MCGILL PAIN INDEX – WHERE IS CRPS PAIN RANKED?
- Skin Color
- Temperature Changes
- Pressure
- Sensitivity
- Affective Qualities
- Tension
- Fear and Autonomic properties and Evaluative issues that are help pinpointing the intensity of the pain.
“Because pain is a private, personal experience, it is impossible for us to know precisely what someone else’s pain feels like. No man can possibly know what it is like to have menstrual cramps or labour pain. Nor can a psychologically healthy person know what a psychotic patient is feeling when he says he has excruciating pain…There is a remarkable consistency in the choice of words by patients suffering the same or similar pain syndromes“
The pain that one feels with CRPS/RSD is a burning, stabbing, and shooting type of pain. It is considered to be one if not the most painful long term condition there is. On the McGill Pain Index it scores a 42 out of a possible 50, above both childbirth and amputation.
The chart above gives you a visual of the type of pain that someone living with CRPS/RSD has to deal with.
With pain as intense as this it is key that it be diagnosed as quickly as possible.
Often however the pain goes misdiagnosed, diagnosed too late, or the patient is told that everything is all in their head.
Although there isn’t an accurate number of how many people are living with CRPS/RSD between 80 and 120 million people live with some form of chronic pain. CRPS/RSD is a VERY REAL illness that causes suffering that you can’t begin to understand unless your living it! So the next time you come across someone living with chronic pain please don’t tell them it’s all in their head. Chances are pretty good that it isn’t and that the pain is very real.
My Journey With CRPS/RSD 