What's the most physicallly painful thing you've ever felt?

Waking up from back surgery- 8 1/2 hour procedure- near total spinal fusion. They wake you up with NO DRUGS at all to make sure you can move everything. Just when I learned the meaning of literally blinding pain, I started heaving. I’ll just leave that to your imagination. I begged them to kill me, but instead they mercifully shot me up with something and I went back out. To this day, I remember it like it just happened. It was actual white pain. I’d read that phrase in novels, but now I’ve lived it.

On the upside, I have literally no fear of pain now. Even something getting cut off my body would not hurt like that did. I won’t go into the recovery time (I almost killed a hospital-mate).

Zette

Oooh, me me me me me!!!

About a year and a half ago, I had two abcessed teeth on the lower left side of my jaw. Hurt like hell. I had been planning on having the one filled, when the one day I woke up and the side of my cheek was swelling. I called off work to wait for a call back from the emergency dentist-MY dentist, a wonderful man who is EXTREMELY gentle and careful about causing pain-was out (it was the week of the fourth of july).
Well, I found out I needed a root canal or an extraction. So, I called work and told them I wouldn’t be in that day either. Then I went and saw this patronizing ass of a root canal specialist who was just like, oh, we’ll root canal 'em. Great-I can’t fucking AFFORD it. But, at least he gave me a prescription for an anti-biotic to get rid of the infection in the mean time. So I had to wait for MY dentist to get back into town. And that night, I went to bed, and woke up at 2 am. We were in the middle of a heat spell, and this was before we got air conditioning. Not only was I too warm, but my gums were twice as swollen, but the teeth were THROBBING like the nerve had it’s own heart beat…it was an actual physical pulsating…like I feel the nerve itself just beat it and wiggling…and it HURT and it itched too. I had to bite down hard on the side of my cheek. And I ended up on the bathroom floor sobbing, splashing water on myself and holding ice to my cheek just bawling. I woke my mother up, too. And I could barely get back to sleep-I was taking about three Advils every three hours just to keep the pain at bay.
The next couple of days, my mouth was swollen up like a balloon. And not only did my teeth heart so fucking much I couldn’t close my jaw all the way but the side of my face hurt because it was so stretched, and the inside of my mouth was sore and cut up from biting down against the pain. The worst part-it was July 1rst-my 21rst BIRTHDAY! Instead of going out and partying (I don’t drink anyways), I was at home gumming down my mom’s pierogie pototoes (the filling-cheddar mashed potatoes with onions…yummy!)
I mean, this is my fucking BIRTHDAY
I cried myself to sleep for a week-until the amoxicillin kicked in and the swelling started to go down. As did the pain.

So I called my dentist the next day, who recommended an oral surgeon. MY dentist told me that I needed oral surgery, and I needed to have one of them pulled, as it was beyond saving, and one of my wisdom teeth taken out.
So I made my appointment. Went in, had the surgery, and felt soooo much better! I didn’t even need the Tylenol 3 they gave me.
The lesson? BRUSH YOUR TEETH!!! Floss! And go to the dentist. I brushed for years, but we didn’t have dental coverage until shortly before this happened, so a lot of damage was done. People, please-take care of your teeth. Trust me…it sucks.

Ooooh Zette, I know EXACTLY how you feel. My worst-ever pain imaginable would be when I had two operations to put titanium rods on my spine. It was just the constant deep, strong pain everytime I breathed that was the most unbearable. That and when the nurses made me sit up and have a 5 minute shower which felt like a 1 hour shower with someone ripping my spine out and assaulting me with knives. shudder…makes me gag just thinking about it. Oh, and then to add insult to injury, my big-ass scar down my back proceeded to come apart when I was in hospital and leak fluid all over the place.

  1. I had the chicken pox when I was student teaching in college…chicken pox is a bitch when you’re an adult, I had sustained fevers that I couldn’t knock down, and had little or no energy…not sure if that qualified as “pain” per se…but hey :wink:

  2. After i had a corneal transplant, my eye doc took the stitches out of my eye…again, not enormously “painfull”, but godawful uncomfortable…both physically and mentally…seeing a sharp scapel closing in on your eye ball, and trying to stand still…and to cut the stitches, she had to use forceps to pull the stitch toward here, so I could feel the surface of my eyeball being pulled out…<shudder>

I had surgery on, as Danny Devito called them, my nether regions. Twice.

Do I win?

I have gallstones. My first gallstone attack was the most painful thing I have ever experienced (barring a subsequent attack that was worse).

It’s so painful because it doesn’t alleviate in any way until it wants to, usually about three hours later. Until then, it’s just gut-gnawing unbearable excruciating endless PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN without end.

I’ve had about 15 attacks, some worse than others, a couple definitely making me wish I was dead.

Luckily, I haven’t had an attack in about two years.

I guess I’m due.

Ughhh! I hurt just reading this stuff! Ghaa!

Well, I’ve never broken a bone (knock repeatedly on wood) so I’ll tell my migrane stories. Eighth grade: We’re learning a Shakepearean dance in english class, and this thing that looks like a splotch of light starts forming in my peripheral vision, but I’m not paying attention. Soon, I go to the nurse with a headache. She diagnoses it as a migrane, and the pain gets worse as she attempts to call my parents, just to get permission to give me Tylenol. Hour later: No parents yet, no fucking Tylenol!! Just unbearable pain. I’m sitting in a bright room, I’m hot, my head is pulsing, there are loud little kids making noise, and NO TYLENOL! By the time the nurse gets through to my parents, I’m doubled over, cying, and constantly begging the nurse to “just give me some Tylenol!” Well, I got the pain reliever. I left school and lay on my porch when I got home. That felt sooo good.

And just this Thanksgiving, mere days ago: I woke up early because I have a headache. This is a day off from school. It’s 8:30, and I definately shouldn’t have been conscious yet. Over the course of the next 4 hours, the pain increses and my stomach begins to hurt, culminating in me vomiting up the little that was in my stomach, and passing out on my couch from fatigue and pain with the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade in the background. But I made a quick turnaround, and was feasting later that night. So I guess it worked out okay.

Ironically, the thing that seems like it would be the most painful was just fine: I was crouching on the front seat of my car with my mom driving. She gets cut off and stops short. I go forward, and my head slams the windshield. A huge crack covers half of the windshield, and my mom’s freaking out, asking me if I’m okay. It didn’t hurt at all. Maybe attributed to the fact that I have a big head. But I guess I’ll never know.

And the first candidate arrives with a cross post to the TMI thread :smiley:

Me and sports. While recreating, I’ve broken the following at various times: arm, collar bone, ribs, foot and finger. (The collar bone was during a cave exploration, so maybe that doesn’t count.)

Still, the worst pain I’ve ever experienced was an ear ache. It felt like being jabbed in the ear with an ice pick with each heartbeat. My ear canal was completely swollen shut, so I couldn’t even use anaesthetic ear drops. I progressed through the different levels of codeine up to percodan, and that mainly just dulled the pain to where I could stop writhing.

When the antibiotics finally kicked in, the ear canal opened, and my ear leaked a horrible green fluid for a couple of days.

Very unfun.

Been there, don’t ever want to do it again! When I was 13, I was in Florida visiting my grandparents. My Uncle lived right off the water and his brother-in-law was fishing off the docks. Well, he caught a catfish and went to throw it back, but it landed on my foot first. One of those barb-spike things went through the tongue of my shoe, my sock, and embedded itself in the top of my foot. I didn’t know about the poison until I read what you wrote, now I know why it was so damn painful. To top it off, I hadn’t had a tetnus booster in the past 5 years so they had to give me that shot as well.

Well, there was my experience in this thread.

But seriously, this had made me think back on all my traumas. Starting with my youngest experiences and working up:

When I was 2, my dad accidentally dropped me on my head on a concrete floor and cracked my skull open. (Yeah, yeah. All together now: “That explains a lot!” Can we move on now?) I don’t remember it, of course, but I’m sure it hurt.

Then, in kindergarten, I remember running up the metal steps of the slide. Unfortunately, they were covered in sand, so I slipped and landed on my teeth on the edge of one of the metal steps. Knocked out my two front teeth. Ouch.

The headaches, of course. Ever since I was about 8 or so, I’ve had frequent extremely painful headaches. I still get them 2-3 times a week. Heat, especially, brings them on. I’m used to them, but they still hurt. What really sucks is the knowledge that there’s nothing you can do to relieve the pain and you’ll be hurting for the rest of the day.

I once got nailed in the groin with a soccer ball launched at full speed from about two feet away. No cup. That was nausea-inducing pain.

What else? I had appendicitis - that wasn’t too bad. I had gall stones this summer. That was more of a dull ache than actue misery, but still sucked big time until I got my gall bladder out. That’s another one where a big factor is the knowledge that you’re going to be in serious pain for the foreseeable future.

Oh, yeah. One more. One night I was going to bed in an unfamiliar room. I was going from a standing position down into bed, face first. With the lights out, I misjudged my position had hit the edge of the dresser full force, right on my upper lip. Oh, hell, that hurt. I got the white flash that others have mentioned. My lip bled on the inside and was swollen for several days. Shudder The total surprise of it made it worse, too. With most things, you can see it coming. This time, I was expecting to hit the pillow when BAM - dresser in the face.

Forgot to add that my dad, in his infinite wisdom (rolling eyes) tried to pull the barb out with a pair of pliers first. I guess he didn’t know that it was barbed. That hurt something fierce.

Ooooooo…you’re mean, Ash, real mean.

One of the worst I remember as a child was being whacked extremely hard in the eye with a croquet mallet by my older cousin.

When I an inside and my other cousin let me see myself in the mirror and I saw all the blood, I would not stop screaming.

Once when I was about 11, my cousin had taught me how do dive into a pool when it wasn’t that deep. I was praticing this at the pool at my dad’s gym while he worked out. Well, I misjudged it and SLAM! right into the bottom of the pool face first. I came up crying hysterically in a great deal of pain.

I remember hanging on the edge of the pool in too much pain to haul myself out. This man comes over and says, “Let me see.” I show him and he comments, “Looks like it’s broken [meaning my nose]” and just walks away! I didn’t break my nose, but I did have scraps between my eyes and over my lip (how I managed to hit those two spots that hard and NOT break my nose is anyone’s guess). Haven’t dived since.

About 8 years ago I was working in a movie theatre. I was part of the management staff and was putting some money in the safe one day. It was one of those huge concrete and steel jobs that are cemented to the floor. I must have been in a rush because I wasn’t paying attention and I slammed my middle finger in the door as I was slamming it shut. The nail was black in less than 30 seconds and I had to crawl to the bathroom because the pain was so intense I couldn’t stand up. I didn’t lose the nail (the doctor drained it for me), but to this day, I can still feel that pain shudder.

Having my right pinkie bending and shaking uncontrollably along with my neck when I took 5 mg of a perscription medication. Hurt like hell and I couldn’t stop it. Had to be taken to the hospital and given an IV tranquilizer to get it to stop. Hurts my pinkie now to think about it too.

broken ear drums ain’t a ton of fun either…When I had a nasty infection, the minutes before the actual puncture rank up there as some of the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt…followed by immediate "relief "…

Oh, yeah! I had a broken eardrum, too. Carry on.

The more I read the luckyer I feel. Kidney Stones last week have to be the worst pain I’ve ever felt. 16yrs ago left index and middle fingers were broken by the contact of a car door and a metal box. I would gladdly go thru that again to avoid Kidney Stones.MTS

High school. Twice in the same night, both drums.