It’s always been a bugbear about how to prove if you are in pain and how intense the pain is. They say that there is no way to tell if someone is genuinely in pain. Yet the answer to this came to me quite a while back whilst I was watching a tv programme about animals in a zoo.
The zoo’s elderly rhinoceros was limping quite badly on her back leg. The logistics of trying to X-ray such a large animal were horrendous so the zoo vet suggested they got a thermal imaging camera. The vet was shown on the programme pointing the camera at the rhino’s back leg and sure enough the hip that seemed to be bothering the animal glowed a brighter red. He explained that pain produces heat and this was a sure fire way of diagnosing where the pain was coming from and they would therefore be able to inject the animal exactly where the heat source was greatest.
Now my question is why is this technology is not used by health care officials the length and breadth of the country? Surely this piece of equipment wouldn’t be such a huge expense compared to most of the equipment that hospitals use and surely it would be an invaluable item as a first step to diagnosing a multitude of health problems as it doesn’t carry the risks that X-ray machines do.
I personally know I can feel heat in parts of my body where there is pain. Am I being naive or am I missing something obvious here?
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Scotduck
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It is not true that "pain" causes heat,,, hot areas in the tissues can be caused by inflamation,,, not the auctual pain.
In fibro alot of the pain seems neural in nature,, and likely a problem of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) therefore no inflamation in the tissues .
I hear you..there are blood tests and blood pressure readings that can assure a medic you are in Pain.
My husband always knows where to put the lidocaine patches on my back even without me having to tell him as he says the skin glows and he can feel the heat coming off the areas where I am in pain. It must be caused by inflammation but I do have arthritis in my back which must be th cause. My acupuncturist has also said the same.x
My Dr said they can always tell by checking your heart rate, the faster it is, the more pain you are in. Love and hugs Lynne xxxx
Basically there are no easy ways to prove pain or disprove it . I was always taught that pain is what the patient tells you it is. Yes some do have raised pulses or higher blood pressures but in chronic pain those responses can stop. You can look at at persons face or watch how they walk or feel for guarding in certain areas of the body but that can only give you an indication that that person is in pain not the degree of intensity. In some situations as my doctor found out pain can produce some obvious reactions. He examined my hip. I first groaned, then went very pale, followed by a cold sweat and then vomited.
Why do you need to prove it? It either is or isn’t having an effect. I know someone who tells me every time I see her that she is in pain. It doesn’t seem to stop her doing everything she enjoys, but when she’s not on holiday or away for fun weekends and is bored she professes to be in greater pain. Some people have lower pain thresholds and some are prone to exaggerate so there is no hard and fast rule. It’s often the case that the heart rate and breathing tend to speed up with pain intensity. Nerve pain is distinct from pain arising from inflammation. Raised inflammatory markers in the blood is a good indication that there might be a painful condition which a Rheumatologist would identify. Nerve pain sometime manifests itself in muscular spasm. I have RLS and the intensity of pain seems to show up in the speed and repetition of movement of the afflicted area.
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