The Pain Scale Is Useless and Everybody Knows It

The Pain Scale Is Useless and Everybody Knows It

June 23, 2026 · 44 min · Season 2 · Episode 35

About this episode

Kate Downey and Golda Arthur discuss the inadequacies of the pain scale and the societal perceptions of pain based on gender.

Scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt? If you have ever sat in an ER thinking "eleven" and said "seven," Golda Arthur of the Overlooked podcast understands completely. She did the same thing during a thunderclap headache episode, and has been thinking about it ever since. Kate and Golda dissect the broken language of pain: the useless pain scale, the research showing doctors are trained to hear men's pain as physical and women's pain as emotional, and how even Virginia Woolf in 1926 complained that there aren't accurate words in the English language to describe pain. Join the CRAMPED Patreon: https://patreon.com/cramped CRAMPED episodes are intended for informational and entertainment purposes only, and are not medical advice. BEDUCATED QUIZ LINK: https://beduc.at/pd2623-cramped Overlooked Podcast: https://overlookedpod.com/ The Girl Who Cried Pain study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11521267/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

People in this episode

Host: Kate Downey

Guest: Golda Arthur

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Overlooked podcast, BEDUCATED, PubMed

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