What was the most physically painful thing ...

In My Humble Opinion
41

Been there, done that, except I was younger and not cooking hot dogs. My wrist and thigh had been scalded. I got to stay home from school for a week, which was no treat because I had to go to the hospital every other day(?) for debridement and bandaging. Even that wasn’t THAT bad, and I got over it.

I think the honest-to-God worst pain I’ve ever had was from gallbladder disease. The postsurgical pain wasn’t nearly as bad as the damn attacks. But before I could have the surgery, I was constipated from the painkillers and was having menstrual cramps. I was on the phone with my doctor’s office literally crying and begging for an ER referral. That’s how much that particular triple whammy hurt.

Robin

42

Root canal. Dentist drilled past Novocain into live nerve.

:: shudder ::

Only lasted an instant as, without conscious volition, I flung myself away, half out of the chair.

Then I had to hold still (more or less, not counting the trembling, tears and whimpering) while the dentist stuck a needle into the live nerve to inject more Novocain so he could finish the procedure.

:: shudder::

Thanks so much for reminding me. :frowning:

43

I had been working at my job for only a few weeks when, walking around my desk to my chair, I whacked my knee on the corner. By the time I’d made the couple of steps to the chair I was nearly sick with pain. I sat down, closed my eyes to wait it out, and the next thing I knew my head was down on the desk. I remember thinking that I had to sit up or my colleagues would think I was having a nap, but I just couldn’t make that connection between thought and action. After what seemed like hours but was really only a minute or so I managed to raise my head and clear out the cobwebs, at which point I discovered that I’d wet myself.

Egg collection during IVF treatment was no walk in the park either. Poor tolerance of sedatives meant I was only given a partial dose, so I could feel EVERYTHING.

44

It’s a dull, drizzly, cold day today here in Minnesota, but it’s a little brighter now. Thanks. :smiley:

45

Bless all of you - I figured I had to be a wimp for feeling the way I have for the four kidneystones I’ve passed in the last year and a half; now I’m beginning to think I reacted normally.

Twenty years ago this May, me on a Honda VT500 vrs a Hyundai, I lost. Compound fracture of the left leg. Landed on the front tarmac of a volunteer fire company. Watched the guy munching on a sandwich walk out, look at me, walk back in, hit the button for the garage, pull out the ambo.

Reconstructed with a bolt, eight screws and a plate. Ultimately great work, very happy with it.

No lie. The top screw near my knee, over the years , began to stick out more & more (as all the swelling went away) Finally it protruded 3/8" from the normal contour of the leg. I wanted it out.

My orthopedic surgeon joked all it would take would be Jack Daniels, an exacto knife and an allen wrench. Honestly, I contemplated doing it a few times (I mean that would have been a GREAT story.)

Alas I finally went to outpatient surgury instead - local for the incision, hooked me up, began to twist - I about jumped off the table. The surgeon was honestly surprised. He stopped and asked me if I wanted more painkiller. I realized the pain receded when he stopped, so I told him to crank away and be done with it.

Wow.

46

I’ve heard that from a number of people.

:::shudder:::

47

I’ve had penile and scrotal surgery. The agony of the recovery was simply indescribable. Because of my history of addiction to and abuse of prescription pain pills, I had to cold turkey a lot of it. I don’t remember anything worse than that episode and I’ve had a lot of blinding migraines.

48

I can believe it. My mother told me once that if you take menstrual cramps and multiply by ten, that’s about what labor pains are like, and if you take labor pains and multiply by fifty, that’s about what kidney stones are like.

Lucky you. I was in the hospital for a week and missed Christmas and my birthday. :frowning: Whirlpool twice a day, and then some kind of antibiotic cream and then bandages. Plus, I was in isolation, and everyone had to put on masks and gowns to come in for the first few days.

The nurses got me a cake, though. And I got 2 dolls from the hospital Santa. And they broke the age visitation rules for me so my little sisters could visit.

49

HS. Hidradenitis Suppurativia. It pales in front of many of the things mentioned by others, but having your genitals swell two or three times the normal size is more than a little bit painful. Size does matter, and bigger is not always a good thing. “Penis”, “Scrotum” and “Reconstructive surgery” are three things you do not want to hear in the same sentence, especially from a surgeon. Fortunately for me a pharmaceutical solution was found that managed the condition. But it still hurt like hell for a very long time. My heart goes out to those poor souls who the meds did not work for.

50

As mentioned in the other thread, the time I fell arse over feet–in high heels–down a flight of stairs definitely qualifies. The recovery from my wisdom tooth extraction wasn’t remotely as bad as that.

Concussing my head against a low shelf at work and giving myself a black eye on the playground come in second and third, respectively. I should come with a warning label: Kythereia is hazardous to your health. :slight_smile:

51

Waking up in recovery from functional endoscopic sinus surgery.

I’ve had surgery before and woken up to the attentive, “How do you feel” of the kind nurses.
And usually meds work real good for me, I’m slight, almost tiny.

I was very surprised when in response to this inquiry I could only cry - great big crocodile tears. Not once, not twice but three times. Each time I was delivered a shot of morphine and on the third time they removed the packing from my nose.

No, this is not the most painful thing. It’s only the lead up to it. :frowning:

It was day surgery, and I was sent home with a script for powerful painkillers and told not to be alarmed if I should vomit up some blood, not uncommon with this type of surgery.

And I did. Later I took the meds, and vomited again. And again, and again. Until I couldn’t keep down a tablespoon of water. By now, the next morning, all the meds they gave me at the hospital had completely worn off. None I had taken had stayed down. I hadn’t eaten anything in about 48 hrs and had vomited up all the liquids I’d tried to get down.

One call to the hospital and I was ordered to emerg. By now I was in so much pain I cannot even describe it to you. I have had many, many, very bad sinus headaches in my life (hence the surgery), including a few that caused me to vomit from pain, but nothing was like this.

They did a blood test, gave me an ice pack and awaited the results. Once they were in I was given a shot of morphine. Sweet merciful morphine. Aaaaah.

Spent the night in hospital getting pumped with liquids.

And, as you can see, lived to tell the tale. :smiley:

52

Seconded…jeez man that hurts :eek:

53

Heh, I forgot about my episode with the dentist. I never had a cavity until about 32 or so, was having my teeth cleaned, and while the dentist was poking around with one of his tools contemplating if there was a cavity in one tooth, he JAMMED the poky tool DIRECTLY onto the nerve.

I’m about 5’7", 130#. He was over 6’ and about 200# or so. I grabbed both of his wrists and THREW him backwards, even though I was originally reclined. I said in the voice of the demonically possessed, “Don’t you ever do that again.”

He was taken aback, to put it mildly.

It was such a split second reaction, I surprised even myself.

54

Heh. Oh, yeah, I scared the crap out of the dentist when it happened with me. Funny what comes out when one taps into a primal reaction, eh? :smiley:

55

Wonder what our charts look like…

56

D’oh, that should be woke up. Gah!

57

Scratched cornea that became infected. I took pain pills and drank hard liquor for two - three days. It didn’t dent the pain. To make matters worse, the opthamologist had drops that numbed the eye, but wouldn’t prescribe them to me. Said it would get in the way of healing. But, when she would put them in my eye, it was like heaven. I should have stolen those damn drops!

58

A couple of days after posting in the other thread, I thought of something else. I was only a little kid at the time, seven maybe eight, when I got a chemical burn on my cornea. I don’t know what that was on the pain scale, but I remember being in agony until it could be looked at a few hours later. As a bonus, seeing the burn when my eyes were examined (the reflection) is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen too.

There was no lasting damage, fortunately, and I’m not even sure which eye it was.

59

Separating my shoulder, I’d imagine, although I can’t remember it all at. I was only a year old at the time.

60

Breaking both arms at once was bad (Count Blucher, I know exactly how you feel. :stuck_out_tongue: ) although getting the one set was actually worse than the break.

About 5 years ago, I got a cortisone shot in my left shoulder joint. They said “You may feel some discomfort when the pain meds in the shot were off.” About 5 hours later, I started to feel some discomfort. 2 hours after that, it was like someone wiggling a knife around in my shoulder everytime I tried to move it. An hour later, breathing was agony, I couldn’t move any part of my body without feeling it in my left shoulder. I spent the entire night double over at my desk trying not to move or breath until the doctor’s office opened at 8 AM. I told the nurse something was wrong, I had spent the last 12 hours in hell from the pain. Her response, “That is normal, you were told there would be some discomfort.” :eek: I politely told her what I thought of her definition of discomfort. :rolleyes:

I had a partially impacted wisdom tooth removed several years ago. It had prevented both myself and the hygenist from cleaning the molar properly so I had to get a crown put on it. Before they could do that, they needed to grind 1/4 of an inch off of my lower jaw behind the molar so the crown would have room to fit. It was a truly horrible experience, despite the professionalism of the dentist and his assistants. I took 1 vicodin right after I got home, then another 4 hours later. (Khadaji, feeling the pain, but not really caring is exactly what vicodin does to me.)

Fast forward to last year, every few months I would have some swelling and discomfort around the molar. I was eating one night while experiencing the discomfort when I felt something strange near the molar. I felt it with my finger and it burst, covering my finger in blood and pus. Turns out that for years I have had a low grade infection under that molar, eating away at the bone of the jaw and the root of the tooth. It finally flared up into an abcess, causing a great deal of pain. At its worst, I spent 15 hours taking a vicodin every 3 hours trying to keep the pain to a managable level.

But the worst pain was when I had a liver biopsy. Before the procedure, they ran down a list of some possible things that , while uncommon, could happen, that might be painful. I hit them all. The sections of liver they took out were right on a nerve, so I felt if everytime the needle snipped a chunk. They clipped my diaphragm, which caused intense pain all along my vagus nerve. Before the procedure was over, they had given me 3 grains of morphine. Afterward, they gave me as much as was safe, plus Tylenol with codeine. If I laid on my back, I was in agony from one thing, if I laid on my side I was in agony from something else. Sitting up was not even on the list of options. The best I could do was try and rest at about a 45 degree angle, any time I rolled too far one way or the other waves of pain let me know my balance was off. It lasted 4 1/2 hours. It felt like an incredibly long week.

Having heard about kidney stones and their comparison with childbirth, I will gladly forgo the chance to compare them with my already too large range of experiences.