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?
It would have been good if your GP actually laid out what each scale of pain from 1 to 10 represented, instead of treating you like you're wasting her time. Something like this would have been helpful.
Or she could have asked you if it's a pounding pain, a sharp pain, a dull ache, or something more descriptive.
And if you cannot communicate something like pain because you don't know how to explain it, shouldn't that indicate to her that you might have issues with processing those kinds of things, and she should have looked further into it, maybe even going into detail about what she means, rather than treating you like a waste of time?
Doctors can show such a lack of empathy sometimes. They are used to competing with each other for top grades, but they completely forget that they're getting into a profession to help others, not put themselves on a pedestal. Maybe they just did it for the money and reputation and don't care about the patients more than they have to, but those are just souless people at that point in time.