Having a tooth pulled is up there with broken ribs, but the ribs are painful for much longer (selectively, they hurt most when you breathe). Trying to walk when you’ve torn tendons in your knee is only painful when you put weight on it, and feel it wobbling around. It’s more distressing than painful.
The worst pain I had was from a (misdiagnosed) cranial abscess. The vomiting might have been from their painkillers (they’re ‘the strongest ones we have’, said the chemist) as I walked to work one morning, wondering if I was going to keel over and die while throwing up in someone’s garden. When those babies wore off I wanted to put my head through the nearest wall. Fortunately all of the prescribed painkillers and antibiotics and my own supply of OTC painkillers made me throw up copious amounts of blood during my second visit to ER. Once they saw I might be really sick they thought an x-ray might be a good idea.:smack:
My 10 went up over time as I accumulated more experiences.
When I had kidney stones of size 13, 9, 7 and 5 mm get jammed together, that was painful enough to cause vomiting and make me pass out. I have had more than 30 kidney stones but that experience was the high water mark.
And they did an old fashioned lithotomy on me for it, and I had the misfortune to wake up in the OR as they were finishing up. One said “Hey, he’s waking up!” and another said “Hey, you, go back to sleep, you don’t want to be awake now!” and I decided it was odd that these professionals all start their sentences with “Hey!” Be that as it may, my few seconds of awareness were more painful than the stones had been.
I will also say that having a urinary catheter removed as part of the lithotomy recovery was pretty painful. Now, this was no ordinary catheter that goes into the bladder. No, there was a second catheter, much longer, that was inside the catheter in my bladder, and that catheter passed through the bladder and into my right ureter and up to my kidney. When that one came out, I would say that my delicate internal parts actually lit up briefly.
But then there was the time I was getting a steroid injection along an inflamed and crushed nerve root in my lumbar spine, and they hit the root with the needle. The sensation was short, a fraction of a second, but I would never be able to imagine that pain could reach that point. It was more than electric, just… just… indescribable.
When ever nurses show me that, I usually answer 0 or 1. I mean, why ask me if I’m there for a regular appointment. Even when I’m there for a pain issue, I still always said something like “Ummm, I guess, um, 2 or 3, I mean [whatever the problem is] really hurts, but I’ve had debilitating migraines since 1st grade, so I think my sense of pain is a bit off”.
That was until last December 23, into the ER with something wrong, she showed me the pain scale, all I had to do was take one look at the pictures. “Eight, yup, I feel like that guy looks”. Ended up being a kidney stone.
Got another one a few months later.
Have my first urology appointment tomorrow at 32 years old.
Maybe 7 I guess. I was playing street hockey and this guy slam shot that pretty hard rubber ball right into my balls. What is really funny was that was the second time it had happened. First it happened to my friend (at the time friend) and ten minutes later I was hit. Both of us fell to the ground and started squirming and looked like we were in serious discomfort (and we were).
Guys, would you say that “7” is an appropriate evaluation for this occurrence?
I’m not exactly sure how to respond because my pain threshold varies depending on the type of pain I am experiencing. For instance, when I was 15 I was playing Frisbee with some friends…I looked away from the person throwing it and turned around just in time to get hit on my left mandible. The disc came fast and hard; it was quite a blow. I couldn’t close my mouth or talk for a few minutes. Thinking back I could maybe rate that … 8. The pain did not go on and on for hours (like labor) but for a few minutes it was intense as hell because of the location of the hit. It made me think about professional boxers. How do they do it!?
The worst pain I’ve had is a broken ankle, but when I was asked to rate it at the hospital, I only said a 4. Yeah, my ankle was swollen up to twice its usual size, and I was dragging that foot behind me like Igor, but I figured it could still be a lot worse.
But there was another woman in the exam room with me, just sitting and reading a book. When she was asked to rate the pain, she thought about it for a second or two and said, “I think it’s about a 9.” :dubious:
I mean, I guess she could have an amazing sense of composure, but that just illustrated the basic uselessness of the “pain scale” concept. I think of a 9 as coming with screaming and profanity and immediate demands for drugs (as I witnessed during my dad’s kidney stone attack :().
At about 10 or 11 my sisters and I were thought it would be fun to catch yellow jackets in a jar. The first try was successful the second not so much and I was the idiot holding the jar about a dozen bee stings on my face. Mom offered me the choice of the tobacco juice from grandpa’s spit can or calamine lotion, I went with the calamine and after hanging out on the couch for about 30 minutes she sent me back outside to play. I know it had to have hurt but I don’t remember the pain part of the experience.
Brother threw a dirt clod not realizing there was a chunk of brick inside it and nailed me in the side of the head. Again, pain memory not there.
Hostessing at a fried seafood restaurant, walked into the kitchen just after the sink area had been sprayed down and hit wet greasy spot on floor. Did a complete 360 before landing on my knees, the right taking the brunt of the landing. (Let loose with every expletive I knew and invented a few.) Huge ass bruise on my knee for a couple of months.
Twisted my foot when I missed the last step. Was heading out to pick up a very drunk friend from a party. Foot hurt when I pushed in the clutch but figured I had just sprained my foot somehow. The next day I decided to use the ‘sprain’ as an excuse to get out of work so went to the clinic on base to get a note from the doctor. Nope, it’s broken. Drove myself to the hospital to get a cast.
Tooth fun.
Had two abscesses go off on me at the same time. This is the worst pain I have ever felt. Tea bags can’t ease the pain enough. The day before I took so much asprin that I was throwing up. I called around till I found a dentist that could take me that day. My mother-in-law is staying with us and I’m trying not to wake her with my whimpering. I have about seven hours till my dentist appointment. I breakdown and find the oxycodone the doctor gave my husband after his eye surgery. I am so freaked out my drugs and pain meds that just to be safe I break it in half. I then go back to my room and set the alarm and rock and twitch and whimper till the half a oxycodone kicks in and I can sleep.
Later this wonderful dentist is prepping me for another root canal. The numbing needle missed. They ask if I want them to try again and I opt not to. So I get that and the following root canal without numbing.
A few years ago I tore something in my right shoulder. Still don’t know what as I’ve never been to the doctor about it. Thought I may have dislocated it but the symptons didn’t match up. Never lost strength or range of motion. Later I manage to pinpoint the pain and it was in the joint tissue. After figuring out it need cold not heat I injured my elbow. I was backing out of the freezer after making an ice pack and brought my right elbow down perfectly on the sharp edge of the fridge door and crushed the nerve in my ‘funny bone’.
I guess the abscess is my current ‘10’
Root canal - 4
Shoulder and elbow - 5
Broken bone in foot - 4
Well, that highlights one thing, which is that some people will consider the worst pain they have experienced, or can easily imagine, as 10, and base the scale on that.
Whereas I would think of the kind of shit that goes down on a Saw movie as a 10, and, based on that, nothing I’ve experienced could really be said to be more than 3.
(without reading the rest of the zombie thread…)
I was in physical therapy earlier this year, and heard lots of other patients going through their initial eval. This was a common question. I remember one patient calmly stating their pain was an 8. No tears, no yelling.
I understand that it’s just a reference point for the future…but…really? 8 out of 10, and you’re just chatting about it like it’s yesterday’s news?
I’ve always had a high pain tolerance. Back in 2010 I had surgery to repair a hernia, and I was over it in no time. I got extremely annoyed afterward because one of my roommates kept sending his grandson to knock on my bedroom door to see if I needed anything. “Yes! I’m fine! Go away!”
A few days ago, at work (I’m a cook) I was washing my hands and the sleeve of my chef jacket crept up and I noticed this:
It completely surprised me because I had no idea when it happened. I saw the burn and I was all, “What the hell? When did that happen?” I have no idea how I burned myself, since I didn’t feel a thing when it happened.
My appendix rupturing was an 8. It had me vomiting and passing out. I’d put breaking a tooth around 3 or 4. My 10 was a migraine I had about a month back. It was so bad I couldn’t think, couldn’t control bodily functions, and couldn’t hold onto consciousness.
Labor, both times - peaked at around a 4 or 5. Seriously, I have crazy easy labors.
Worst headache I’ve ever had - 7 on the Hyperbole and a Half scale. Seriously. Jesus was waving at me, and I’m an atheist.
Strangely enough, the last time I sprained my ankle, I had a few minutes of My Ankle Is Actively Being Mauled By A Bear before it calmed down. I’ve sprained my ankle three times and I’ve never felt it that badly before. I was actually crying like a baby and I couldn’t make it stop.
5- having Plantar warts manually scraped out of the sole of my foot at age 12
6- falling asleep with contact lenses in and scratching my eye
7-8 – kidney stone
9 - peritonsillar abscess which made swallowing hurt like nothing i’ve ever experienced.
My 10 occurred as a young child when my dentist filled two cavities without the benefit of any anesthetic. His method of pain control involved the instruction of, “Hold up your hand if it hurts too much.”
A few years later after realizing there were methods to control this pain I simply referred to him as Dr. Mengele. I have no idea why he did this and can only guess it was to save money on Novocaine. What a bastard.
Was that back when they had nice slow pulley-driven dental drills? :eek::eek::eek::eek:
I don’t remember my childhood (50 or so years ago) very well, but I do remember going to the dentist and experiencing them! And yes, it was without anesthetic for the first few years.
In the burn ward I had to take morephine around the clock, and twice daily take methadone just prior to my ‘treatment’. Treatment was scrubbing my 3rd degree burns with a wire brush until they got to some live nerve endings. The meds worked cuz I was SO dopey in the wheelchair going to treatment, I couldn’t even sit up or talk. But during the scrubbing I experienced pain way beyond having my daughter without any meds! That’s my 10: having burns scrubbed with a wire brush! So when I’ve been asked my pain scale I have to say, “here’s my 10” when my pain is from a mere little knee operation!
