Yeah I wasn't answering to your anecdote, just trying to illuminate the purpose of those charts and that their rating is inherently subjective.

Obviously being dismissive about it is not productive.

Although there were times where we asked patients to reassess them, almost always when their answers were in the high end of the scale, a dude sitting totally chill drinking tea answering '10' is not really believable and could cloud what's happening. I mostly described it as "1 being a mild inconvenience and 10 being the strongest pain you have ever felt in your life"