In 9th grade metal shop I placed the fingertips of my middle and ring fingers of my left hand a bit too far into a sheet metal cutter. They missed the blade, but were still compressed basically flat.
I looked at them, briefly, and knew I had to get to a doctor, fast. By the time I got there, I had two very swollen fingertips that throbbed exquisitely with each heart beat. The doctor looked at them and said that he had to let some of the blood out to relieve the pressure. I asked how he was going to do that. He said he’d use a scalpel. I asked for novacaine. He said that the needle would hurt just as bad and that it was best just to get it over with.
Ok, I said.
He had me stand behind him and place my left arm under his left arm. Then, he pressed my arm against his body with his left arm, grabbed my left wrist with his left hand, and with his right hand, slid the scalpel under my fingernail!
little, sparkly, floating things happened (from my point of view).
Blood squirted over his right hand and speckled the wall. I fell back against the exam table, my left arm was shaking. I damn near passed out.
Deciding that I could manage just fine with my remaining as-yet-unlacerated finger, I declined his offer to “fix” that one, and took the bus home. When I got home, I soaked that finger in ice until it was numb and then used a pin to scratch a hole in the fingernail. That worked much better.
I had to cancel the guitar lessons I was taking for a while
I had to have my hip replaced because the joint had deteriorated so badly the bones were ground flat. In considerable pain I could still walk.
Two weeks after the replacement the joint dislocated. the pain was incredable. I had grown accustomed to the pain of walking on a damaged hip but this was almost pass out intense.I could not put any weight on it so I was completely immobile.
BTW they had to replace the new joint.
I’ve broken my collarbone once, broken my right foot at least half a dozen times, have some nasty scars in various places, and had my teeth drilled without the benefit of anaesthetic. I have bilateral patellar dislocation which means that my knees dislocate themselves with frightenly regularity and moderate to severe arthritis in my lower extremeties.
These were/are nothing compared to an episode of pleurisy I suffered when I was nineteen. I honestly thought I was going to die and believe that I wished I could. Imagine not being able to draw a breath or move without experiencing blinding pain… for a week. (Pleurisy is an inflammation of the outer lining of the lungs for anyone who’s wondering).
My mother told me she suffered the same thing when she was about my age and she said she would rather give birth to all her children again than experience that kind of pain.
Have had all 4 wisdom teeth extracted at the same time… not fun.
The drain from having my appendix removed got infected and the muscle took ages to heal… walking upright was very very difficult.
When my wrist was partially fused (wrist operation 1) they knicked nerves in creating the hole in my hip where they took marrow so was hot/cold/tingly and numb at the same time. Tried standing once and the person who was helping me grabbed my cast which caught on the pins in my wrist… pulling the pins out of place. But because the marrow had not fully set, they couldn’t remove the pins or the wrist wouldn’t set properly. I had to spend another 2 1/2 months with the pins rubbing the inside of my skin and against the cast… :eek:
The second operation involved putting a metal plate and 7 screws in my wrist - for which I was only partially knocked out for and was asking all sorts of odd questions of the anaesthesiologist and doctors. They eventually knocked me out when I became too annoying. Parents brought me home, put me on the couch, gave me a couple Demerol and came back the next morning… I was in the exact same position the had put me in the previous afternoon. 3 days later I was back in the office working though - I loved my job. But as the bone marrow hardened the pain was most excrutiating. Also, as the muscles began atrophying the cramping was unbelievable.
I’ve had gall stones twice now - passed them voluntarily - no medical intervention needed.
Both are not nice to experience…
But the most horrible pain expereinced has to be kidney stones…
Kidney stones 4 times - 1st time I was in the hospital a week with them before they passed. Other times passed them with the aid of a gallon of cranberry juice and lots of water.
Labor wasn’t a fond memory, but within a month of my son’s birth I started to suffer from a tooth abcess. I ignored it until it was unbearable, and then it went downhill from there. Having experienced the difficult labor recently, I decided an abcessed tooth was worse.
Reading this thread I feel more and more like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable. I had a conversation recently with a coworker wherein I came to the conclusion that I had no idea what what our health plan covered and didn’t cover because I never had need to look (I called myself a freak and was told “no, no! You’re not a freak!” I know better. I’m a freak.).
I sprained my ankle rather severely in high school playing volleyball, but the pain involved really was nothing, more of my body reminding me not to do that again rather than “inflicting” something torturous on me.
There are only two pains that I have felt that I can explain with some certainty. No stones, breaks, labor, blood, surgery or anything interesting that has been mentioned before though. Both are from college.
Back spasms. From out of the blue, wham! Knots in my back more intricate than some celtic tattoo. They pop up all over my back, one or two at a time, last a few minutes and then go, all over the course of an hour or so. Then nothing. Never had 'em before, haven’t had 'em since. Go figgur.
One summer, oh, say six or seven years ago, I developed some ill-defined nerve inflamation in my right arm, and its manifestation was kicked in whenever I moved my arm up or down, or in any direction with some degree of speed. What it felt like was this: imagine a long, thin sock and a grapefruit. Insert the grapefruit into the opening of the sock, grab the end of the sock, and make like Indiana Jones cracking his whip, with the grapefruit bulge shooting down the sock. It felt like that in my right arm from below the shoulder to the elbow. I did see a doctor, and he mumbled something, didn’t really tell me what it was, and gave me some ibuprofen horse pills which did the trick. But since then I get the occasional signs of reoccurrence, this time starting on my chest next to the armpit and going all the way to the tip of my middle finger. When it happens I start gobbling Advil like candy. Good thing it tastes like candy.
I almost forgot this: once when I was working on a car, one of my friends turned off the headlights and it was one of those hideaway lights. My thumb and index finger got crushed in between the headlight cover and the front part of the hood. What made matters worse was my friend thought I was kidding even though I was screaming my head off. There was a gap of about 1/4 inch, the headlight motor did not care if my fingers were stuck in it. When he finally realized I wasn’t kidding (which felt like hours), he tried to turn the lights back on. It didn’t open, due to the fact that the headlight assembly had fallen into the area below it. We finally pried my fingers out and they were flat! :eek:
Wow, I’m realizing I’ve led a relatively comfy life.
I had all four wisdom teeth removed at once, but the procedure itself didn’t phase me at all, although the recovery almost did me in. I’d never had oral surgery before, and apparently I’m very allergic to hydrocodeine, which the surgeon prescribed for my pain afterwards before sending me home. I couldn’t move for at least 24 hours without getting sick - even shifting few degrees on the bed made me violently ill. After it got flushed out of my system I made do with Ibuprofen.
I gave birth to an 11 pound, 4 oz baby, without benefit of any type of medication. To put it in perspective a bit, my mom had to go buy him a size “Medium” sleeper to go home from the hospital in; and I think that’s about the average size of a four-month old. :eek:
I believe that I had a kidney stone once, although I didn’t go to the hospital for it. Absolutely blinding pain that lasted several hours–and I could feel it traveling from my kidney into my bladder, scraping along like a boulder. It still didn’t compare to the 11-pound-baby incident, but it came mighty close. (Maybe I’m biased a bit because at least the baby-pain paid off nicely.)
Long-term pain: I overdid thing the first few days on my paper route, and ended up with what the doctor decided was bursitis in both knees. I had a belt of pain in each leg that sort of wrapped around from the back of my knee to the front. I have never hurt so badly for SO LONG in my life. I was literally in bed, often in tears, for over a week, and every move I made HURT. After that, I have a whole new respect for athletes who keep going in spite of injuries.
It happened when I was a small child, but at one point, my sister pulled my arm out of my socket. That was bad enough, but what I remember hurting the most was when they had to do x-rays on it. In order for this to work, my arm needed to be folded BEHIND MY BACK so that I could lie down face first on this slab and have the x-ray taken from over head. I just got the fucking thing popped back in place, and here they are twisting the mother fucker around. GOD I hate doctors.
The shooting pain I still get in my right nut every now and again is pretty incapacitating as well.
Herniated disc (L5-S1, for those of you out there keeping score). Compressed a nerve and dropped me like a steer in a slaughterhouse. The pain is a burning, searing, bolt that starts in your spine, travels across your hip, down the back of your leg, and ends in your heel. Forget about walking (actually, forget about moving). I was flat on my back for a week (no getting up to go to the couch to watch TV, no crawling to the bathroom (bedpan anyone?)).
Herniated disc (C4-C5). Same pain, except out of my spine, under my shoulder blade, and down my arm. An odd sensation - being in incredible, blinding pain, but being unable to feel my fingers.
My vascectomy. Even with the analgesic, I was in misery. Take the most sensitive part of your anatomy you can name and put it in a vise and squeeze it. Now squeeze it some more. Now, just one more turn of the handle. That’s it…turn it one more time. In pain? Good, now slice it open with a sharp knife.
It’s the long duration pain that I prefer to avoid.
Shingles (blisters on the nerve endings of my back and head) that lasted for a week or so tweren’t no fun.
I used to get a perforated ulcer once a month for 4 years that lasted for about 3 to 4 days at a time. The nauseous, incapacitating pain pretty much sucked.
I had a lung transplant back in december, and for several days i was on morphine. I hit the button on the pump like i was playing Tempest all over again. The incision ran from under one armpit across the sternum, to under the other 'pit. Then, i had two seizures, so they d/c’ed the morphine. I was about to crawl up the walls.
I got over that ok though.
The pain issues started with my trying to sleep flat on my back. I have some kyphosis in my spine, so i can’t sleep on my back. However, with all the staples on my chest holding me shut, and the two chest tubes on each side of my torso, i was stuck sleeping on my back for three weeks until i got all the 'tubes pulled.
I had knots all up and down my back. They gave me soma and tylenol 3, but it really didn’t work. Due to my seizures they didn’t want to prescribe me anything heavier. I got one of those little machines that stimulate the muscles to twitch. Nada.
What made it worse, was sleep deprivation. During the day, i could get up and walk around, and my back was fine. But every time i sat down or laid down, it kicked in. By the end of my 23 day admission, i was about to kill someone. Even after i got out, and was sleeping on my side again, it took about 5 days for my back to loosen up.
I broke my left tibia and fibula (both lower leg bones) in about 6 places; had to have an open reduction and internal fixation. Basically, they simultaneously installed a plate and a bunch of screws to hold my fibula together, and they installed an external fixator (you may have seen these before; they’re sometimes referred to as “halos,” especially if they’re on the head/neck), because there were too many fragments to just put me in a cast; the pieces were too small and too numerous, and they never would have stayed put if set the usual way. I looked like a cross between a shish kabob and an Erector set. The surgery took around 4 hours.
The most clueless moment, though, had to be about 36 hours after the surgery. I was still in the hospital; since it was the weekend, my surgeon was off, and he had a surgical resident check on me. The guy came in at abut 5:30 am, when I hadn’t had any pain meds for about 7 hours, and decided the best way to wake me up would be to grab the toes on my injured foot (the one with the wires running ALL THE WAY THROUGH it!) and yank them back and forth to make sure they could still move. Naturally, I screamed bloody murder, but I was too weak to move. He basically said, “You have to move the joint if you want to keep your mobility, otherwise all the high-tech surgery in the world won’t do you any good!” I would have kicked him in the nuts if I’d had the presence of mind and the energy to lift my good leg. As it was, all I could do is threaten to report him to Amnesty International. I swear, it should be a requirement for would-be surgeons to be surgical patients themselves before they’re allowed to touch anyone.
I spent 6 months with the external hardware, and I still have the internal plate, but nothing else has compared to the sheer extruciating pain of that one moment, not even the moment when I actually broke the darn thing in the first place. I’m curious to see if childbirth will compare.
Man, I was going to post here about dislocating my shoulder while swimming, but suddenly that doesn’t seem so bad. . .
I need to read up on how to avoid kidney stones. . .
Shiver.
I had been playing with my kids, and one of them kicked me right in the chest. (She pistoned her foot out, rather than like punting a football.) Later that night, I had some pain, and it just got worse and worse. I couldn’t sleep, lay down, sit up, watch TV. I finally woke Mrs. KVS up at 3:15 a.m., and I told her I was in a great deal of pain.
Me: “Maybe littleKVS broke one of my ribs.”
Mrs.KVS: “You know, if it’s not an emergency, the insurance won’t cover it!”
I got dressed, and drove myself to the hospital (stupidest thing I have ever done). :eek:
I remember once I was walking next to our pool when I was a teenager…I slipped, and one leg went in the pool…one leg stayed out, which left my nether regions to land with a bang on the edge of the pool.
Thank God I’m not a guy…I might have been neutered.