One night I had a stuffed nose and took a benadryl. It was from an old pack and when it didn’t work, I took another one from another pack. I might have taken something else too, I don’t recall.
I woke up with my head pounding so hard that my neck and head would actually twitch with each throb of my pulse. I thought I was dying.
I was tazered once, and that was by far the most painful situation I have ever been through. The pain lasted about 2 seconds, even though it felt like minutes if not longer. Then the pain went away as if it had never occured. I managed to get through it because once you are hit, you don’t have much choice.
Three things here (hey, I’m older than most of you):
My appendix ruptured, and it took 22 hours before I was operated on. Those were 22 hours in hell.
I once had a migraine that lasted 10 days. All I remember is wanting to bash my head against the wall, just to stop the pain.
I needed a spinal tap, and it took the doctor over a half hour of stabbing, till she found the right spot.
I had a kidney stone for my birthday once. Mophine was my closest friend until that &%@ stone was removed.
But Boyo Jim reminded me of another time when I was riding my bike down a recently resurfaced street…you know, when they spray down tar and then coat it with those gray pebbles? Anyway, I’m peddling along, beatin’ ass down the road (it was closed to traffic), when the chain came off the sprocket.
First, I came down hard, crotch first, on the “boy bar” – you know, the one that distinguishes a boy’s bike from a girl’s bike? Then, everything went all wrong. The handlebars shifted to a sideways position which must’ve acted as a brake because I flew over them, did a 3/4 roll, and then landed on my t-shirt-clad back on those brand new gray pebbles.
And skidded a ways.
The t-shirt was shredded, and I started to leak. My precious bodily fluids. All over.
That was the first time someone had to try and clean dirt and pebbles out from under my skin.
The second time was when I fell out of a moving Jeep, but that’s another story.
Thanks!
If I’d known this question was so recently posted I’d not asked it. :smack:
But all the comments are VERY interesting, for sure. Glad I’ve been so fortunate!! 
When I was 12 or 13, I spilled a cooking pot full of hot dogs and boiling water on myself. Got 1st degree burn on my stomach and 2nd degree burns on both legs and around the wrist of one arm. That is not the most painful thing…
The most painful thing was when they removed the–I dunno, the dead skin?–from the burned areas on the legs and wrist. Especially when they used the tweezers to get the last little bits.
When I was nine, I jumped onto a couch. My father had, not ten seconds before, placed a cup of boiling hot coffee on the arm (he drank instant). It landed on my ankle, and soaked straight into my sock, which acted as a perfect little hot compress.
The resulting burn took several layers of skin off the entire circumference of my ankle. It was more or less the worst possible second-degree burn you can imagine.
Every six months or so I will accidentally partially dislocate my left shoulder blade. It usually happens now when I dont stretch or if I trip and try to use my left hand to cushion my fall. The first time it happened was playing air hockey :smack: my friend thought I was joking until I was in such bad pain that I couldn’t stand. Since that point it’s happened about seven times.
It’s only a partial dislocation because I fix it myself. I let my arm hang and after a minute or two everything will pop back in place. This makes an audible shoooomp sound and is pretty freaky.
As for the pain, I have a procedure so that everyone can feel how lucky I am to have a fucked-up shoulder. Ok, take your pointer finger and pull it back away from your palm until you feel a little pain. Now pull it back a little bit further until you dont want to anymore. Now imagine that its pulled back even more and you cant control it. That’s about it.
It’s by far not the worst thing in this thread, but it’s my personal worst. A good thing that came out of it? I know how to stretch really well? I got nothin’
This sounds so whimpy compared to some of the above, but it was bad.
A few years ago I was leaving the local newpaper building when my foot slipped off of my shoe. Not really high heels, just about 2 inch clogs - I’m sure most of the women know the experience. It had happened to me many times before - and a few since. Your foot just kind of turns on its side and your body weight goes onto your ankle. This isn’t describing it very well…
In this instance, when my foot slipped and turned I heard a very loud “pop”. I thought “I sue do hope that was the leather in my shoe” - there was no pain at that point. I looked down to see the end of the bone that connects my little toe to my ankle pressing up against the skin of my foot.
There really wasn’t anyone around…so I walked/hobbled about a block and a half to my Jeep. 5-speed. Thank goodness it was my right foot; if it had been my clutch foot I never would have made it home. As I was driving, I could feel the foot swelling. I got home and filled a garbage bag with ice, which I placed on my foot (elevated) and waited for my RN husband to get home.
He later told me he knew it was broken as soon as he saw the bag of ice on my foot - I cannot stand to have ice or ice packs in contact with my skin.
The next morning I called in “late” to work, and went to get the necessary x-rays and referral, then to get a cast - forgetting that I was wearing one of my favorite pairs of jeans, which became a favorite pair of shorts.
The doctor told me that walking to my Jeep was probably the smartest thing I could have done - I reset the bone. If I had sat there and let it swell, it would have required surgery. However, if a bone had been broken instead of popped loose from the ankle, I could have done much more damage. “But I don’t think you would have been able to walk that far - you would have passed out.”
I had pneumonia and pleurisy about three years ago, and it was by FAR the most horrific pain of my life. If I lay very still and breathed very shallowly, it felt like someone had filled my chest with hot coals. If I moved or God forbid coughed, it felt like I was being stabbed. I know that there are things which probably hurt a lot worse, but I sure hope I never have to feel them!
I’ve found it’s not just the intensity of the specific pain, but the whole “setting” - whether the pain is anticipated for example.
Most severe single pain? Probably the time I grasped the (somewhat flexible) seat of the cheap plastic chair at the office cafeteria, and used my hands to scoot it forward as I lifted myself briefly and came back down on it. Only the chair wasn’t properly attached to the leg, the seat lifted slightly, and my finger somehow slid between the top of the leg, and the bottom of the seat, and wham all my weight came down on my fingertip. Sudden, searing pain so bad it nearly made me vomit. Managed to avoid that fortunately - the cafeteria was crowded and I had sat down at a tableful of total strangers. “Hi, I’m BLEAAURGHHHH!!!” :eek:
But that was unexpected, and over quickly. A few minutes of feeling shaky and queasy and then I was fine.
Labor with my son… induced labor when my body wasn’t ready but my water had broken. And an epidural that didn’t work. Severe labor pains, and when one ended, I knew another one was just around the corner 
The individual pains probably weren’t as bad as that smashed finger but the repetition, and knowledge of upcoming pain, really wore me down. (in comparison, the c-sec with my daughter, where the epidural didn’t work on the inner bits, was a walk in the park. It felt plenty bad but that part only lasted a couple of minutes).
The electromyelogram / nerve conductance study on both legs was no fun either. ow. ow. ow. ow. ow. ARGH. . They did one leg. Then they did the other, so I knew what was coming. That was in the same league as my son’s birth.
Heh. One of my stones happened on Valentine’s day. On our way to the hospital, hubby said to me “Oh, in case you’re interested, I have your Valentine’s gift in my pocket”. I said “Unless it’s morphine, no, I’m not interested”.
It wasn’t morphine. It was tickets to a comedy show. I didn’t even ask about it until after the ER doc had done his thing and I was happily pumped full of morphine and Phenergan (an anti-nausea drug).
I had a serious tooth absess on the side of my mouth. I was lying on my counch waiting for my across the hall neighbor to come in so she could take me to the ER. When I heard the downstiairs door open, I raised my head to look at the clock and hit the side of my jaw on the couch arm, causing me to bite down. The moment gave me a whole new understanding of pain. I shot up and started running the length of my two room apartment while holding my jaw. After five or six rounds I lay down on my floor mat and thought “I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to die.” Then I fell sleep.
When I woke up the pain was totally gone. I went to my dentist, who explained when I bit down the absess exploded and had drained.
My hat is off to you, my friend. I’ve had kidney stones (including one that had to be busted up with lithotripsy – it left a fragment the size of Vermont in me that took 18 hours to pass.) Most were controlled with a painkiller “cocktail” that included Vicodin.
It’s funny what pain will do to your mind. Understand that I live in rural Colorado and have spent many afternoons in my younger days helping my in-laws “work cattle.” Among the things we did to the little guys was brand them, give 'em a shot in the butt and then slice off their masculinity. The first time I had a kidney stone, the painkiller I’d been given at first just wasn’t handling the pain and I ended up back in the ER at ten o’clock at night. The doctor prescribed the aforementioned “cocktail,” but first had my wife complete the paperwork, then bring our car to the door of the ER. It was explained that once I was given the shot, she had 15 minutes to get me home and in bed – if we couldn’t do that, I’d have to stay overnight in the hospital. My wife brought the car to the door and left the engine running and the passenger’s side door open. The nurse wheeled me into a small room (for privacy), pantsed me and gave me the shot, then literally turned me loose. I had the oddest moment of fellowship with all those calves I’d helped work. My wife later asked me why I kept holding my crotch as we headed for the car. I tried to explain, but I don’t think she ever understood.
The most painful thing I remember is when my brother filled an ice chest from an insta-hot faucet we had, came and found me, then dropped me into the chest. I spent the next couple of days lying on my belly watching TV while the skin on my back peeled off.
Not as painful, but I had another time when I was walking on a log, slipped and slid down one of the granite rocks that was holding the log up, which lifted my shirt and sandpapered my back pretty good.
And then a few years ago I had two pre-cancerous moles removed from my back (and apparently a good sized chunk of skin with each.)
So between all of those, my back seems to not be getting all the love.
As I said in the other thread:
When my stomach perforated 2005 it was the worst pain I could imagine. If there had been a switch I could hit to stop the pain but it meant that I would never wake up again, I would have hit the switch in a heart beat. I cried and begged god to take me home.
The morphine shots they gave me never even touched the pain. Eventually they gave me something that took me out of my head. It is hard to explain the feeling. I knew it still hurt, I could still feel the pain, but it was almost like it was happening to someone else - but no, not really. I could feel the pain but didn’t care. That isn’t quite it either.
I hope to never ever feel anything that painful again. Three weeks ago I was operated on and the attending nurse afterwards couldn’t get my pain pump to work right. None-the-less, that pain was nothing like I had in 05.
Hmmm…
I had a thing with my foot about 18 months ago, possibly plantar fasciitis, possibly not. I woke up and could not put the foot on the floor, ended up limping to casulaty, was told that I had fractured some metatarsals about 2 weeks previously (nope, hadn’t noticed, the pain only appeard that morning) and that the overlying tissue was inflamed due to the fact I had been walking on broken bones. Got some Aulin, went home and collapsed into a very, very deep sleep, incredibly relieved that the pain was gone. Still, I’m sure there is worse pain out there.
Had a laparoscopy a month ago, and woke up in some pain, told them it was 4/10, because it was about half as bad as my period pains usually are.
It took 8mg of morphine to get it to what I thought was a 2/10.
Apparently using a pain scale based on endometriosis-related period pain underestimates it somewhat.
I had one particular headache that hurt so bad I threw up. Gah. Two unmedicated births? They were a picnic compared to that. Thankfully it hasn’t come back for a rerun.
Last summer I had a bout of trigeminal neuralgia which spiked even higher on the pain scale, but each episode only lasted a minute or two. I don’t know if that made it better, or worse. They’re both at the top of the list of Things I Never Want To Go Through Again.
Ever bite through your tongue? I did during a severe seizure that landed me in the hospital last month.
When I work up, it was throbbing, and it still hasn’t completely healed-it doesn’t hurt, but I have a feeling there’s gonna be a scar.
Passing a kidney stone.
I’ve given birth twice, and passed a kidney stone. I’d rather give birth again.