I think pain is a very difficult thing to measure, and during my recent problems I tried to keep a daily note of pain levels, then the following happened and it made me think..
There was one day a month or so ago when I was in astonishing amounts of pain, buttock and calf pain due to S1 nerve being squashed by slipped disc at the Lumbosacral junction. I was putting this level of pain down as 7 or 8. Anyway it was a nice day and I hobbled out into the garden to lie in the sun (was only capable of going about 10 yards on my feet before the pain would win and compel lying down) And just typical of how my luck was going, I stood on a Bumble Bee and it stung the sole of my foot on my good leg. The wife burst out laughing and I could not help but join in, how funny, how utterly ridiculous but still very funny.
Anyway, as I lay there with a bee sting on my left foot, and nerve pain affecting my calf and buttock of my right leg, it was interesting to compare the pain levels; I would say the Bee sting was equal in magnitude to the Calf and Buttock pain. Now I wouldn't describe a Bee or Wasp sting as all that painful (may be a 5 tops ?), so was my Calf pain not really that bad ? So presumably any measurement has to be "pain X duration".
I guess a Bee sting that could arrive several times a day and persist for many hours rather that a few minutes, would get a much higher score than the actual pain merits.
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