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4 Tips to Help You Talk to Your Doctor About Pain
One of the most frustrating parts of dealing with pain? Trying to explain it well enough to get help. Here are a few tips to try at your next medical visit
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We’ve all experienced pain — whether from a minor injury like a stubbed toe, a medical emergency that sends us to the emergency room or a chronic condition that interferes with everyday life. And while pain itself is undoubtedly frustrating, so is describing it in a way that’s easily understood by others, including your health care provider.
A big reason: Pain is subjective, meaning we each feel and express it in our own way. Cultural background and gender tend to affect how people experience and discuss pain, too, making it difficult for others, including doctors, to understand exactly what an individual is feeling.
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It’s why your doctor or nurse might ask you to rank your pain on a scale of 1 to 10. That number helps to create a concrete starting point for talking about your pain, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
“Your 5 out of 10 pain might be somebody’s 10 out of 10,” says Dr. Whitney Luke, a pain medicine specialist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “There are going to be things associated with pain that the scale won’t necessarily reflect,” like how your pain is impacting your mood, sleep and daily activities.
Here are four tips to help you talk about pain so your doctor can better understand what you’re experiencing and get you the care you need.
1. Track your pain
It’s helpful to come to medical appointments — or even urgent care visits — prepared to talk about how and why your pain has changed or how it’s affecting you. And the more specific you can be, the better.
If you’ll be heading to a planned appointment, keep track of your pain symptoms in a journal and bring it with you. Write a line or two about how you’re feeling each day, with details like:
- Pain level: Use a simple rating, like “mild,” “moderate” or “severe.”
- Timing: When did the pain start? Is it constant, or does it come and go?
- Activities: What did you do that day, or the day before, that made the pain better or worse?
- Treatments: Which medications or pain treatments did you try, and when did you try them? Did they help?
- Description: Where do you feel the pain most? Does it shoot to other areas of your body? How does it feel? Try words like “burning,” “pins and needles,” “throbbing,” “aching” or “stabbing.”
- Other symptoms: Did the pain cause things such as nausea, fatigue, appetite changes or disrupted sleep?
Looking back at these notes can help you spot patterns and give your doctor a clearer picture of what’s going on.
If your pain is new or intense, you may find yourself heading to urgent care or the emergency room rather than waiting for an appointment.
Dr. Elaine Sapiro, an emergency medicine department physician at UC San Diego Health, says the most important thing you can explain in an urgent pain situation is what’s different today. The health care providers need to know “what made you decide to come now,” she says.
2. Focus on function, not just intensity
Talk to your doctor about what you can and cannot do because of your pain, Luke says. Think about your daily life. Can you still walk the dog? Do you have trouble sleeping? Is it hard to drive a car, clean your house, go to work or play with your grandkids?
When you explain how pain stops you from doing your favorite things, your doctor can understand how to better help you.
“To me, that’s a really gratifying piece,” Luke says. “[Helping] patients with pain improve their function, to be able to go take a trip they want to … and walk with their family.”
3. Share your goals
Talking about what you want to get back to doing is a great way to help your doctor make a plan, Luke says. If they know your goal is to walk a mile without pain or sleep through the night without interruption, for example, they can help you find the best way to accomplish that.
Luke says she helps patients set realistic pain-management goals based on their medical history, current pain levels and what they want to be able to do.
“I always ask people: What is a reasonable expectation?” she says. “ The likelihood that I can get you to 0 out of 10 pain is low. There’s not always a fix. But there are things that we can do to help you be able to do the things that you want to do.”
Sapiro takes a similar approach. Her goal, she says, is “to take the edge off [your pain], so you can function and hopefully enjoy the things you enjoy doing.”
4. Ask about different treatment options
It’s not unusual to feel uncomfortable talking to your doctor about pain — especially if you worry your symptoms will be minimized or that asking for help could make it seem like you’re seeking medication. But being honest is important.
Ask your doctor what options are available for pain relief — both pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical. Sapiro says that when she sees patients in the emergency department, many don’t realize “there are lots of medications that can treat pain that are not opioids,” which can cause dependence and a long list of side effects.
Last year, for example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a first-of-its-kind nonopioid prescription medication that, in clinical trials, demonstrated significant pain reduction after routine surgery, without the risk of addiction. Physical therapy, injections, exercise and psychological approaches are also used to treat pain.
It’s also “very reasonable to get another opinion” on your treatment plan, Luke says. “If you feel like you’ve tried everything, or your doctor says, ‘I don’t know if I have a new thing to try,’ then you could get another opinion from someone else.”
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