Yes, the pain scale is subjective, because, well, any attempt to communicate internal feelings and experiences is subjective (by definition). But subjective metrics are still useful as a way to try to achieve a shared understanding. "It hurts, but it doesn't hurt as much as other things I've felt before" is still informative, even if it's imperfect.<p>And the pain scale is useful when you are talking to someone who is not used to talking about their internal feelings -- some people aren't as expressive as others. And some people have less of a grasp on the language you are communicating in. I would expect if I were a doctor or nurse, I wouldn't want to base my standard of care on how capable my patient is of finding an appropriate adjective to describe how they feel.
> By Jack’s peculiar reckoning, 10 was nuclear annihilation. Free though he was to think that way, he had twisted a subjective tool into something that made sense to him and to nobody else on the planet, rendering it unfit for its sole purpose: evaluating pain.<p>But then, what is a 10? If you have no other instruction, mapping 10 to an extreme seems reasonable. Every time someone asks me this question I think of the time I broke a bone and the pain is never anywhere close to that and I know there must be something even more painful... so what am I to do?
When the doctor asks you to rate your pain and tells you a 10 is "the worst pain you've ever felt", that's effectively meaningless. An objective scale is needed. I've never broken a bone so I don't know if diverticulitis is more painful or less, but I would imagine that being doused in kerosene and set on fire would be a lot worse.