Dear Teapot Trust: Pain is hard to describe. Do you have any advice?

"Dear Teapot Trust,

I have soreness in my body and I take medication to help with this. When I go to the hospital my doctors and nurses ask me about my soreness and where the pain is and what it is like. When they ask me about this my mind goes blank and I don’t know how to explain it. It is frustrating because I want to be able to explain it. Do you have any advice on how to do this?"

From Aaron*, aged 14.

From Patricia Watts, Art Therapist

Hi Aaron, 

My name is Patricia, and I’m an art therapist with Teapot Trust. You’ve asked a really important question and it’s one that lots of young people wonder about and struggle with, even if they don’t always say it out loud.

When doctors and nurses ask you about your soreness or pain and your mind goes blank, that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. Pain can be really hard to explain. It can move around, change during the day, or feel different at different times and when you’re put on the spot, it’s easy for the words to disappear. It’s completely understandable to feel frustrated when you want people to understand what it’s like for you.

One thing that can really help is making your own pain scale. You might have seen doctors use a number scale from 0–10, but that doesn’t always fit how pain actually feels. Making your own scale can help the people around you understand what your pain means to you.

Here’s an idea you could try:

Create your own pain scale
Instead of starting from nothing, you could think about pains you’ve already felt in everyday life and use those as comparisons. For example:

• stubbing your toe
• being stung by a bee
• being hit by a football
• falling off a bike
• banging your elbow
• having a headache
• having a sore throat or tummy ache

You could write or draw these on your scale and decide where they sit for you. Then, when you’re feeling sore, you can compare it and say something like:

• “It’s milder than stubbing my toe but worse than a headache,” or
• “It feels similar to being hit by a football,” or
• “It’s worse than anything on my list.”

This can make it much easier for adults to understand what you’re trying to describe.

Here is another idea you could try: 

Showing where it hurts
You might want to draw a simple outline of a body and colour in or mark where the pain is. This can really help when pain is in more than one place or moves around.

Or, you might find this helpful:

Pain Diary
Sometimes pain isn’t just about how strong it is, it’s about what it does. Does it make school harder? Does it stop you concentrating, sleeping, or enjoying things? Adding this gives people an even clearer picture.

Here is an example that might help. A young person who attends art therapy (we’ll call her Charlotte, that’s not her real name) made her own pain scale. She uses it to show her mum and her teacher how she is feeling day to day. Charlotte chose to separate her feelings of pain and sickness and use a colour chart to show how this feels on different days. It has also helped her talk with her nurse and doctor at appointments, because she doesn’t have to find the words on the spot , she can show them instead. You can have a look at an example here:

You can bring something like this with you to appointments, or keep it on your phone. That way, when someone asks about your pain, you don’t have to explain everything from scratch each time.

You asked a really thoughtful question, Aaron. Learning how to explain pain takes time, and there is no right or wrong way to do it. Finding ways to show it using drawings, comparisons, or your own scale can make a big difference.

You’re not alone in this, even when it feels that way.

Take care,

Patricia