Wednesday, March 5, 2008
purple cast
Why is everyone coming to my blog by searching for the terms "purple cast"? I can't imagine that I'm at the top of a google search for that or anything! (I just figured out how to use the site meter to see what people were typing in searches.)
Pain Scales
I was thinking about the post by Nurse K: Burn the pain scales
http://crasspollination.blogspot.com/2008/03/burn-pain-scales.html
(I don't know how to change the text on the blog so that people can click on the name of the title instead of seeing the long address. Any tips on this?)
These scales seem inherently flawed. Two examples.
56 year old with kidney stones: 4/10 pain. I would have said 7/10 easily. Sweating, tachycardia, elevated blood pressure. Turns out he was severely injured recently. Aparently pretty bad. So, his pain was undertreated in my opinion.
25 year old with "150% out of 10" pain all over (um??? Is that a 15/10?) My initial thought was maybe she has a narcotic deficiency :-). Ended up she was simply scared to death because her boyfriend's cat scratched her! It was such a minor scratch, that I had to wonder. She couldn't imagine any pain worse than that?
So, I'm curious: does anyone else seem to notice that around 7 or below, are usually truly painful conditions, and anything 10 or above tend to make you wonder if it even hurts?
How many of your 10/10's are really that serious? I'd say maybe 1 in the last month! (ruptured appendix)
http://crasspollination.blogspot.com/2008/03/burn-pain-scales.html
(I don't know how to change the text on the blog so that people can click on the name of the title instead of seeing the long address. Any tips on this?)
These scales seem inherently flawed. Two examples.
56 year old with kidney stones: 4/10 pain. I would have said 7/10 easily. Sweating, tachycardia, elevated blood pressure. Turns out he was severely injured recently. Aparently pretty bad. So, his pain was undertreated in my opinion.
25 year old with "150% out of 10" pain all over (um??? Is that a 15/10?) My initial thought was maybe she has a narcotic deficiency :-). Ended up she was simply scared to death because her boyfriend's cat scratched her! It was such a minor scratch, that I had to wonder. She couldn't imagine any pain worse than that?
So, I'm curious: does anyone else seem to notice that around 7 or below, are usually truly painful conditions, and anything 10 or above tend to make you wonder if it even hurts?
How many of your 10/10's are really that serious? I'd say maybe 1 in the last month! (ruptured appendix)
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