They have pain scale signs all over the hospital rooms and descriptions for each level. I forget what they all are. All I know is I was in enough pain that I literally could not lay still...they could barely hold my leg still enough to do the block a second time. With the block they use just enough anaesthetic to keep you under during the procedure and virtually minimal painkillers. They were still wheeling me into the recovery room when I woke up. With that, and someone cutting into my leg, cutting my tendon, grinding down my heel bone, then stitching it back up. Yeah, I was hurting and I actually have a pretty high pain tolerance. I walked around for a week with a broken arm when I was a teen. The dr couldn't believe I didn't know it was broken. Well, yeah it hurt but it still worked ok lol.