PAG: Duration of the Pain

Knowing how long the pain may last during a test is very important.  A pain ranking of 6 for 5 seconds is very different than a pain ranking of 6 for 5, 10, or 15 minutes.


Think about the lab work used as example in the overview section:

Lab Work - Teri	Type	Rating	Duration
Tourniquet	Pressure	3	1-2 min.
Insert Needle to vein	Sharp Sting	2	1-5 sec.
Collect Blood	None	0	1-2 min.

There’s an important lesson contained in the numbers here.  Most of us have had lab work (blood collection) before.  You’re brought into the inner waiting room where you may wait for 10-20 minutes.  When it’s your turn, you go into the lab tech’s area and you sit in a chair, where you wait for the tech to review your doctor’s orders and prep the paperwork, tourniquet, needle and vials.  This prep time may be five or more minutes long, but the test itself probably will not last more than one or two minutes once it’s begun.  If your biggest fear in this test is the needle stick itself, you can see that the discomfort from that will probably last no more than 5 seconds.


Here’s the important part.  The discomfort you might feel during the lab work procedure may fill no more than a few seconds of a two-minute test.  This is considerably different than using the ten, twenty or thirty minute ‘waiting’ timeline you might otherwise do in the absence of the information given in the PAG.

That doesn’t mean that the 10-30 minute wait time is irrelevant.  Wait time is often when anxiety begins to build.  You now have two tools available, however, to help deal with this anxiety.  The first is detailed knowledge of the test to come (given in the later pages with each PAG), and the second is a set of relaxation and distraction techniques to use while you’re waiting and during the test itself (covered in the Pain Management Strategy page).  Use all your tools!