I like Hyperbole and a Half’s pain chart better.
Scarlet fever in high school. Like constant angry razorblades in my throat.
Came on while on a camping trip for cross-country camp. In between 10 milers and grueling sets of hills I was popping 8-10 advil.
Couldn’t (or was too scared to) swallow. Certainly not food - even water took on a dusty texture in my wicked throat.
Soon, couldn’t sleep. A couple days of this and I was emotionally broken - tired, hungry, in constant pain - I both was sure I was going to die and looking forward to never having to swallow again.
The reason it got so bad was firstly because of me thinking it would pass, wearing my body down in camp, and then being given an ineffective amoxicillin treatment that I was required to give a few days to see if it worked. I knew it didn’t from the get-go. They put me on a Z-Pak and I started to feel better (not much, but at least noticeably) the next day. Missed two months of the beginning of school.
On a scale of 1 to 10… xkcd: Pain Rating
Title text: “If it were a two or above I wouldn’t be able to answer because it would mean a pause in the screaming.”
Based on that, my thumb was only between a 2 and 3. :smack:
Ruptured hemorrhagic cyst, dumping its contents into my pelvic cavity while I slept one night. I woke up in a locked fetal position, and couldn’t even get enough breath to scream. I had to poke my SO until he woke up and then gasp out “ambulance.”
The paramedics had to carry me out in a chair because I couldn’t uncurl from the fetal position. Gave me two doses of fentanyl in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, which did not a thing to the pain but did unfreeze my body so that I could lie down on the gurney. Upon transfer to the second hospital for admittance, dilaudid finally did the trick.
In order of severity:
Kidney stone
Impacted wisdom teeth
Gout
Broken bones (a distant fourth to any of the above)
This subject is fresh in my mind, as I had two kidney stones come out within the past five days, after weeks of intermittent, increasingly severe pain. Getting almost no sleep for days on end didn’t help much.
The first had to be shattered (lithotripsy) because it became stuck and completely blocked the right ureter. The second came out on its own, 24 hours after the lithotripsy procedure, through the same tube already torn up by the first one :eek::eek::eek:. For a couple days I was peeing what looked like cranberry juice cocktail. The one good thing I can say about the whole experience is that Dilaudid works fast and it works good.
Of things I haven’t yet personally experienced, I know a couple of people who have had shingles, and the thought of ever getting that absolutely terrifies me.
Sometimes I get the mostly ungodly headaches. They’re really weird, they only happen on one side of the head, but while I have them even moving is almost impossible for me. It kind of feels like someone driving a spike through my right eye and sinus back to my neck. Thinking hurts. Even moving my neck hurts (and makes a sort of creaking noise). I don’t think I can adequately describe how painful they are. I’ve read descriptions of cluster headaches, and it’s pretty spot on, except mine don’t happen regularly and sometimes they make me a bit nauseous (which apparently isn’t supposed to happen with cluster headaches). I get migraines too, but these headaches feel nothing like my migraines, which definitely suck, but are tolerable. My migraine medicine doesn’t even work on them. I just have to lay down for 2+ hours in a cold sweat trying not to curse life because forming the thoughts involved in cursing life hurts too much.
If I feel one coming on the best I can do is either take my migraine medicine and pray I was mistaken and I’m really getting a migraine, or take Excedrine and prepare for 2 hours of merely unbearable pain rather than death-wishing pain.
You know, after reading through this thread, boiling the skin off my foot doesn’t seem so bad.
When I was about 15 I another kid same age but bigger in a Boxing match. He knocked me out. Funny thing is I didn’t feel a thing and from what everyone told me he really clobbered me. All I know is that I was sitting on the ground after the fight and a few guys came over to me to ask if I was OK. I said I was but I was seeing double. I faught him again when I was 17 and he knocked me out again. Just like the last time I landed on my back with my head hitting the ground in a whip lash fashion after taking some fierce punishment. I don’t remember a thing but I never felt a thing. I didn’t fight him a third time.
However the most pain I was ever in was when I was about 14. I had a Wisdom Tooth pulled. The root of this tooth was actually wrapped around the tooth behind it. The Dentist almost had to stand on top of me to pull it out. My Mom had taken me there and after the Dentist was finished he gave her a perscripsion for a Pain Killer. My Mom dropped me off at home while she went to the drug store to get the perscripsion. By the time she got home the effect of the Novacain (sp) wore off and I was in extreme pain. When she got home I practically tackled hher to get the pain killers. I should have faught that guy a third time so he could have knocked my tooth out. It probably would have been less painful!
Yes, I am scared shitless of shingles too. I am so scared that I don’t want to get the vaccine because I feel it may give me shingles. I am scared that my fear of shingles will cause some sort of psychosomatic but very real shingles outbreak.
Whenever I meet someone who is contemplating shoulder surgery, I say ‘you might want to think twice about that’ and then I tell them my tale of woe.
My recent bout with mucositis from radiation therapy is the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. At first it was just a sore throat, but it quickly escalated to feeling like I was swallowing pinecones. Actually maybe swallowing porcupines ass-first is a better description. I could eat anything, I could barely drink anything. I called in sick to work for a week just from the constant pain.
Totally ruptured appendix. Nausea, fever, diarrhea, overwhelming pain. It was late at night, and I knew I needed to get to a hospital. But I was living alone and unemployed, so there wasn’t anyone who could help. There happened to be a “teaching” hospital a few blocks away, so I walked. It took forever to get there, and after examining me for a few hours (!), they concluded that I was merely constipated, and should return the next day if it was still bothering me. By that time I was delirious, and was having trouble thinking. The pain was so intense by then that I would have listened to anyone just to get rid of the pain. So I didn’t question what they told me, and managed to walk back home. I don’t remember anything of the night, except continuous suffering. The next morning I practically crawled back to the hospital. As soon as they saw me they rushed me into surgery.
You’d think that would be the end of my nightmare, but it wasn’t. But this is the end of the “most pain” part.
I was hit by a car going 50+ and after being flipped, my head went through the windshield. Shattered multiple bones and was a foot away from death(doctor’s words). I was younger, and strangely don’t even think of it as being in the most pain in my life. Time is funny that way.
Could always be worse.
I hit my head once on the corner of a table, but I was very young and barely remember. Probably some toothache or other wins. Another time that springs to mind was about seven years ago, when over a two week period, for about one third the time (longest stretch maybe thirty-six hours), my gut hurt so much I wanted to do nothing but lie down, so since I usually had no compelling cause to go out, I didn’t. It was the wrong side for appendicitis, or I guess I might have tried the hospital. The problem came on just after I had some Hershey bars and some oranges, but I guess it remains an unsolved medical mystery.
This isn’t a contender at all, but I remember the feeling of being stung by a soccer ball in the face at close range. It felt as if I could/needed to just peel off the outer layer of my face.
Kidney stones for me. I couldn’t imagine anything hurting worse than the pain I had from endometriosis, but then I had kidney stones.
The urologist said he’d had big, tough, football player type guys doubled over and sobbing like little girls. He also said he’d had female patients who’d borne children thell him stones were worse. I once had a female friend say “having a baby is like shitting a watermelon.” So for something to be an order of magnitude worse it must be pretty damn bad.
I had shingles at age 20. It was totally not a big deal, although I understand it is worse for older people.
Infected teeth. I was in early grammar school. This was back in the day when dental insurance did not exist. I had cavities in my molars, but the dentist said they were due to fall out any month now, so there was no point in filling them, thus saving my parents unnecessary cost. Every single one of them progressed to infection and horrible toothache. They had to be lanced to let the infection drain, and I guess I must have been given antibiotics to clear the infection before they were extracted. This was not all at once but one after the other. The pain was excruciating and constant. I now wonder how my parents felt knowing that this could have been prevented. Of course, in those days, filling a large cavity was nowhere near as pleasant as it is now. No high-speed water-cooled drills, and the anesthetic was not as good.
I’ve had two un-medicated childbirths and one mid-term miscarriage with IMHO not enough pain relief. The toothaches were worse.
I will never, ever, miss a dental checkup.
I’ve seen my daughter in pain from gallstones and that seemed comparable. Also my husband’s kidney stones, which rendered him white with pain, begging for either Percocet or death. He normally won’t take an aspirin for a headache.
Worst: bone marrow biopsy. If you have no idea what an intense, sucking pain feels like, consider yourself lucky. It’s also pretty weird realizing a moment after the fact that that scream came from yourself.
Close second: the reason for the biopsy, my one symptom of Hodgkin’s Disease, which was an intense burning pain across my upper back, shoulders, and extending down my arms. At first, it only happened after drinking alcohol. After a while it decided to ramp up the intensity, wake me up in the middle of the night, and stick around on a permanent basis until I got some chemo.
No I don’t, but the phrase “sucking the living marrow from your bones” sounds pretty evocative.