I have thrown out my back before and that sucked pretty bad. I once slammed a car door on my foot and that hurt quite a lot as well. However, the worst pain I have ever felt was while getting a filling at the dentist. The last time I had gotten a filling they nicked a vein and my face bruised so badly it looked like I had been hit with a bat so my dentist decided to do some local thing where he removed the enamel and then put the anasthetic directly on the roots of my tooth from there to prevent the bruising and swelling. It worked perfectly, except when he struck the nerve while drilling away the enamel. I screamed louder than I had ever thought possible and just about knocked over the dental chair. He numbed it and all but afterwards it felt like someone had filled my tooth with dry ice for about 3 days. I hate needles but I will never have the local anasthetic again. I will just get a prescription for antibiotics ahead of time and put together an ice pack to deal with the bruising instead.
Serious gout attack. Toe visibly swollen, so I cannot put on footwear. Whole foot throbbing in time with pulse, even when elevated.
Then having to go to the bathroom. Being stuck between trying to hop to the bathroom, with each jar being felt through the whole foot, and especially the affected toe, or actually trying to walk on the silly thing.
That was the day that do-it-yourself amputation looked good.
Ear infection x3. All three times it felt like I was giving birth through my ear. When the eardrum ruptured it felt soooo good. The first time it happened I was about 18 and went to the local doctor (read idiot quack). He jabbed one of those long wooden q-tips in my ear (i guess to rupture the eardrum). I jumped and grimmaced in pain. This asshole then laughed.:mad: I would have beat the grin out of him if I didn’t have to wait for him to write a presciption for antibiotics.
After I had all four wisdom teeth removed, and after the Novocain wore off, the pain was so great that I couldn’t even force myself to think about something other than the pain. The drugs the dentist prescribed did nothing. All I could do was lie in bed in the dark and rock back and forth, whimpering occasionally, for about six hours.
After that, I vowed that I’d never again have my wisdom teeth removed. 
Eight years ago I would have said this was #1.
Then I had half of my left foot amputated, right through the bone. Hours after the surgery the nerve block … wore off.
I had an absessed tooth. I was lying on my couch, waiting for the lady in the apartment next door to come home and take me to the emergency room. When I heard her come in I went to look over the couch arm to see what time it was.
I hit the side of my jaw with the absess on the arm of the courch and bit down. Hard.
The whole left side of my body shot through with pain, I grabbed that side of my face and started running up and down through my apartment. I finally lay down and my floormat and waited to die.
Next thing I knew it was 4 in the morning and my toothace and swelling were gone.
Later my dentist told me the absess must have burst and drained when I bit down. I was very very lucky.
Dude, that’s not a serious gout attack. 
This is a serious gout attack: full blown attack engulfing both feet completely. Toes to ankles, swollen to about twice their normal size, purple, skin stretched so tight it was shiny. Now, that was agony. At one point I had both feet propped up in mid-air, using a footstool under my calves, but I was still gasping from the pain, thinking it couldn’t get any worse. Then a gentle summer breeze wafted through a nearby window and I absolutely howled. After a couple of days, I called my doctor, to see if there was anything that could help. They had to give me so much indomethacin that I could barely stay sitting up in a chair.
Torn ACL. Playing volleyball, jumped for a block, came down crooked and my left knee went sideways. I felt the ACL rip to pieces. It window-shaded. The two ends ended up several inches from each other.
Ow.
Serious question - do you know why this hurt so much? When I exercise my heartrate is often over 170. It doesn’t stay there for hours, but there’s nothing painful about it.
Heh, I’ve asked that question many times to many doctors.
Yeah, I’ve had my heartbeat reach 180 during exersize sometimes. with no pain.
It has something to do with having it racing when your sitting completley still.
Unlike when you exersize, you don’t really feel the heart too much, unless you focus on it. Your immediate reaction is to gather your breath.
Something with drugs, in the X and possibly in the weed, makes it very uncofortable, you cannnot take your mind off your heart and the problem is, nothing you can do will alleiviate it (in my case), not deep breathes, not water, not focusing on something else.
Also, the problem is it almost extended to four hours.
I’d say the first 10-15 minutes werent thaaat bad, but after that it felt like there was a big bruise in the center of my heart, and it just got a a little more intense every 15 minutes.
By the end of the whole ordeal, my heart felt tired, for lack of a better word, it felt tired for the rest of the day.
The drugs magnify the intensity of the heartbeat (alot) vs just the speed.
You feel the heart beat much more than just by exersizing.
The mental aspect of it does not help. You can’t do crap to slow it down.
At one point it was going so fast that my legs started shaking (and I wasn’t even moving!), I kinda feel to the floor and just waited in agony. It took me 30 minutes just to get up from the floor and walk to my friends car where he droped me off at my dorm.
It was still racing when I got to my room. How I managed to walk suprised me.
I will admit, having cool air from the AC hit my face did make the air come in smoother, but it did not slow my heart.
When my left kneecap slid an inch to the left. Oh god. There was no real reason for it to, except lack of muscle on my part. I just stepped slightly wrong. It’s the most horrible frightening feeling.
Kidney stones, easily. I’ve vomited from the pain on two occasions and been reduced to actually writhing in pain ( pumping the legs slowly - I wonder what the impetus to that is? ) on a couple of occasions as well. This has been a particularly bad year for that ( two emergency room visits ).
After those charmers, I’d say running through a sliding glass patio door as a young boy, which pretty much sliced me to ribbons. I still have a few nifty scars from that one.
I can’t quite decide which was worse…
I broke the fifth metatarsal in my right foot off at the ankle. While walking. Then walked a block and a half to my Jeep and drove a 5-speed home. I could feel the foot swelling while I drove. My foot was purple from my toes halfway up my shin. The doctor told me that little walk saved me from surgery and permanent pins - I had reset the bone before it swelled.
Rushing down the wooden steps from our dock into the water to try to keep the boat bumper from floating up under the dock - not thinking about the fact that wooden steps underwater will get slimy. My foot slipped off the step and all my weight came down on my right buttock on the edge of a wooden step. I am very glad Mr. SCL was there - I probably would have drowned in less than 3 feet of water because I couldn’t move. I could do nothing but scream and cry. He’s known me over 30 years and he said it is the only time he has seen me cry in pain.
I still have a dent in my butt 3 years later, but nothing was broken.
Then there was the time I sliced my arm open from the wrist almost to the elbow trying to take an air conditioner out of the window by myself. I could see the tendons and everything! The worst part of that was a few weeks later when an adhesion popped loose while I was trying to get out of the tub. I was afraid to look at the arm - it hurt so bad I was sure I had busted it open again. I swear it hurt worse than the original cut - I guess because I wasn’t in shock! First time I ever had stitches, and got 69 at once.
Same here. It was the most painful thing I’ve experienced. I’d do all 5 knee surgeries again before re-living the horror of having my wisdom teeth removed.
The second most painful thing was during my last knee surgery. I was awake and I had to bend my knee a few times while the surgeon had the tools in there. I whimpered pathetically “it hurts”, then saw the anesthesiologist walk by, then woke up in the recovery room.
3acresandatruck, you win the gout wars. :eek:
In reverse order:
Dropping something Very Heavy on my big toe, breaking the nail across.
Getting my lower molars drilled. Apparently my wiring in that jaw is such that it’s nearly impossible to fully, or partially, novocaine it.
An ear infection. They gave me vicodin. I see why people get addicted to that stuff.
The worst was a really violent case of food poisoning. Usually food just speeds through, I get some gut gurglies, and it’s gone. This time, everything came out at both ends, and I had twisting wrenching gut pains, while being so hungry I was nauseated.
Probably tied between my worst migraine ever and my broken wrist, as both made me curl up into a ball in agony. Admittedly I was sobbing in pain a lot longer with the migraine, but the wrist sent me to the ER.
I thought so too, when I got it for my broken wrist and took the first one; it took the edge off and I found I didn’t quite care so much that I had a broken wrist. Then I threw up 20 minutes after taking it. The weirdest part was that my stomach didn’t feel upset, I felt it that horrible acrid sensation in my throat and mouth, then up came lunch. Not eating didn’t improve the second pill, except that I had much less to heave up while spending the same amount of time over the toilet. After that, I just abused naproxen (Aleve) when the pain/aches got too bad.
I’ve had a couple bouts of Mysterious Abdominal Pain ™. Nobody ever got a clear diagnosis off me either time despite my being absolutely devoid of appetite for anything other than a liquid or rice porridge diet for a week solid afterward either time. I wish I knew what it was, but apparently there’s too many things that could have caused this.
The first time, I ended up screaming loud enough, repeatedly, to be heard all over the house, pounding on the tub I was halfway into since it was nice and cold, writhing (natch) and praying for death.
The second time a few years later, I went to the ER and got poked and prodded, and shot up with antinausea and painkiller. Not sure what it was, but it knocked me out for a good few hours until the attack was over and I could wobble home, feeling very fragile.
LASIK surgery. Some advice- if you ever go in for this procedure, TAKE THE MEDS!! Imagine the most sensitive part of your body being torn open and burned. For the procedure, my eyes were numb, but after about 20 minutes, I felt every little part of it. Thankfully, my mom bought me some Tylenol PM and I when I woke up from the nap, I was fine.
I don’t want to scare anyone off the prodecure- it’s the best 3,200 I’ve ever spent. Just…take…the…meds.
I’ve had some painful experiences, but I think that the worst is the attacks of cellulitis. Pain, high fever, and delirium. I get very sick very fast, and my mental state becomes such that I will resist all efforts to take me to the doctor or ER, even though I really should go. It’s several days of hell, followed by several weeks of heck. It’s complicated because I’m allergic to several kinds of antibiotics.