I remember the worst physical pain I ever felt in the way one regards a frame without a picture. I remember all the specifics of my thoughts, but of the pain itself, I remember not at all what it felt like. I cannot envision its intensity or build a simulacrum of it in my mind.
For that matter, I can’t recall what any pain I experienced actually felt like. I can remember and recreate what chocolate tastes like in my head, or being tickled, or an orgasm. I can remember what those things felt like.
IIRC, some Discovery-type show I saw on pain stated that there is no scientific way to measure pain, per se, and that it is strictly a psychological phenomenon. We know it’s real because we all have experienced it, but the only true measurable attributes of those in pain are increased heart rate, perspiration, breathing rate, etc.
I think that because there’s such a large mental component to pain that we may never truly understand it. Try hard as I might, I can’t remember or make myself re-live the physical sensation of pain of any kind. I can describe what it felt like and remember what I was thinking / feeling emotionally at the time, but I can’t actually remember it the way I can a scent or a sound. Interesting, that.
See now, I remember every second. I remember how it felt, what I was thinking, what I was doing to try to cope- everything. The memory scares me, and I don’t like to think about it.
Most physically painful experiences I’ve forgotten, but the really bad ones, I’ll remember forever. Same thing with emotional pain. But maybe this is just my mindset. I’m usually extremely conscious of everything my body is doing. I compare painful sensations to past memories to try and see how injured I might be. I’ve broken three ribs in my life, pretty painful, although not the worst, and when I broke the third one, I was thinking to myself “Does this feel like the other times I broke a rib? How is it the same/different?” to try to gauge whether or not my rib was actually broken.
I’d have to say that for me, the most intense pain comes from internally, usually in the abdomen. I can deal okay with external wounds, but internal is frankly horrible. I was accidentally poisoned once, and I’d have to say that was the absolute worst pain I have ever felt. Second worst was a copperhead bite on my foot when I was 12. Both times I was near-delirious from the pain, but despite that I remember the sensation very clearly.
I’ve been very lucky in my life and had few injuries and few illnesses. So while I crab endlessly about my nearing-40 aches and pains, I can honestly say the worst pain I’ve ever felt would be “nothing much” to someone else. All that said, I vividly remember the LONGEST pain I ever had, when I had an intestinal ileus that kept me doubled over for three days, but the only reason it’s so vivid to me is that I still get occasional twinges from that. The WORST pain I ever had was during an ABG (arterial blood gas) scan. It looked like it was going to be a regular blood draw, and I wasn’t the least bit frightened. Until the hospital staff asked the enormous Samoan orderly to lie down on top of me! The pain was so sudden, surprising, and intense that I, at all of a hundred pounds, sent the orderly flying. That’s the only time pain has made me cry.
Yeah, and I’ll probably have it again in a few months.
I have a pinched nerve in my back. Under certain conditions (lack of exercise, strain, Mountain Dew or peppermint schnaps) it comes back.
It’s as if a fist is grabbing all the muscles in my lower back and squeezing them tightly. I end up on the floor having to stretch and sometimes my bowels, um, have to empty. Thankfully, I get warning.
The “attacks” last about 30 minutes. The oddest things are:
I get an “aura”. I have a taste in my mouth like stale mountain dew before the attacks occur. Then my back starts to seize up.
I’ve been x-rayed and described the situation to docs, who can’t find anything. But it isn’t a stress response, because it ties more back to lack of back exercise and drinking something sweet.
I can’t recreate the taste of chocolate any better than a particular pain. It’s all a shadow, a percentage, a simulacrum of the original. Since I tend to study (okay, pick at and obssess: I’m an artist so what do you expect?) every little thing, it’s up for debate whether I’m really good at remembering the quality of pain or bad at recalling the taste of chocolate.
I’m much like ratty. I think I’ve been hurt so often, I can’t help but be analytical about it when it happens. I can definitely remember every feeling - the pops, the way something bends where it isn’t supposed to, the gut feeling, the stinging, the soreness afterwards, the blinding flash when something really unexpected happens.
For me, even with everything from my cycling career and other various stupid stunts I’ve pulled, the worst pain I ever experienced was a toothache. Sounds silly, I know, but I seriously though I was going to die. It was like the throbbing pain was inside my mind, laughing at my attempts to mentally isolated it, taunting me for days, not letting me eat, not letting me rest, not letting me have one single thought to myself. I couldn’t sleep for two nights - I just lay in bed, sweating, hating every second. Everytime that whole side of my mouth came in contact with anything, no matter how light (and heaven forbid I bite down) - white, blinding flashes of pain, with nausea and everything. It sucked. Turns out it was the beginning of a bad sinus infection. So yeah, I agree that internal pain is by far the worst - most everything else I can zone out or distract myself from. But not when it’s right there, inside my head with me.
So anyway, the point of all this rambling is that I can indeed remember pain. Sometimes whatever part that was injured will actually start hurting again, just briefly, the way it did when it was really injured. Physical pain is such an odd beast… however, none of my experiences with pain have been especially traumatic to me, in the emotional sense - I don’t shudder at the thought of remembering it, or try not to think about it, or anything of that nature. Perhaps this plays a role in it? I actually get some grim satisfaction from reliving pain sometimes - maybe the whole macho “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” or something.
Migraine. At least 6 days out of every month - like scalding water dripping in rhythms. I don’t think it’s the least bit enobling and it’s never gone long enough to properly forget.
Interestingly, the worst pains I’ve ever encountered have both been behind my face.
I get a sinus infection about once every three years or so. I’m not talking about a runny nose here, either. I’m talking about a pain that seems subtle, lingering just behind my eyes. However, the seering agony when I bend down to pick something up is simply unbearable. Interestingly, though, since this is somewhat of an abstract pain, I find myself forgetting it within a few days after it goes away.
The worst was after eye surgery when I was about 10 years old. I still remember this pain as vividly as if it happened just hours ago. My eye (which would not open) was swollen the size of an avacado for more than a month and a half. Every time I did any movement whatsover, the pain would imprint itself into the back of my eye-socket. This was a very concrete pain. I knew exactly what was hurting, but could do nothing about it. The worst part was when I first awoke from anasthesia. I had a violent puking reactin which lasted until the doctors could get a tranquilizer back into my system. Waking was such a horror for the next 6-8 weeks, I didn’t even want to go to bed.
Of course, I remember a very strong pain when I had the same puking bout after awaking from having my wisdom teeth pulled as well. My doctor told me that he suspected that the reason it took so long for me to be able to open my mouth (about another 8 weeks) had something to do with the bout I had with my mouth being forcefully opened when it shuold have remained shut.
I haven’t had any sort of surgery since, but I can guarantee that I will never be put down again (unless it is against my will).
I honestly can’t recall the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Well, no, that’s wrong. The worst thing I ever felt was a root canal in which they started grinding before I was numb - and they’d only given me one shot of novacaine, so that wasn’t going to do the trick anyway. But I don’t continue to feel that pain, even mentally.
Things I do recall, however, are pains of accidents that didn’t happen to me. For example, over spring break I was in Memphis with my great-aunt. We were down in Tunica at the outlet mall, and she tripped over a curb (she’s an older lady - it was definitely frightening) and hit her lower lip between her teeth and the pavement. Even now, I cringe and feel sympathy pains in my lip when I think about it.
The worst pain I ever felt I don’t remember very well, because my brain was kind enough to pull back and realize, “Hey, this is gonna hurt like a bitch”, and throw me into shock within a second or so. I fell down a stairwell (not rolling down the stairs, but dropping like a stone from above), dislocated my shoulder on the banister as I passed by it, and slammed it back into place when I hit the stairs a half-second later. Two weeks on heavy painkillers, and a month in a soft cast to keep me from moving it too much.
I would have to say a sinus infection, and right after that would be child birth, especially the part when the shoulders come through, OUCH and then some. But I guess I am lucky I didn’t have the sinus infection whilst giving birth? I can’t even imagine it. Margo
You know how they say a woman can’t remember the pain of childbirth? Well, I must be an exception to the rule because I distinctly remember labor pains. I remember exactly how they felt.
Worst pain I’ve ever experienced. Being sick with pneumonia and being forced to cough every hour on the hour the day after having a C-Section runs a close second though.
Yes, definately. I was pelted in the head with a rock while in Israel, and whenever I see someone getting hit in the head with something heavy and / or fast moving, I get a twinge of the pain right where it happened. It’s not the full-blown thing, but I can definately feel it. Makes me feel weird when I’m watching a commedy and my friends laugh at a ‘commedic’ bonk-to-the-head and I can only cringe.
If labor wasn’t the worst pain ever, then I’m glad I’ve forgotten it. Though it’s not as though I really remember the pain of labor either. I remember my reaction to it and my husband’s reaction, but the pain itself might never have exsisted.
Broke my leg in 6 places and I clearly remember the sensation.
It was like boiling oil being poured over my thigh. That and being stabbed in the leg with 1,000’s of knitting needles.
I think most people can forget the sensation of severe pain because its so traumatic you block it out.
I’ve never had pain on the scale of what some of you have described, but I have really bad cramps when I have my period and I can always remember what that feels like.
Strangely my other worst pain is also from that region of the body, the first bunch of times I had sex hurt like the worst hell I ever imagined. I knew it was going to hurt, I just didnt know it was going to feel like I was being stabbed and gutted with a knife down there, or that it was going to hurt the next few times, too. I remember the first first time it hurt soi much I cried and scared the guy away.
The worst pain I ever had was when I had appendicitus. The only thing worse than the continual throbbing was during the tests (because I was showing ambivalent test results, they did EVERY test on me). Having a lady pressing a metal machine against you asking does it hurt more here(awful tear-jerking pain) or here ( awful tear-jerking pain). Only after all the tests did they give me any pain medication.
