I had a spinal tap done once, so of course I rated it an 11.
Seriously, though, the worst pain I ever felt was probably a 7.5-8.0 when I had a toothache. I know that I could hurt even worse and this pain was not at the absolute top of the scale, but that was pretty fucking painful nonetheless. It felt like someone stuck a pair of pliars in my mouth and was pressing them against my gum as hard as they could.
When pain is so bad that five minutes of enduring it would induce serious thoughts of suicide, then I’d rate it a full 10.
Oh, yeah, I’ve hit 10 with intestinal pain…I was literally begging my husband to kill me. He wouldn’t do it though. I just went in last week to see the gastroentonologist and when he palpitating my lower abdomen I almost flew off the table. That was a 8. I’ve been diagnosed IBS, but now they say I’m a mystery due to the weird way my pain acts.
I’ve had 8s with broken bones.
Mr.stretch always understates his pain…so the torn up finger that required 13 stithces was a 5 while the impromptu home-style skin graph on his finger was a 6. However, when he dropped the ratchet extension in his eye and had to go have layers of eye skin scrapped off several times, he was hitting 10 and letting everyone know about it.
Oops. I just re-read my post (hours later now). The scratched cornea was supposed to be an 8 not a 9. It was an “aggravating pain”, but not an “overwhelming pain.” Ear drums about to burst from the pressure of an infection and dental pain defniitely rank higher.
nikonikosuru if I had been in your shoes, I would have simply started screaming in agony. If the medication isn’t working right, why just sit there and put up with it?
RUGEN
Not to fifty!!!
INIGO
(instantly)
FEZZIK, FEZZIK, listen, do you hear? – That is the sound of
ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when Rugen
slaughtered my father. The Man in Black makes it now.
Still not worse than the pain from having a 3/4" x 1/4" triangle of glass impailed upwards along the skin from the outmost knuckle on your right ring finger… when it’s given a firm handshake by a doctor.
That’s my 10. I nearly passed out from the instant pain. Later that night, the needle came out to remove it… following a large dose of medication from the Good Folks At Jimmy Beam.
I can honestly say I rated a 10 after my spinal surgery. It was a fusion of all of my thorasic and lumbar vert. and it was an 8.5 hour long procedure. They woke me up WITHOUT PAIN MEDICINE to make sure I was responsive to stimulation of my limbs and parts. I was awake about 10 seconds before the pain hit and it was honest to God blinding white hot pain. It was indescribable and excrutiating. I am 100% sure someone could have chopped of a finger at that time and I would not have noticed that they did it. Then I started to heave, so it got worse. Mercifully, they gave me a shot of something and knocked me back out and when I woke again I had a morphine drip.
The doctor had warned me but nothing could have prepared me. It was absolutely horrible and I remember it like it was yesterday, despite the fact that it was 17 years ago.
I have migraines, so I have a few pain management techniques mastered. I’m also a bit acquainted with various mental gymnastics, but I tell ya, all that ‘dissociating from the pain’ crap went right out the window when I broke the hell out of my wrist. I think I actually greyed out for a bit after I fell because I know it felt like a long time passed before I realized that the high keening scream I was hearing was actually me. I believe I thought I was going to puke from the pain at first, but I couldn’t catch my breath enough to do so.
My husband was freaking out and trying to do anything to be helpful. I know at one point during our very short wait, he suggested I find a point on the wall in the waiting room to focus on, and I said through clenched teeth, “I AM focusing, that is why I am not screaming.” He says about every 30 seconds I’d let out a low-volume but high-pitched wail like a banshee and the entire waiting room would fall silent.
When they asked me to rate my pain in the treatment room, my husband answered, “She’s at ten. I’ve never seen her like this. She can usually eat nails and shit nickels.” It’s a measure of how much pain I was in that I didn’t register what he said and laugh at it until after they got me a shot of Toreadol.
This topic is so interesting I’ve been reading up on it, thanks to our good friend Google. I found an article about a man with a compound fracture (bone sticking out through the skin), clearly suffering, sweating profusely, who would only admit to a pain level of 1.
I totally don’t understand why anyone would do that. Unless maybe he was deathly afraid that painkilling drugs would have very bad affects on him. Or maybe he was afraid he’d lose his iron control. Beats me.
Apparently the doctor wasn’t even supposed to give him any painkilling drugs because they’re supposed to go by what the patient says.
I don’t know why I dwell on it. For some reason I seem to really care that the nurses and doctors not think that I’m a big crybaby who’s overstating how much pain she’s in.
Upon moving to the lovely south of Holland I went to the dentist because I dropped a filling. I was astounded to discover that he planned to replace the filling without any kind of anaesthesia. I put an end to that plan and he obligingly gave me novocain but then asked why I would want it for just a filling.
So I went home and asked my spouse – who has never had any anaesthesia for any filling. And my mother in law, who reported the same. And my neighbor, ditto. And the moms of my kids’ pals at school, ditto, ditto, ditto. So my 7 year old had a filling last week. With no anaesthesia. He reports it does not hurt but the noise is annoying.
I begin to wonder if there is some kind of locally high pain threshold or something. I have quite a high pain threshold; but I keep getting novocain for fillings. My dentist calls me a delicate little flower.
Remind me to never even consider going near a dentist in NZ or Holland unless it’s an emergency then! The process of getting novocain scares me, but the thought of going without unless it’s a truly tiny cavity scares me a whole lot more. I admit I’m a dental wimp, but I don’t think I’m being totally unreasonable here.
To get back on-topic, the worst pain I ever felt was probably just after my spinal fusion when I was a kid, but I don’t really remember, oddly. I do remember quite well how much I hurt after an unrelated surgery a few years ago when I decided I really didn’t need the heavy-duty pain meds any longer…yes, yes, I did, for another couple of days. I’d say I was at a steady 6 and spikes to 8 if I moved for several hours until I could take more Vicodin. Ow ow ow.
I have to agree with those who say spinal or back pain is more than a 10. Mine was of an unusual sort. I have a pylonidal (sp?) sinus right at the base of my spine/right in that little dip we all have back there before buttocks begin. This sinus is really a large “pore” that goes deeply/possibly forever into my body at that sight. It got badly infected in the late 80’s. There was a huge knot of infection inside the sinus, resting right on my tailbone. This had to be drained, as I could not even sit down without incredible, bone-breaking pain. I’d have preferred the bone-breaking pain to that of having a large needle inserted into the sinus, into that knot of infection, to drain it. Did I mention the poor nurse had to PRESS on the knot of infection, whilst needle was inserted, to drain the stuff out?
I’ve had two kid, the first of which caused me 23 hours of labor before having to be removed cesarian section. The second kid weighed 11 pounds at birth. I have had TWO bouts of girardia with doubling-over, eye-watering, explosive intestinal pain. These hardly compared to the draining of that sinus. I’ve also never told a doctor or a nurse that I’ve had pain over a 7 since then.
I have kept that poor pore as clean as a whistle since as I NEVER want to experience that kind of pain again in this life.
I’ve had the infected pilonidal, it’s a chronic condition with occasional infections. Doctor looked at it but made no prognosis, diagnosis, nor much comment. But it was in a yearly “dormancy”. The pain ranges a 5, 6, 7, or 8 depending on drainage and pressure (bodily position) . With my most recent bouts with gouts, I recommended an 8 or 9. Really pernicous pain… dull yet intense, if that makes sense.
Actually, retinal detachment is painless. There are no pain fibers to the inside of the globe, so the only symptoms are visual disturbances. In contrast, the cornea is ennervated by the same nerve that supplies sensation to your face (the trigeminal nerve), so a corneal abrasion hurts.
Speaking as a medical student, the value of the pain scale is not as an assessment of how much you hurt–it varies greatly from person to person as has already been mentioned. Its real utility is in assessing how well we are managing the pain. If the pain score you give us is less that it was initially, we are moving in the right direction.
Gosh I feel so enlightened: please sign me up for a stone-passage free future!
I’d go with an 8, which is downgraded after the unaminous consensus on passing stones. It’s a combination of
and Uncommon Sense’s trip to the bathroom.
I used to get gout attacks in either my knees or my ankles maybe two times a year. They hurt like hell but I could hobble around upright. So one night, I wake up to find that both knees and both ankles have all decided to go off at the same time. Gout kind of feels like broken glass is in your joints and no repositioning of your limbs relieves the discomfort.
By noon the next day I’m writhing about on top of the covers and KNOW I have a trip to the bathroom in my future. I crawled on my belly, like a reptile, out of bed and then dragged myself to the john on my elbows. Nasty stuff, gout. The whole episode lasted maybe two and a half days.
And no, I don’t like watching James Caan’s performance in Misery, thanks.
When I had my knee repaired they didn’t put a catheter in for the surgery, they just had me pee into a urinal before. Afterward because of the anesthesia I couldn’t pee or poop for a while. I wasn’t in any pain, but the doctors kept wanting to put in a catheter (there way of telling me was to send in a nurse) and just assuming I’d agree. I refused and she got another (more senior?) nurse, who ended getting a doctor. I still wouldn’t let them put one in. They kept telling me I had to get one. I told the doctor that unless he was willing to declare me incomptent and put me in restraints they’s no way I was getting one. 8 hours later I peed. I didn’t even feel the need to pee 'till then (I didn’t eat or drink anything for 12 hours before the surgery). I didn’t do number untill 4 days later. If you really want you can refuse just about anything and usually they must respect your wishs.
IANAD, I HOPEURADOCTOR. My DR. has made no comment, if not a Doctor, perhaps a nurse could comment on this, I have had this sinus or pilonidal cyst for years, and determined its diagnosis hon the dope about hairy cysts… So, want to say thanks to Cecil for helpin’ me with that boil on my ass.aIn these “dormancies” the very
IANAD, I HOPEURADOCTOR. My DR. has made no comment, if not a Doctor, perhaps a nurse could comment on this, I have had this sinus or pilonidal cyst for years, and determined its diagnosis only through the dope an a thread about hairy cysts… So, I want to say thanks to Cecil for helpin’ me with that boil on my ass.
In these “dormancies” the “pore” heals and the cysts stops draining, leading to infection , sinal pressure against the coccyx, the endeavor to massage, push, and bust the pore open…sweet drainage. (Home remedy and wives tale: …Seriously, I notice that a few beers ingested causes it to exude and drain.)
