This statement shows you very clearly that no one else can tell you if you have a high or low pain threshold. But this doesn’t stop healthcare professionals from trying to ‘pigeon hole’ you into a category of pain based on their experience of people with similar complaints.
Here is a typical scenario that occurs when a healthcare professional assesses someone’s pain levels;
- They will look at the medical condition that you have and then search their mind for all the different patients that they have seen with the same condition.
- They will ask you how ‘bad’ your pain is, most likely by using a pain scoring tool. They will compare your score with the scores of the other patients that they have seen with the same condition.
- If your pain score is considerably higher than that of the other patients they assess you as having a low pain threshold because others with the same ailment have reported feeling less pain. Similarly, if your pain score was less than the rest you would be considered to have a high pain threshold for exactly the same reasoning.
- The healthcare professional has created a judgement in their mind about what is the average or acceptable level of pain for that specific condition and if you fall out of that ‘average’ you are labelled as a high or low pain threshold.
This is by no means an accurate representation of you or your tolerance to pain. You are simply being judged by another person’s perception of what pain is and should be, as determined by their mind.
Please check again soon for the next part in this series of blogs
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