Published on 12, July, 2020
Does anyone else struggle explaining how they feel with pain? I saw my GP this morning cause I've been having pains and when she asked what sort of pain it was I couldn't answer her because I don't know. Pain is pain to me. It just hurts, I couldn't elaborate on that anymore. And then she asked me what scale my pain was on from 1-10. I couldn't answer that either, it just hurt I didn't know how to explain it.
I'm pretty sure she rolled her eyes at me though can't be 100% sure of it but I'm pretty sure I saw that. She definitely gave me a look though like I was wasting her time.
I left feeling really awkward and lonely because no one around me gets what this is actually like.
It reminded me of when I was little and had tummy pain and my mum asked me what type of pain it was then too and again I didn't know I just said it hurt.
I'm wondering if this is autism related?
Last year I had a bad stomach, for a few days I didn't eat and ended up in bed, then my wife called an ambulance. I felt it was overkill but couldn't stop her. They said I should go to hospital, I did, a few days in there unable to eat or drink , being asked "how much does it hurt?" And saying "5 out of 10 maybe" , they did a CT and found my appendix was in bits and I had a severe infection. Operation went ok, but took ages and they were all confused at how they missed "text book symptoms " of acute appendicitis.
Reading afterwards it's apparently common in autistic patients to miss appendicitis because we don't explain It well.It hurt like absolute hell but I had no idea how to explain it, so I thought if I go with 5 then there's room for more if it gets worse.
After a long life of knowing I had some serious issues, I was diagnosed autistic this year, I wonder if they'd have been different in diagnosis if they'd known then....
Aw you poor poor thing. I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that, not just the pain but having to go in an ambulance, stay in hospital and have surgery. That must have been a hell of an ordeal for you to endure!
I'll admit it was pretty scary, I felt really anxious while in there too post operation, having cannula in my hands and a drain tube from the op made me feel absolutely overwhelmed with anxiety. but other people in there didn't seem to have such an issue with things....
It is as another thing on the list that made me look at diagnosis, I just didn't cope with it well, although I managed to mostly hide how I felt at the time. There was one nurse who instantly seemed to pickup on my stress and arranged things to be done that helped, like having the drip removed as soon as they could as she could tell it was making me anxious, I wonder if she'd sussed me out!
It definitely felt like she understood that the stress of having a cannula was a real problem, rather than me just being "soft" about it. It makes a massive difference when people understand that the situation can cause that sort of distress and it's as real as pain is.
I'm usually pretty good in a crisis but that certainly wasn't my finest moment!
I'm the same with blood tests too, stare at the wall and pretend it isn't happening!! I think the effort to appear not to be bothered probably distracts me enough that I don't run off.
Until I was diagnosed and started to look more into autism I didn't realise that half the things I did were somehow related to it, it's been a relief in some ways as Its explained a lot.
I would have been petrified in that situation! Doesn't sound nice at all. So sorry you went through it. Whenever I have a blood test the anxiety I endure is horrible and it almost always results in a meltdown and panic attack. Not nice and always very embarrassing.
That's so sweet that the nurse made the effort to make things easier for you. I doubt many take the time out to do things like that. Maybe she could sense you were different or she had a relative with autism who was similar like that? I'm glad she helped you out though... that is really kind.