The pain scale doesn't work for me, it's meaningless in describing my pain level. I'm very, very rarely a 0 (zero), if ever. I think we adapt to chronic pain such that a 3 or 4 for someone less pain tolerant doesn't even register for us chronic pain sufferers any more, I'm very, very rarely a 10. I base my 10 on the 60+ days of constant debilitating pain I felt during misdiagnosis for gall stones, especially the last 48 hours before emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder, that had gone gangrene, For a woman, that 10 might be an especially painful, many hours long childbirth. Since everyone has a different pain threshold, and different sensitivity, I see no way to establish a 10 scale pain descriptor. The smiley faces, frowning faces, red faces, etc don't account for the curled up in a fetal position pain many of us experience, whether for several hours or a few days. Even the pain scale descriptors in the 8 - 9 range that totally interfere with my daily functioning feel more like a 4 or 5 in my own personal pain scale. I'm just venting here. I'll bet many of you can relate to this conundrum.