I prefer this pain scale! As an EMT I always said (to adults) that it isn’t a 10 unless it is proceeded by the F word. No one can look you calmly in the eye and say their pain is a 10!
http://brainhatesme.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/a-more-accurate-pain-scale-hyperbole-and-a-half/
A different perspective:
If someone gives me a congratulatory slap on the back, I am almost knocked unconscious from immediate pain. And for the next several hours I can feel exactly where their hand landed on my back and it hurts. The few times I have fallen, I would have been screaming and wailing if I had had the breathe to do so. Also, if there is a wrinkle or a lint ball in a band on my clothing or even in my sock, I will develop a pressure sore. Or as my husband jokingly says I’m like the Princess in the Princess and the Pea story. And its true.
But I can get 3rd degree burns and never know it. While paper cuts hurt like the dickens, I would rather get 10 paper cuts than a slap on the back. And sadly, this has not lessen over the course of my life.
OP: Your daughter may be over sensitive to touch. I’m not sure of any tests that can be done to prove/disprove that but it is a real thing. I know of several people with various degrees of it.
And to the poster who said they had no response to the nerve conduction test… I am intensely jealous of you! I had to get two. No. No. No. No. No. No. NEVER again! That is a F…ing 10 for me. In fact, I will classify that pain as off ‘that stupid chart.’
[QUOTE=Laurierace;7758854]
I prefer this pain scale! As an EMT I always said (to adults) that it isn’t a 10 unless it is proceeded by the F word. No one can look you calmly in the eye and say their pain is a 10!
http://brainhatesme.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/a-more-accurate-pain-scale-hyperbole-and-a-half/[/QUOTE]
Haha, you may appreciate this. I went into the ER one holiday weekend with shingles pain (was already dealing with that, but Mutha, there ain’t nothing that kills it) compounded by cellulitis on a PMS boob. The nurse asked me how bad the pain was.
“It’s more of a smacking pain than a fainting pain”
“??”
“If you touch it, I won’t faint but I will likely reflex smack you”
Wide eyes. I repeated for the doc and he at least laughed and very carefully examined with the lightest touch possible 
[QUOTE=Laurierace;7758854]
I prefer this pain scale! As an EMT I always said (to adults) that it isn’t a 10 unless it is proceeded by the F word. No one can look you calmly in the eye and say their pain is a 10!
http://brainhatesme.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/a-more-accurate-pain-scale-hyperbole-and-a-half/[/QUOTE]
This is the one I used to take to my doctors. Not safe for kids…
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html
[QUOTE=Laurierace;7758854]
I prefer this pain scale! As an EMT I always said (to adults) that it isn’t a 10 unless it is proceeded by the F word. No one can look you calmly in the eye and say their pain is a 10!
http://brainhatesme.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/a-more-accurate-pain-scale-hyperbole-and-a-half/[/QUOTE]
That is the one I used to take to my doctors.
[QUOTE=GotGait;7758925]
That is the one I used to take to my doctors.[/QUOTE]
I bet your eyes were bleeding! Glad you aren’t in that range anymore.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;7758854]
I prefer this pain scale! As an EMT I always said (to adults) that it isn’t a 10 unless it is proceeded by the F word. No one can look you calmly in the eye and say their pain is a 10!
http://brainhatesme.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/a-more-accurate-pain-scale-hyperbole-and-a-half/[/QUOTE]
I typed an ER on someone the other day who said his pain was a 10 - said it calmly, collectedly, was being conversational with the staff and docs in full sentences, appropriately configured normal sentences, not “It F’ing hurts!!” X-rays showed a severe fraction dislocation of his ankle. Obviously, from the deformity, they knew it was serious, but the doc did comment on the man’s attitude, as he was impressed by it. And this was before he had any pain meds. He wasn’t zoned out or drugged. He just sat there calmly and collectedly and told them that this pain was the worst he had had in his life. And apologized for having to come to the ER and take up their time/attention. And made a few cell phone calls to somebody arranging care of his pets. He appeared - to this experienced ER doc - fully functional and not in the least in shock. And had a pain rating of 10.
Some people just have a serious pain tolerance. The highest I ever gave somebody was a 7 - that was for 2nd and 3rd degree burns on both hands, 8 fingers. Worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. I gave that answer in an absolutely conversational tone. I was so calm and routine in the waiting room (while silently resisting impulse to slap some people who were going on about emergency sniffles) that when the triage nurse came back out a minute after I’d sat back down and called me back to put me in a hall bed, I heard some people complaining that, “She’s not really hurt.” God bless that nurse, who told me later that there was a 5-hour line. She said, “I can tell how much you’re hurting.” No tears, screams, moans, hysterics, profanity, or anything else in sight.
And while I was in that hall bed waiting for a doc, I could hear somebody in one of the rooms: “I’m DYING!!! I’m DYING!!! (Moan) (Groan) I’m DYING!!!” This went on for my whole 2-hour stay in the ER getting treated. There were people in and out of her room a few times, but none of them had a crash cart with them, and I overheard a couple at the nurses station (I was in the hall, remember) saying, “What a drama queen.”
People differ.
ETA: I remember my riding instructor telling about an ER doc’s reaction to her answer to the pain scale question after a serious injury. She - calmly and conversationally - told him 8. He was fishing a little more for a description of her pain, how it hurt and how she arrived at that number, and she said, “Well, nobody could really be a 10, because at 10, you’d pass out from pain. So you wouldn’t be awake to give that answer. I figure 9, you’re almost passing out from pain. I’m not; it hurts a lot, but I don’t feel like I’m passing out in the next 30 seconds. So I’ll call this an 8.”
[QUOTE=HungarianHippo;7758738]
sorry but this just torques me off. The constant, very heartfelt complaint I hear from FM sufferers is that people don’t think their pain is real. That they get the :rolleyes: (the same :rolleyes: you’ve just delivered) when they say something hurts. Kinda gotta ask how you determine that your pain is real and theirs is not? Is it because you have a diagnosis whereas theirs is just mental and therefore are simply “overreacting to small pains.” So is there a hierarchy among pain disorders?[/QUOTE]
If that’s how it came off, I apologize. I am not saying it’s less important just because she doesn’t have a diagnosis. My sister DOES have a diagnosis, and has been checked out thoroughly by many many doctors. Basically her psychiatrist says it is most likely overreaction because of her mental disorder, apparently it’s common. She’s emotional in all aspects of life, and her reactions to small things (not just pain) is taken to over the top proportions.
Now I’m not saying she’s not in pain, she is. Just we learned long ago that you can’t cry over a papercut!
She is mentally unwell and not stabilized, our hope is one day she will be, and her reactions will be more realistic. Until then, we know the more she complains, the less likely it’s serious. When she’s quite after saying she’s in pain, we know it’s REAL.
I never meant to say just because her case is unique that everyone who’s undiagnosed is a wimp! Ever. Never ever! I was undiagnosed for YEARS, and got that attitude, never would I mean to say that to someone else. 
What I was saying is even if you think you’ve ruled out everything physical, remember there are mental disorders that cause pain as well. That’s not saying “its all in their head” no, it’s not. I’m saying it’s hard to understand something no one fully understands, I wasn’t saying she’s not in pain, I’m saying it might be a more hidden pain.
Sorry, my posts don’t come off as well in typing.
Disclaimer – I don’t have kids myself but a large number of nieces/nephews and was one myself a long time ago – and I vote for ‘shes a kid’.
I also noticed you said your husband was there. Don’t know if this applies to your daughter but I have one niece who is in every way a 'Daddy’s girl". If Dad is around when the toe is stubbed or the insect stings the reaction is much much greater (and I have never been around when something serious but we have family gatherings at my farm or family river place so most instances are of the stinging insect, twisted ankle, stubbed toe). In fact I can remember even when she was a little girl and we were all sitting around the patio. She had a spill and was whimpering a little while we (aunts/cousins)looked at the booboo. Then her dad walked around the corner of the house and she saw him and started wailing. It was so obvious we all cracked up (while trying not to…). She is still that way at 13.
As to the pain scale. I am relatively stoic as well. If I go to the Doctor I am in considerable discomfort, but whenever they ask me where the pain falls on a scale of 1 to 10, I have a difficult time assessing. I told the PA this last time that never having given birth I had never experienced a 10, nor do I ever want to but assume I will know it when I feel it. In the meantime I don’t know how to compare present pain but discomfort was bad enough it was interfering with my job and my farm since I was unable to perform normal activities. Occasionally when I tried to…or inadvertently used my hand (or wrist in this case)…the pain was sharp and severe enough I would vocalize and occasionally at work the vocalization was inappropriate 
The worst pain I’ve ever had both times I basically hurt too much to scream. The one time was with a headache that was so bad I felt like I wasn’t seeing things right (in retrospect I suspect migraine combined with bad sinus infection, but at the time I wasn’t used to having migraines) and the other was during a medical procedure where they had to numb the lining of the abdomen and you know how local anesthetic burns at first? Well, the abdominal lining is apparently really very very sensitive. That hurt so much it took my breath away for a moment.
The last two times I have really hurt myself in horse-related incidents, I didn’t scream, cry, or use the F word. I think I was in so much shock from the pain that I couldn’t do anything. In the one incident I was at the OSU vet school and had to get the horse home, no matter what. So I just gutted it up, drove an hour, switched vehicles with my husband, got the horse home, and made it back to my house. All while my ankle hurt so damn much that it was like super loud radio static in my head. The MRI report on that one had about 8 findings on it and the dr said I would have been better off breaking it. :eek:
As this thread so clearly demonstrates, everyone perceives pain and handles it differently…
OP, it’s a tough question. I wonder if there’s a sensory integration / sensory processing isssue going on.
I do think that the solicitous attention from adults might reinforce the behavior. Either because it’s validating / makes her feel secure and cared for, or it validates her initial fear because this must really be something scary.
BUT: I tend to doubt it’s a calculated behavior, so I’m really torn about denying her the attention she clearly profoundly craves. If it were misbehavior, then absolutely. But when it’s such an emotional fear? Bottom line, I’d really want to talk to a doctor/psychologist about this. Withdrawing the security blanket without looking into why she needs it may be counterproductive. Just thinking about the whole developmental pyramid, where Security is the foundation and the higher functions can’t fully develop without it. Maybe she has some missing chunks in that security foundation, and a psychologist could suggest strategies.
I came off my young horse last spring when he spun out from under me - I basically dismounted and landed feet first and then plopped on my ass. Sat there for a second and only realized that my foot was dangling off the end of my leg when I went to stand up to get back on - I had snapped both my tibia and fibula and the tibia was sticking out above my ankle. My dad was in the house so I called him on my cell phone and got myself into the passenger seat of my car while we waited for the ambulance. I rated it then around a 7 out of 10 on the pain scale - it hurt but was bearable, no tears, no feeling like I was going to through up or pass out. I was on facebook on my phone making jokes about it during the 20 minute ambulance ride to the hospital. During my entire hospital stay and three surgeries I generally rated it 0-2 out of 10 in terms of pain, only hit my button for meds a couple of times, usually if I knew they were going to come change the splint and move it around a lot. I assume I must have a high pain tolerance - some of the nurses told me that they’ve had grown men with the same injury sitting there sobbing in the past while I was cracking jokes about the surgeon fixing the bunion on that foot while he was mucking around down there. I just figured that we horse women tend to be tough!
[QUOTE=AmarachAcres;7756542]
So from all you horse people, what are your pain reactions to falls? If you hit hard, are you able to hop up right away? Do you scream in pain regardless of anything being broken or not?
Should I even try to get her to understand it makes it hard for us to figure out? Is her behavior normal at all?
I ride, I’ve fallen, but I don’t ever remember creating a scene like this. But I have no doubt her pain was real. Just, does she have no tolerance at all? I don’t think she is doing it on purpose, she seems to just truly have a really low tolerance.
Thoughts? Experiences?[/QUOTE]
Dear OP, I had a fall not that different from your daughter’s fall. I have been bucked off and the momentum has kept me rolling forward (I just got up). But last summer I got bucked off a horse who was standing still and I landed flat on my hip. I was able to get up right away, catch the horse, longe the horse. But within 15 minutes, I was seriously limping. By the time I drove myself to Urgent Care, I couldn’t get out of the car because it was so painful. They had to wheel me in. I could lower my breeches but I could not get onto the xray table. In fact, the poor male xray technician could barely help me walk 2 feet and get up on the table (it was a production! poor guy) because the pain was excruciating. No hip fractures but I damaged my muscles all around my hip (lots of little microtears that resulted in a 12" by 8" bruise) and caused basically a huge muscle cramp - so cramped I couldn’t literally could not walk. I went home with a perscription for advil and muscle relaxers and pain medicine, and the next day I was walking.
Months before that, I landed on the side of my hip and I tore some of the little ligaments that hold your pelvis together.
Perhaps your daughter was being dramatic, but perhaps she tore a ligament or muscle, or just bruised the point of her hip. Or landed on a rock or pebble in the wrong place. There’s really a lot to damage when you land with your hip flush to the ground, and I could see where just fear of having broke something as well as the fear of simply falling off a horse can lead to additional hysterics in a kid.
ETA, drawstraws, you are my hero. Oh. My. God.
I’ll add that since my accident last year I’ve had quite a few more muscle cramps/charley horses in that leg than I ever used to (usually my calf or the top of my foot/pulls my toes back and up) and I swear that those are WAY more painful than my bone sticking out!! They usually hit while I’m lying in bed and those get me to whimpering and laughing at myself at what a baby I’m being all at the same time.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;7758937]
I bet your eyes were bleeding! Glad you aren’t in that range anymore.[/QUOTE]
On the plus side, I have a wicked pain tolerance now. A 10 for me is plummeting blood pressure and passing out, but fortunately that’s only happened twice. No bleeding eyes yet. 
The times I’ve come off my horse, I usually just lay on the ground stunned for a few minutes and then get up. I’ve never been seriously hurt though, and usually feels like I’ve been in a car wreck the next day.
I definitely agree with age being a factor. I remember crying over stuff when I was in that age range that now I wouldn’t even think twice about. Most of it was more scared than actual pain. The mind can be tricky.
Same reason I passed out AFTER giving blood last week. Had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with my mind playing tricks on me!:o
Childbirth didn’t hurt per se, it was the pain from exhaustion in the muscles, and the epidural was to give myself a break. Pain for me was when a mole was removed from the sole of my foot, on the front of the ball, behind the toes - exquisitely agonizing describes the doctor infiltrating the area with local, and then walking on it after the local wore off was no fun at all - the stitches tore out partway and we pulled them out with tweezers after that. Broken limbs and the time I sliced myself open were mostly shocky - I looked and I fainted.
Everybody feels things differently, it’s become clear to me.
[QUOTE=drawstraws;7759242]
I’ll add that since my accident last year I’ve had quite a few more muscle cramps/charley horses in that leg than I ever used to (usually my calf or the top of my foot/pulls my toes back and up) and I swear that those are WAY more painful than my bone sticking out!! They usually hit while I’m lying in bed and those get me to whimpering and laughing at myself at what a baby I’m being all at the same time.[/QUOTE]
… You and my mother must be living some kind of parallel lives.
I find my pain tolerance totally depends on what it is. About a month ago I had a filling done and the tooth wasn’t numbed enough. I borderline freaked out. I say borderline because I was mentally freaking out and moving my arms but I was totally still with my head and mouth. Looking back that pain is not anywhere near as bad as other things I’ve experienced. But something about tooth pain, especially when there’s a drill in my mouth is an automatic 10 on a pain scale at the moment it’s happening.
I have fallen off horses a few times. All but one of those falls were no big deal and I got back on immediately.
But I did have a fall where I landed on my kidney and hip bone and it felt like I’d been hit by a truck. It knocked the wind out of me. I had to have help getting up. I managed to drive myself home but it took me 20 minutes to walk 10 feet from my car to my front door. I couldn’t put any weight on my right side without collapsing. I did actually pass out at one point when my husband was trying to help me stand up to get to the bathroom. I couldn’t hardly move for about 36 hours.
I think how badly a fall off a horse hurts depends so much on all the factors of the specific fall. I landed on almost the same spot several months later and got back on with 5 minutes. My hip hurt a lot while riding and I was sore for a couple days, but not a big deal.
