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Medical response to an autistic persons pain

outraged

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?

  • My fear of pain outstrips my fear of dentists, so I don't actually share your problem, but I think you should get regular proffessional dental treatment. You may find this daunting, but you need to look after your health properly, and with dentistry, only a qualified dentist will do.

    I was extremely nervous before my driving test, and my gp helped me by prescribing tablets to get me through it. I have a friend with aggrophobia, and she has tranquilisers to help her travel. I am sure that if you explain that you have this phobia, they will provide tablets to help you get to the dentist. Once you have restored your mouth to a healthy state, you may find that your fear subsides. You can also gradually accustom yourself to waiting rooms. Take someone with you. The issue with these drugs is addiction. If you use them only rarely, gps can be persuaded to let you have a small number of tablets.

    Most of all, don't neglect your health, then this sort of pain won't arrise.

  • No idea-not a rocket scientist. Maybe you should ask them. Maybe they saw your medical notes, saw you were on Dicloflex and didn't want to overdose you. But if you feel you were unfairly treated, the perhaps you should tell the people you saw. When medical professionals are extreemly busy, they have their serious face on and sometimes this can be missinterpereted as not caring or judging.

  • Firstly, i have every sympathy for the pain you were describing. I've had tooth extractions, with dry socket causing the same effect-i'd never experienced pain like it.. Luckily, i have a dentist where you need a referal from your g.p. so they are better with you. When i had the type of pain you were describing, it was on a week-end and my dentist refers you to the on call people. They advised alternating the paracetamol and ibuprofen within set times. Then when my dentist was open i was fitted in as an emergency. Am sure A and E took you seriously and didn't judge you for autism. I'ts just that they wouldn't have wanted to overdose you. Some chemists no longer allow you to buy Non specific anti flamitory drugs or N.S.A.I.D's like you describe and paracetamol based products at the same time. I hope you can find a NHS referal dentist, where your G.P has to refer you and help you to get better treatement, where they treat you with respect and understanding to your phobia and autism.