Pain is difficult to quantitate since it is largely subjective and the descriptive terms that are used to describe the pain are often vague.
In surgical recovery rooms, patients usually are waking up from the anesthetics used during their surgery and often have some discomfort. A common pain rating scale used by the nursing staff to communicate the amount of pain that a patient is having is illustrated here. Immediately following laparoscopy, my patients often are given a rating of 4-6 in the recovery room and by the time of discharge from the hospital a few hours later are mostly at a rating of 1-3.
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