the most widely used pain scoring measurement. But, you cry, if 10 is the worst pain imaginable and everyone experiences a different feeling of pain then how will the person measuring my pain know just how extreme my worst imaginable pain is? Well that’s just it, they can’t. Even the most complex of pain measurement systems which take environmental, social, and physical factors into consideration will still not be able to measure how painful your pain is to you. Nothing can measure that, apart from one thing. YOU. You are the only measurement of your pain. If it feels painful to you then it is painful. Your most extreme pain may only seem mild to someone else if they were able to feel your experience but they can’t so what feels extreme to you is extreme and no one can truthfully, scientifically or medically tell you different.
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