What's the Most Physical Pain You've Ever Been In?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Since I was too young to have any memory of it, I can’t include the time when I was two and sliced my hand open with a steak knife (in an attempt to cut an apple) and required 20-some stitches - internal and external - to close it.

However, a few years later - I think I was five, maybe(?) - I fell in my backyard and somehow ended up cracking my collarbone. That hurt like hell, and worst of all, I had to wear a bra-like shoulder restraint thing while it was healing. Yes, a five-year-old boy wearing something that looked like a bra. You can imagine the embarrassment, I’m sure.

A few years ago I was working in the stock room of a local retail giant (Dopers in the MI-OH-IN-KY area will know Meijer) and I had my little toe on my right foot broken because someone ran over it with an electric pallet-jack. In all fairness, I don’t know if it was broken because I never went to a doctor (the mandatory injury-related drug testing could have cost me my job at that point in time) but it was crooked and purple and painful.

Does anyone else have any stories they would like to share?

-Dirty

2

The worst pain I ever felt was when I tore my ACL. I felt it tear and I felt the end of my femur scrape across the end of my tibia. The pain was incredibly intense–I didn’t know if I was going to pass out or throw up. Bad times.

3

Second degree burns covering my back from bra line to panty line (and coming around onto my stomach, dripping down my leg) from 2 cups of boiling water spilling on my back.

ouch.

blisters up to a foot long and 3 - 4 inches wide, hugely ugly colors (magenta skin - I have a definate sympathy for lobsters, with yellow/green fluid under the blister skin).

2 shots of demeral at the hospital and I coudl still feel it.

Recovery sucked big time, too, since it covered pretty well my torso, breathing hurt (try breathing w/o moving the skin on your chest and back). Try relaxing w/o having anything touch your back, sides or stomach.

couldn’t shower, and had bandages that made me about 4 inches thicker around my torso, so about the only thing I could wear were large night gowns and overalls that weren’t fastened.

4

When I was a freshman in college, I was in a nasty bike accident (bad brakes, lost control of the bike at high speeds, skidded all over the gravel). I dinged myself up really badly, and I looked awful - delightfully, the worst of it was on my face. I tore up the entire left side of my face. Anyway, the worst worst worst worst bit of it was that almost my entire left pinky nail was ripped off.

It hurt.

A lot.

5

On my second surgery to try and get rid of my pilonidal sinus, they scooped it out and stuffed the wound with an entire bottle of gauze which was to act as a bandage. The “bandage” was supposed to be changed every six hours, but it had been 10 hours after the surgery the first time it was changed. I got two injections of morphine, and they did nothing.

That’s not true, they did help, but it felt like I was having my intestines pulled out with a branding iron. I couldn’t stop my legs from shaking so badly that two nurses and my dad had to hold them. I was gripping the iron bedrail so hard that my IV came 1/2 out of my hand. The worst part about the whole experience was that the bandage had been in so long that it started to adhere to the skin. Unfortunately, screaming wasn’t an option because I was in a shared room.

It’s a close race between that and the time I had to get tested for gonorhea. Not to be too crude, but my dick is a one way street, and it’s an exit not an entrance.

6

I guess I’d have to say nothing hurt worse than labor.

I’d rather have someone punch my nose than go through childbirth again without an epidural (yeah I’m a wimp). :smiley:

7

I had a myelogram a couple of years ago, which in and of itself is a very painful procedure, no matter what anyone tells you. Afterwards, the hospital staff had me sit up in the bed to get the dye out of my system. I had always heard that one should lie flat after a spinal, but I did what they said. After about an hour, my back started to cramp, and my head started to hurt, so I asked for some pain pills. They gave me motrin, and didn’t seem concerned. They sent me home.

That evening, my spine began to hurt. I can’t really explain what that feels like, but it isn’t pleasant. I took a hot bath, thinking it was muscular. I continued to get worse, as the pain spread up my spine, into my neck and finally my head.

By evening, I could not lift my head even two inches to use a pillow. If I lifted my head at all, this intense pressure and pain and burning came on that felt like someone was trying to saw my head off with tooth floss and at the same time pound me with a boulder. I can’t even explain it. If you have ever had meningitis, it was a similar thing.

Every nerve from the base of my skull and down my spine was inflamed. I had a spinal headache. This is not like any headache I have ever had. It is far worse than the worst migraine. It was far worse than birthing my kids, which I did without medication. It is indescribable pain.

I suffered like this for two days, drinking lots and lots of water and caffeine (that’s what you are supposed to do). My neurosurgeon refused to prescribe anything for the pain. He simply “didn’t believe in narcotics”. Ass bite.

After the third day of being unable to lift my head and being in intense agony whenever I had to crawl to the toilet, my husband packed me up, put me in the car and drove me to the neurosurgeon’s office. I am fanatical about seatbelts, and I actually laid in the backseat without one because the agony of sitting up was too much.

I literally crawled on my stomach into the Doctor’s office. He took a look at the area where he had punctured me and declared it was “pristine”. Since I wasn’t infected, he couldn’t care less about the spinal headache. He told me to take motrin. I sobbed as I left his office.

My husband then took me to the hospital’s pain clinic. As I crawled in, they immediately asked him if I had a spinal headache (I guess the position was familiar to them). They took me to a bed and had an anesthesiologist come see me. He explained why I was having the headache–the puncture in my epideral space had not clotted and I was leaking spinal fluid. He took blood from my arm and injected it into the epideral space to form a clot. The headache vanished almost immediately. I had to lay there for about an hour to ensure the clot would hold.

He then sent me off with a prescription for percocet and 2 cookies. I love him. The neurosurgeon can rot in hell.

8

There have been a few good bang-ups in my past; the sliced open knee, the impacted wisdom teeth, the boiling oatmeal on my leg…

But I’m gonna go with this one: An unfortunate episode left me with massive soft tissue damage, a concussion, partially-herniated discs and a skull fractured in two places. Nasty, to be sure.

But wait! It gets better! Back on the job, I’m retrieving items from the safe at the exact moment that my coworker opens the cabinet above the safe. I caught the corner and edge of a thick cabinet door directly on the fracture above my eye.

Oh yes, I have not forgotten.

9

I’ve been lucky. No broken bones, no major accidents.

Pilonidal sinus didn’t hurt too much. I was just glad to get rid of it!

Appendicitis was painful for about a day. I was more embarrassed that my nurse was a guy and I had to use the bedpan every two hours, than worrying about pain.

So by far, the most pain was childbirth. And I’m going to do it for a third time in October. No pain relief here in Japan, the country famous for just putting up with it.

I must be a masochist (or hubby is a sadist…yeah, I think that’s more like it).

10

I’ve banged myself up several times. 3 brokens arms (2 at once). Finger in a lawnmower -> 3 surgeries. But…

Bladder stone.

It’s not just in a class by itself, it’s not even on the same scale.

11

Having a football hit my testicles at high speed. (A UK football, i.e. a soccer ball).

I was hit by a car once (whilst on my bike) That was surprisingly un-painful. I was just in shock that’s all. My bike was bent in half. I got up (blood pouring from my head and hand) and moved it out of the road. And was about ready to walk home when an ambulance arrived and insisted I go to hospital.

Recently - In bed I was scratching my bollocks and was too rough with them. that sure hurt, it was an after-pain.

12

P.S. I haven’t read most of the other replies. I don’t want to be put off my dinner.

13

I was induced after my water broke while pregnant with my son. I ended up with an epidural but by the afternoon the doc said that the baby wasn’t doing so great so we should do a C-section. They just gave me a massive dose in my epidural to numb me (basic procedure). Unfortunately for me, during the confusion of the C-section one of the nurses accidentally turned off the epidural pump during the C-section. SOP dictates Pitocin after a C-section to make the uterus contract and slow/stop the bleeding. After about 30 minutes after I was cut open I was being stitched up and starting to get feeling back (it can take a while for the epidural to wear off). By the time I was in the recovery room I was in so much pain that I forgot I had been pregnant and didn’t know where I was. My husband reminded me that I had just had a baby and I had no idea! So, to sum up: massive contractions on top of a fresh 6 inch cut in my belly with no meds. Very painful.
And to imagine - I would go through it again for him!

14

My worst pain ever didn’t even involve any blood. It was about 5 years ago, and for some reason I started getting this terrible pain in my head. For anyone who’s ever had a migraine, imagine that times 10. For those who haven’t had one, imagine that scene from “Casino” when the guy’s head is put in the vice grip – if they’d kept turning it.

It would only begin when I was physically exerting myself (in the gym, for example), but when it did I could only turn off the lights and go fetal for about 30-40 minutes until it went away. I got an MRI, saw a neurologist, everything, and they never figured out what caused it. I’ve never been one to have migraines or headaches, so it was a huge mystery. After a few weeks, it went away and has never come back.

Goddamn if that wasn’t the single worst pain I’ve ever known in my life (and that includes facial fractures, broken tail bones, and all sorts of other injuries I’ve had through the years).

15

I’d have to say at the dentist,while getting a root canal. This from a person whos had a broken arm, two fingers smashed (LH)completely off and re-attached,nose broken maybe 6 times(fights),and a broken collar-bone. just the thought of that drill and the noise you hear in your skull when the Doc’s leaning into your melon… :eek: :eek:

16

Oh, all of you, I feel so bad, FTG, man, that sucks. I guess I’m kinda tame to teh rest. never broke a bone in my life.

Worst thing I did was hit myself in the head with a baseball bat at about 11 yrs old-no, not on purpose. We were playing baseball and decided to switch to using a basketball instead of a softball. To make a long story short, I would up and swung with all my might, and the bat bounced off the high-pressure basketball and came straight back at my head and hit me above the eye. Hurt like hell and swelled up the size of a tennis ball. yeoow.

Distant second was last year mountain biking thru some narrow trail, going down a hill, gaining speed, turning and slamming my knee against an immovable tree at about 14 mph. Couldn’t breath or walk for five minutes.

17

Anyone who has read the pain threads on this board since last Memorial Day already knows what I’m going to say, so let’s all say it in unison:

“Rysdad had a kidney stone.”

Thank you. You can all go back to what you were doing while I elaborate…

For one kidney stone, I made three trips to the hospital (2 of them in ambulances), spent Memorial Day weekend (and my birthday) writhing in pain (except when drooling and puking from morphine), never did pass the stone, had it removed and a stint put in while under general anaesthetic, and then five days later had the stint removed while totally awake.

When they went to take the stint out, a nice nurse injected Mr. Happy with some anaesthetic jelly, and then the doctor took out his peniscope (or whatever it’s called), and inserted it.

Painful, yes, but not too bad. Then he said that he had to get past the prostate. Worse pain, but tolerable. Then he said he had to get into the bladder and that I might experience some mild discomfort.

I know now that mild discomfort = all the fires of hell.

I’ve been told by three different women that have had both kidney stones and natural childbirth that kidney stones are worse. One woman had had kidney stones seven times, and one attack occurred when she went into labor.

The mind boggles.

18

Well, what kind? Immediate or sustained pain?

For immediate, what comes to mind is the time I twisted my right knee while skiing. I somehow lost my balance or twisted the skis around, but in any case I fell, and my knee got wrenched, very hard. As I fell, the only things I was conscous of were, in the corner of my mind, “I’m falling/sliding” and in the foreground “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!” There was no conscious acknowledgement of “Ouch,” I just felt it. You ever read something where it says something like “I was dimly aware of someone screaming in agony; after a while I realized it was myself”? That was what it was like - the most bizarre sense of both distance and yet complete immersion in an experience. Not fun. This was my experience with True Agony, which fortunately faded before too long. Miraculously, I had no serious injuries as a result of this - just a nasty muscle strain.

As for sustained pain, easy. It was when I woke up after having had abdominal surgery (right flank incision, to fix an obstruction of my ureter). First of all, I was incredibly cold after 7 hours in a cold operating room. Second, it just hurt, a lot. The pain was focused in my right side, and spread up my entire back, into my shoulders and neck. It wasn’t agony, per se, but it was the most horribly uncomfortable experience of my life. It was actually worse than when I came into the ER when I first was really bothered by my kidney problem (though that’s a close second). All I wanted was for the experience to be over, just for the pain to end. I wasn’t so far gone that I wanted to die, but it was a very disturbing thought pattern, in retrospect. At the time, it was scary. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life, and that was the worst of all.

19

Rysdad, does a stint = a catheter? I’d put that on the list, not of most painful experiences, but of most maddeninly annoying/demeaning experiences. As for getting it removed, I was awake alright - and I had an audience :eek:. It didn’t hurt, per se, as it was over too fast, but it felt really weird. I let let out an involuntary “Hooo-OOOP!” when the guy pulled it out. Impossible to describe.

Annoying things after that? The bladder stops informing Sir Willy of when things need to happen. And let’s not forget the experience of passing the air bubbles that got up there while that catheter was in! Good times.

Sorry 'bout the hijack…

20

I had kidney stones a couple of years ago and man that pain was the worst I had ever felt. Even giving birth to an almost 10 pounder didn’t hurt as much. Morphine and percoset helped tho.