# The most painful thing on Earth that doesn't involve a hospital visit
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 28, 2001, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402 "2001-09-28T23:07:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Shera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shera)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/1 "2001-09-28T23:07:32Z")
I just bent my fingernail backwards and I have very short nails. Man it hurt. What do you think is the most painful thing on Earth. This doesn’t include things like losing apendages or any other life threatening thing. I am talking about things that you can get over pretty quickly but still hurt like the dickens when they happen.
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### Author:  [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/2 "2001-09-28T23:08:56Z")
Cramp in my left leg. Waking up in agony with a solid, bunched ball of muscle at 3am is not a pleasant feeling.
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### Author:  [@Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rasa)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/3 "2001-09-28T23:11:05Z")
Gonna have to go with menstrual cramps on this one. Yep. Every month.
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/4 "2001-09-28T23:12:30Z")
Earache
Bursting cyst on your ovary
Neither of these sent me to the hospital, but both of them hurt like a mutha, to the point of cold sweats and crying.
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### Author:  [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/5 "2001-09-28T23:17:54Z")
Any third degree burn.
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### Author:  [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/6 "2001-09-28T23:20:48Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Scylla \*
> \*\*Any third degree burn. \*\*
You wouldn’t go to the hospital for that? Dude, you are one tough SOB.
My vote goes to a hot ash or ember from your cigarette floating into your eye.
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### Author:  [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/7 "2001-09-28T23:24:28Z")
> [@](#):
>
> You wouldn’t go to the hospital for that? Dude, you are one tough SOB.
Had a bad one and went to the hospital, so I know about that. Hurt for like six weeks.
But, you could get a really small local burn, like say, if somebody put a cigarette out on you that wouldn’t recquire hospitalization, but would still hurt really really really bad.
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### Author:  [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/8 "2001-09-28T23:28:10Z")
Ah, accidental cigarette burns – nightclub injuries. Ack.
Getting someone’s thumbnail slicing your eyeball doesn’t hurt as such, but it certainly feels horribly uncomfortable for a few days (happened to me: twice; me doing it to someone else: once).
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### Author:  [@Nymysys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nymysys)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/9 "2001-09-28T23:32:34Z")
A really bad UTI. ☹
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### Author:  [@Kamikazee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamikazee)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/10 "2001-09-28T23:33:00Z")
Getting,uhm… “myself” caught in my zipper. Happened in about 2nd or 3rd grade (about 30 years ago) but still remember it vividly!!:eek:
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### Author:  [@johnboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnboy)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/11 "2001-09-28T23:36:17Z")
Any one up for gallstone passing? (didn’t think so!)
PS: This never happened to me (this 36 yr old WIMP drinks a quart of cranberry juice a day in hopes of averting what has been related to said WIMP as the closest thing a man can come to the pain of childbirth.)
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### Author:  [@bluecanary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluecanary)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/12 "2001-09-28T23:43:08Z")
Thumbnail _slicing_ your eyeball!!! :eek:
In pain just thinking about it.
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### Author:  [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2001, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/13 "2001-09-28T23:45:46Z")
falling down while youre skating and banging the inside of your knee. man that hurts.
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### Author:  [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2001, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/14 "2001-09-29T00:27:05Z")
Might just have to agree with **Crusoe** , and I’m awaiting the formation of a joke about me being solid and bunched muscle all over, but it hasn’t come to me yet. I used to get them every time I twisted my foot wrong and tensed the muscle, and then BAM! the most painful muscle cramp would attack me with no warning. Well, a little warning but as soon as I tensed the muscle and realized what I was doing, it was too late. Then my leg would hurt all night. ☹
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2001, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/15 "2001-09-29T00:31:29Z")
explosive diarrhea in the middle of the night…it feels like a thousand nukes pounding into your stomach…
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### Author:  [@pakrat22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pakrat22)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2001, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/16 "2001-09-29T00:38:33Z")
Sinus infection and flying definitely do not go together. Brought tears to my eyes.
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### Author:  [@Deej](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deej)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2001, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/17 "2001-09-29T00:41:50Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Kamikazee \*
> \*\*Getting,uhm… “myself” caught in my zipper. Happened in about 2nd or 3rd grade (about 30 years ago) but still remember it vividly!!:eek: \*\*
Hey! Your name isn’t Gary, is it? And when Mr. Stanchfield, the principal, showed up in the lunchroom with a pair of pliers, did you yell “You’re not gonna cut it off, are ya???”
If you’re not Gary, sorry my mistake.
Worst pain that didn’t require a hospital visit would have to have been jamming my big toe so hard on the door frame that I eventually lost the nail.
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### Author:  [@MrVisible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrVisible)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2001, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/18 "2001-09-29T00:48:44Z")
Slamming a 22-oz waffle-headed hammer into my thumb. While putting up chicken wire on the third story of a building. Hunched over on a narrow, rickety scaffolding.
I couldn’t react, or I’d fall three stories. So I waited a moment for the bright white light to recede a bit, and let loose with some unimaginative but heartfelt invective.
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### Author:  [@thinksnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thinksnow)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2001, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/19 "2001-09-29T00:56:46Z")
Running up a flight of stairs, slipping and catching the edge of one right under my knee-cap. _Sonuva…!_
That or, as I was going through a steel fire-door, I leapt toward the first step of some stairs, but I leapt too some and the to two or three inches of my forehead hit the steel frame on the door. I had been running at the time. Quite likely concussed, but I went back out and suffered through the pounding headache for the next two days.
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### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2001, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-painful-thing-on-earth-that-doesnt-involve-a-hospital-visit/84402/20 "2001-09-29T00:59:08Z")
paper cut in the web between thumb and index finger… OOOOWWIEEEE!!
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