Medical response to an autistic persons pain

I have recently been suffering dental problems. Because I have difficulty with waiting rooms and medical facilities in general, I was attempting self treatment untill the pain exceeded my pain tolerance threshold. I took every pain pill I could find to no effect. This happened in the early hours of the morning shortly before the new year. I was alternating between running up and down my flat punching walls and siting on the floor crying. I walked five miles across the city to A+E to seek help. Before I could enter the hospital, I struggled for maybe twenty minutes to achieve a calm demeanour. I waited there for three hours and all the help I recieved was a Ibuprofen which I had already taken to a near overdose and found ineffective. I believe I had a genuine clinical need for serious pain relief, but was unable to persuade the staff to take the severity of the pain seriously or to elict empathy for said pain and as a result recieved profoundly insufficient treatment.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Are there in existence or planning guidelines for accurately assessing an Autistic persons pain?

Parents
  • I pointed out, in my last but one paragraph, that autism was a factor in perception of pain, and in responses to pain medications.

    I was "a bit surprised THEREFORE", that the autism factor had not figured in the other responses, which is after all what usually happens.

    Interpretation of language is also a fundamental problem in autism. I keep trying to assert that it is mainly down to lack of "emoticons" ie supporting body language, but everyone just seems to demonstrate that we have a basic language problem.

Reply
  • I pointed out, in my last but one paragraph, that autism was a factor in perception of pain, and in responses to pain medications.

    I was "a bit surprised THEREFORE", that the autism factor had not figured in the other responses, which is after all what usually happens.

    Interpretation of language is also a fundamental problem in autism. I keep trying to assert that it is mainly down to lack of "emoticons" ie supporting body language, but everyone just seems to demonstrate that we have a basic language problem.

Children
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