Putting your pain into diagnostic words.

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The McGill-Melzack Pain Questionaire, created in 1971, assesses pain, in part,

by asking sufferers to select adjectives describing what they feel.

The instructions are simple: There are 20 groups of words. Choose a single

word from each group, but skip any group where where the words do not apply.

1. flickering, flashing, shooting 2. jumping, flashing, shooting 3.

pricking, boring, drilling, stabbing, lancinating 4. sharp, cutting,

lacerating 5. pinching, pressing, gnawing, cramping, crushing 6. tugging,

pulling, wrenching 7. hot, burning, scalding, searing 8. tingling, itchy,

smarting, stinging 9. dull, sore, hurting, aching, heavy 10. tender, taut,

rasping, spliting 11. tiring, exhausting 12. sickening, suffocating 13.

fearful, frightful, terrifying 14. punishing, grueling, cruel, vicious,

killing 15. wretched, blinding 16. annoying, troublesome, miserable,

intense, unbearable 17. spreading, radiating, penetrating, piercing 18.

tight, numb, drawing, squeezing, tearing 19. cool, cold, freezing 20.

nagging, nauseating, agonizing, dreadful, torturing

The questionaire's creators recognized that pain in multidimentional. It can be

physical or psychological or both. the word groups attempt to differentiate

between the two. Physical pain is essentially a sensory affront. Usually

people find a way to cope. The exceptions are when pain becomes chronic or

extreme, when begins to dominate sufferer's life and thoughts. Then it's

psychological. The words in each group of the questionaire are sequential.

That is, the first word is not as significant as the last word. The first half

of the questionaire focuses on physical pain. By circling words here, a patient

is tending to indicate an awareness of pain, but not a feeling that it's

controlling one's life. Circled words in the second half indicate the pain is

exacting a psychological toll, as well as a physical one. Word groups here are

broad indicators of how well you are - or are not coping mentally. People, of

course, are not easily compartmentalized. The same pain can affect different

people differently. A rule of thumb in using this questionaire is that if you

can accept your pain and work aroung it, then it's likely to be only physical

and can be treated as such. But if the pain is unbearable, if it is

" terrifying " or " killing " then real relief probably requires psychological

treatment as well. by La Fee, Staff Writer - San Diego Union Tribune.

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