Chapter 16: Throw Away The Pain Scale. A New Way To Communicate Pain and Be Heard.
A 41-year-old White woman, a 59-year-old Black woman, a 10-year-old Asian girl and an 83-year-old White man walk into a doctor’s office and say, “I’m in pain.” Which one gets enough pain relief?
Probably none of them.
Pain is no joke. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), a quarter of American adults(25.2%) live with chronic pain, and one-third of them have high-impact chronic pain, the type that limits their ability to participate in work or normal life activities. Pain affects more people in the United States than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined.
Because pain is universal, you’d expect a simple method exists to measure each patient’s pain accurately so it can be resolved. Well, one doesn’t exist. And there are big problems with the ones most hospitals and doctors use.
That’s why I created The L.I.S.A. Pain Checklist to help you describe your pain in a way that your doctor can…
