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

In My Humble Opinion
61

What I hated about ear infections is that if you yawn, burp or swallow, it throbs even more. I remember sitting in class with a really severe ear ache and finally telling my teacher and I got sent home and had to go to the doctor.

I am such a klutz. Once, I bent down to pick up a purse off of the floor. I have a fireplace (all blocked up) in my room, and I ended up wacking my head off the corner of the mantle. I SCREAMED and looked in the mirror, and saw a little dent. I went downstairs, sobbing in pain and my mom screamed when she saw me. I looked in the mirror-HUGE purple gooseegg on my forehead.

And two years ago, on the fourth of July, (yeah, another fourth story), I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I had a fan going in my room on a chair in the middle of the room. I leaned down to pick something up I stepped on, and as I stood up, I WACKED the corner of my EYE on the corner of the CHAIR. Ooooh…swelled up…and in the morning, my eye was closed and I had one hell of a black eye. I still went to work and was miserable. And the thing was, my story sounded sooo stupid to anyone who asked-they’d probably think I made it up and that someone had beat me (a boyfriend or something like that).

62

I read once (and I wish I could remember the source), that the most pain the average individual could experience and remain conscious was to pass a kidney stone or to have an eardrum punctured. More pain than that and you pass out.

I have never passed a kidney stone.

My right eardrum has been punctured twice.

My left eardrum has been punctured four times.

It hurts. A lot. If anything hurts more, no wonder you pass out. Although, as a couple of other posters have mentioned, when the membrane actually tears, there is an incredible feeling of relief – even if there is a lot of fluid discharge, you lose you balance and fall down.

Parents who don’t treat ear infections seriously should have toothpicks driven in to their ears, then they would realize the child is not whining for attention.

63

Well I haven’t had anything as painful as many of you guys, but I’ve had my share of nasty stuff happen to me.

For one, I was in a bicycle accident when I was 8 years old (preceded by another potentially fatal, but that time I got away unscathed :)).
I remember going down a hill, and there was some sort of obstruction on the road. I try to evade and graze a tree and the front wheel catches somewhere. I pitch over the bike and land face first on the ground, punching off three front teeth (all permanent ones too) and fracturing my lower jaw in three places (both joints and a big crack down the middle).
I got into a shock pretty soon after it happened, but I do remember wailing horribly and repeatedly asking where my teeth were (urgh, thinking about it still makes me cringe).

In the hospital they managed to put my teeth back in, but my jaw started to eat the roots away, so I had to have three root canals done.
My jaw was splinted by screwing two braces onto my both jaws (inside the mouth naturally), with a crisscross of rubber bands holding them together. I had to eat gruel for two months.

The only other one that’s stuck in my mind is from my year in the army, where I got the barracks’ bathroom door slammed into my face.
Luckily it was cushioned by my glasses, but I still got a nasty 2 inch gash on my forehead. It didn’t hurt me as much as it stunned me, but there was blood all over the place.
The look on the snotty on-call NCO’s face was priceless when I emerged, my face blood-drenched, to notify him that I was going to the medic’s office.
I still have the scar on my forehead to remind me of the incident…:smiley:

64

Labor.

Childbirth was a breeze but I was in labor for 52 hours before I finally got a epidural.

No sleep, no relief. It was hell.

65

  • Fell down and bit completely through my tongue. I was very young, and hardly remember it.

  • Got kicked in the head when I ventured too close to a swing set. My sense of smell was altered for several days afterward.

  • Compound fracture of the long bone in my big toe. Because I couldn’t flex my toe without extreme pain during the two months or so it took to heal, my toe atrophied and I couldn’t run without falling down for at least a year afterward.

  • Abscessed tooth. I couldn’t tell which one it was, because my entire head felt like it was in a red-hot vise.

  • Cut through the thumbnail and flesh on my left thumb with an X-Acto knife, nearly severing the tip. They pulled off half my thumbnail and sewed up the cut by running the stitches through what was left of my thumbnail. Later, I felt tough so I took out the stitches myself, at home.

However, in terms of discomfort, nothing compares to the physical symptoms of a panic attack. I used to get nausea, the kind you get about five minutes before you puke, but it would last for hours. This happened about three times a week at its peak. I’d have certainly let someone saw one of my hands off in exchange for that.

66

Oh dear. There are so many. But both of my knees will dislocate, all by themselves. They started when I was in 1st grade. I am 31 now.

The Most Painful Thing, besides them just randomly jerking out of place and sending me sprawling to the ground screaming – one goes, shift weight to other knee, then it goes – well there are two. Three.

I’ve had reconstructive knee surgery 5 times, and it hurts like a … can we swear here? It hurts like a motherf*%$er. One of the times they fractured the lower part of my knee on purpose to help straighten it. Yeah, thanks. Appreciate that. Also, the pull the patella tendon down and staple it. I have one of the staples, they took it out the second time, TO PUT IN A BIGGER ONE. These stay in. They look like picnic tables with spiked legs.

That’s one. Then, the day after surgery, you have to get up and walk, using the operated knee. The next day the cast comes off and you get to bend the knee, which has wires sticking out of a purple scar and bloody gauze stuck to it. You get to sit around in a physical therapy room with a bunch of grandmas and grandpas who are crying because they are experiencing the same pain you are while you do this.

That’s two. Then, the final most painful thing happened in sixth grade. I was going to class, and I fell – one knee went, then the other, and I fell down about 7 stairs. I was crying, but got up and went to class. Hurting. Sat through class. When class is over, I can’t get up. My left knee is swollen bent. I can’t move it. Have to wait for everyone to leave, then the teacher calls my family. They took me to a doctor. He says he is going to drain my knee. He produces a large needle and syringe. I am only thirteen, and scared, and I ask, ‘will this hurt much?’ – he looks me right in the eye, and says no. He lied. I have never really screamed like I did then before or since. My mom held my shoulders down, and my dad held my legs down.

That doctor died recently. I am not sorry.

My knee problems are a genetic defect, so I am scared to have children.

67

It’s a tie between breaking my ankle in a fall off a bus, and my migraine headaches. I’d say the latter caused more suffering; at one point I had them weekly. They’d knock me out all night, with pillow on my face to block out the crack of light from under my bedroom door. I distinctly recall one so fierce I would have accepted death for relief.

Thankfully, it’s been a while since my last one.

68

[Tatoo voice]De Pain!! De Paaaiiiin!!![/Tatoo voice]

I’ve had a lot of painful moments in my time. The ones which stick out the most are:

  1. Drinking HCl when I was 4. Acid burns on my lips, chest, both legs from the knee down. Completely dissolved my esohpagus. Immediately after it happened, I ran to my apartment (I was outside at the time), and hit the door hard enough to completely knock it off its hinges (did I mention I was only 4 at the time?). It was not a happy day for me.

  2. Splitting my right ear lobe in half. I was swinging between two school desks (I think I was about 9 at the time) and slipped. Blood everywhere; I think I traumatized the other kiddies for life…

  3. Stepping on a rusty nail while barefoot. It went probably a good inch and a half into my heel. Did my parents take me to get a tetanus shot? Nooooo… They yelled at me :frowning:

  4. Bee sting in the arch of my foot. First and only time I’ve ever been stung - it was a very different kind of pain from all those I’ve experienced before.

  5. I had some foot surgery in which a ‘plug’ was placed in the bone, just below the ankle on my right foot (the fibula one), as part of an attempt to build an arch in my right foot (I’m flat-footed). One day, in high school, a friend baaaarely brushed my foot, just below the ankle. I immediately collapsed from the incredibly intense pain, and could not stand up again for several minutes. Even then, I could barely walk. It took me about two hours of hobbling to get home (normally, it was a 15-minute walk). The plug was removed a couple days later.

  6. Going back to story #1, I had to be fed through a tube that went directly into my stomach (from my abdomen) for quite a while after I was released from the hospital. This tube would often get mostly ‘sucked in’ to my stomach. In order to be fed, the tube had to be pulled out…my God was that painful! I dreaded mealtimes for close to a year as a result.

  7. I often get cramps in the arches of my feet. They arrive very suddenly; it is easy to tell when they occur, as I invariably drop the floor clutching my foot, cursing like a sailor in a whorehouse.

  8. Again, when I was young (yes, I led a troubled childhood), I was running towards a closed door (I was barefoot). Just as I got close, my brother entered the room using said door. However, he opened it quite forcefully; the end result of this incident was that the entire toenail on my big toe was ripped clean off. Man, that one hurts just writing about it…

Fortunately, that’s about all I can remember right now. I’ll be sure to come back if I can think any other incidents :smiley:

69

Jodi, my advice to you is to move to the South. Way south. Like, gulf coast or miami or west tx south. I hate ice and snow for this very reason. Be careful!

70

When I was 12, I got second-degree burns (scalded by boiling water) on both legs and one arm. Yes, that was painful, but even worse was when they peeled the skin off the scalded areas at the hospital.

Everything else pales in comparison–the only pain close to either of those was the periods after my oral surgeries (to remove impacted baby teeth).

Surprisingly, it’s not at all painful to get hit in the face with an airbag.

71

Jeez, I’m lucky. I think the worst I’ve had is when I sliced into myself with a knife. (It had just been given to me as a gift. I attribute the accident to having forgotten to give the donor a penny in accordance with the custom that you must never give a knife as a gift.) At any rate, I opened up a nice big wound, and got really nauseous as I dressed it.

Probably the second place is the time I accidentally burned myself on hot glass tubing I had been bending. If I can think of any others, I’ll let you know.

72

Piercing both of my nipples was an infinity of pain. I screamed like a coloratura. I’m surprised that I didn’t shatter a mirror with those decibels.

73

The worst pain I’ve ever felt was when I fractured a bone that was already broken. I broke my arm skateboarding. It was a compound fracture; I could see the bone. Pretty disgusting, actually. So I kept skating, even in a cast, and it was all good until one day, three weeks before I was due to be freed from my cast, I wiped out, my board rolled straight down the sewer, and I landed directly on my broken arm. A white-hot bolt of pain shot through me; I couldn’t see, hear, or think. The next thing I know I was in an ambulance, with EMT’s looking at my arm, which was now several shades of purple, in horror. Nothing I’ve ever felt has hurt as much as that pain.

74

Now, I’ve had my boys kicked so hard I puked, but that pain was nothing compared to a gallstone attack. Mine last for about 5 hours, and there just ain’t jack you can do about it to make the pain go away. All kinds o’ crazy thoughts start running through your head after about 3 hours of that incessant pain…

I’ve had enough gallstone pain…I’m havin’ my gall bladder removed in two weeks.

75

Ooh, where do I begin?

*when I was in first grade, i was pulling a shirt over my head, and leaned down at the same time. I slammed my front teeth into the footboard of my bed. Both had to be pulled, and my gums were swollen for months

*5th grade, roller skating down the road. fell on the concrete, slamming my head into the pavement. a guy walking his dog said he heard me hit from a good 20 feet away

*piercing my nipples. i’ll leave it at that.

*last year at work, stepped on a wet floor, feet flew from underneith me, and i landed directly on my back. my manager managed to dive forward and catch my head before it hit too, luckily. nothing was broken, but i still have to sleep on a heating pad occasionally

*a month ago-walking down a grassy hill, slipped, and landed on my head. soon discovered that the hill was concrete underneith. everything was spinning for a good 30 minutes before someone found me

i think that’s all, but with all the blows to the head, i might have forgotten something :slight_smile:

76

ooh, i remembered another one!

A few years ago I was laying on my bed, talking on the phone, and I was absent mindedly playing with a little pen knife. I was kinda bouncing it off my stomach, and I guess I forgot it was sharp, because I jabbed it in a little too hard. It was fun explaining to my panicing mom, and the ER doctor how I managed to shove a knife into my abdomen without realizing it

77

My injuries aren’t as impressive as most of yours, but my list is long…
broken femur

broken elbow (twice)

broken wrist (who knows how many times)

broken arm

a seriously dislocated left ankle (twice)
hurts more than most broken bones–it still “clicks” when I walk

broken right hand

broken left hand

I once mashed my chin on a parking curb

two chipped teeth (one molar, and one of those front teeth [I don’t know what you call them]

a cracked tailbone

permanent nerve damage in my right shin (that’s ok though, i don’t feel anything there anymore)

Yes, I still skateboard.

The MOST painful? An ear infection I had when I was five.

78

A broken heart.

That was the greatest pain I ever felt in my entire life.

79

Definitely ear infections and a burst eardrum.

Close second would be rupturing a disc in my back.

80

Another migraine sufferer. The thing that amazes me about mine is they come on full force, make me so sick I can’t even keep my head up, and then disappear like a bubble popping.

I once got a very absessed tooth late Saturday afternoon. Of course, my extremely good dentist is closed at that time. The paint got worse and worse, and the only thing that helped was boiling hot liquid on the tooth.

I laid down on my couch, waiting for my neighbor to come in so she could take me to the hospital. When I heard her, I went to look at the clock on the table and banged that side of my jaw on the couch arm. The pain show up through my head. I grabbed the site and starting running up and down my two room apartment, finally ending up on the floormat unable to get up. The next thing I knew, I woke up at 4:00 in the morning.

When I hit the side of my face, the absess broke and drained!

I’ve also broken my tailbone and had a three month long ear and neck infection (which I finally cured by pouring alcohol down my ear). That was fun, too.