Your pain level feels high, maybe even scorchingly high, but it seems your doctor or other health practitioner is not taking you seriously enough?
This has long been a common complaint of those with high pain levels. And over the years as our free Less Pain, More Life newsletter has grown from thousands to hundreds of thousands of subscribers, we have consistently heard variations on this same theme from a high proportion of our readers. To paraphrase them:
“My doctor is not paying enough attention to my pain levels … it seems he/she is pretty much ignoring my pain!”
A big part of the reason is that doctors are not adequately taught how to help people manage pain levels in medical school. (See Relieving Pain in America, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.)
But another reason may have to do with how “likable” doctors and other health practitioners find you!
According to a new study published in the academic journal Pain®, researchers found that those observing patients estimate lower pain levels and are less sympathetic to the pain when patients are not liked. In the words of the study release:
Investigators found that participants rated patients associated with negative traits as less likeable than patients associated with neutral traits. They rated patients associated with neutral traits as less likable than patients associated with positive traits. Further, pain of disliked patients expressing high intensity pain was estimated as less intense than pain of liked patients expressing high intensity pain. Furthermore, observers were less perceptually sensitive toward pain of negatively evaluated patients than to pain of positively evaluated patients, i.e. they were less able to discriminate between different levels of pain expressed by the disliked patients.
“Our results suggest that pain of disliked patients who express high pain is taken less seriously by others,” noted the lead investigators of the study. “This could imply less helping behavior by others as well as poorer health outcomes.”
Now, while doctors and others may be doing this subconsciously, obviously how “likable” they find you should have NOTHING to do with effectively addressing your pain levels!
But apparently that’s one of the reasons — and yet another reason you have to take control of your own health, including of relieving your pain.
I founded LosetheBackPain.com years ago on this very principle of taking control of your own health and pain (because if you don’t, unfortunately no one else effectively will.) Our focus is strong on relief, treatment, and prevention of back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, and other forms of pain safely and most effectively. But we have also grown into one of the world’s most respected providers of total health and wellness solutions overall, including diet, fitness, weight management, and more.
IF you are new here and you understand the importance of taking control of your own health — including most effectively managing your pain — subscribe FREE to a resource that truly will change your life for the better … our Less Pain, More Life newsletter below.
If you are a current subscriber or you are new here, do familiarize yourself with our top recommended pain relief products. Pardon the bad pun, but my team of experts here and I have gone through great pains over the past decade to research, develop, and provide you these powerful solutions. With each of the products’ descriptions you will discover the research demonstrating why they work so effectively.
We’re dedicated to providing you the most effective and important insights and tools to manage your health, including relieving and ultimately overcoming your pain. Because we believe in health freedom and the truth (meaning no influence from the pharmaceutical companies, etc!)
And because we DO find you likable. 🙂
