Gee, are we lucky you found our site. I was wondering how long you have been a nurse. I have been a nurse for over 25 years and I don't require proof of an CT scan or MRI to believe someone who says they are in pain to have empathy for them and try to help them instead of thinking they are wasting my time. I guess I was checked by a nurse and doctor with your opinion when I was in the ER three times in one week complaining of severe pain. I don't cry, I don't yell, I don't demand narcotics when I am in pain. I am very quiet and stoic. When I rate pain as a 10 I mean it. I had a CT scan without the contrast because the ER personnel didn't want to waste their time that day with me. Well guess what? My test was negative and I wasn't screaming in pain but I had a history of right lower quadrant pain for years off and on, my white count was elevated and my appendix ruptured that week. I saw 3 specialists who have the same opinion of pain as you do. If it wasn't for my PCP and her belief in me and a wonderful surgeon who believed me, I would have been dead by Saturday. (by the way, I was referred for counseling over the years for right side lower quadrant pain, and the only thing that helped was when my appendix finally ruptured after years of chronic flare ups).
Please try to think before you judge people. I wish you would email some of the surgeons who operated on me and get an explanation of how adhesions DO cause pain. My uterus, bowel and bladder were "stuck" together to the anterior wall of my pelvis from years of appendicitis. I had back spasms that would take your breath away after my appendectomy. Low and behold, after surgery in Scranton to separate everything, the pain was gone.
I wish nursing school taught lessons in compassion. I work with other nurses who seem to be in the right profession for the wrong reasons too.
-- Kathy L.