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

In My Humble Opinion
101

I get attacks all the time. Do I get a medal?

Stuff that has happened to people in my family

My mom once said the worst pain she ever felt, outside childbirth, was when she was doing some needlepoint in front of the TV. A commercial for a local ski resort came on, and she watched, fascinated, then said excitedly, “Damn, I want to go skiing again!” and slammed her hand on the endtable for emphasis. Actually, what she really said was, “Damn, I want URK!” because she forgot to put the needle down before making the gesture. It went straight into her palm and lodged in the bone. All the way into the marrow.

My uncle (mom’s brother) was an avid thrill-seeker when he was younger (still is, in some ways). His most severe bicycling incident happened when he was screaming down a long hill at top speed. His front tire went into a storm drain (ever notice how the long slots in those drain covers are exactly the same width as a ten-speed tire?), which meant (1) the bicycle came to an immediate stop while (2) the front end dropped several inches. Cumulative effect: He was literally launched from the bike. He didn’t tumble over, or anything; rather, like a human cannonball, he sailed in a nice arc, headfirst, for a car length and a half. Then he hit the ground and slid on his bare chest on the gravel road for another couple of car lengths. The doctors spent hours picking gravel out from under his skin.

Stuff that happened to me

During one high school softball game, I came barreling around third, heading for home. Trouble was, it was a temporary playing field, meaning the base paths were the same grass as everywhere else, instead of dirt. Plus the backstop was one of those rickety chain-link arcs you move around with the tractor, and had big pipes welded to the bottom of the frame, sticking out along the ground to keep it upright. So I go to slide, and on the wet grass, I zip clean across the plate and into the backstop. Only trouble was, I came in straddling one of the backstop feet, and nailed myself in the nads on the end of the pipe.

That was the worst pain I ever felt, until…

At the age of 19, I learned I suffer from chronic pneumothorax. That means my lungs used to collapse on a regular basis, and still threaten to occasionally. (It’s related to the pleurisy, apparently.) My left one did this several times in a few months, necessitating an escalating series of surgical remedies. The (so far) last one, eleven years ago, involved removing part of my lung. They made a huge incision on my back, broke out one of my ribs, and otherwise made enough surgical room that they could physically get the lung partly out of my body. I spent two days in intensive care, and there wasn’t enough morphine in the world to dull the agony. After that, I went to standard recovery, and I basically laid there and cried for the rest of the week. Constant, unremitting, irreducible pain for every waking minute over several straight days. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

102

I have twice been hit in the throat with a foul tipped baseball (I was, and still am, really, a catcher). It was a relatively short term pain, 30 minutes or so, but during that time I felt as if every vital organ was shutting down on me. It took what seemed to be 5 minutes before I could even draw a breath, and when I finally did it felt as if I had sucked ice chips directly into my lungs, causing them to refuse any more oxygen. Those hang down flaps you see catchers wearing aren’t worth a shit on a direct hit. Neither are cups, for that matter, but that’s only the second worst pain…

103

For pure pain, when my poor woofer accidentally clawed my left eye–around Christmas last year. (My fault: we were snuggling; she tried to pat my face and missed.)

At first it was sting-and-water, but nothing outrageous. But by the next day it was the most incessant agony I’ve ever felt. Open or closed, it felt like a razor was being drawn across the front of my eye–and nothing even dulled the pain. (The drops from the emergency room doc didn’t help much.)

Fortunately my eye doc hustled me in, gave me drops to combat infection and mute the pain. Went in every day for 2 weeks–including Christmas day, for those cynical about doctors–to monitor the healing. It healed fine, but it was the absolute worst, pervasive, debilitating pain I’ve ever felt.

Veb

104

A friend of mine was playing outside with her friends when she was little-and fell against a tree. She got a STICK in her NECK. She said it was in there so tightly, it didn’t even bleed.
Her mother nearly had a heartattack when she saw her.

105

Labor.

106

:: Jodi kisses her rarely-dislocating left knee in gratitude and skips off down the hallway. ::

107

Three things for three durations:

Most painful moment, period:
I burned a plastic cup and part of the flaming liquid plastic dripped on my skin and had a chance to fuse to it as it burned the hell out of my hand. Small, 1cm burn, but damn that thing hurt like hell. The really bad pain only lasted about 8 seconds, but it was enough. This was about oh, 6 or 7 years ago. I was in high school.

Most painful 5 minutes:
I fell off a 10 speed when I was about 9 or 10. It was way too big for me, and I was riding fast, standing up so I could pump faster, and my feet slipped off the pedals. From standing to crotch on bar. I could barely walk to the house to fall on the couch in agony.

Most painful extended pain:
Intestinal gastritis. Horrendus sustained abdominal cramping for about a week. We thought it was appendicitis at first. Worst thing was that I had to drink this green slime-like medicine that tasted awful. Ughh…that was when I was about 8 or 9. Haven’t had much pain in a while, though.

Jman

108

Wow, you guys have been through a lot!

I’ll start with my family:
My son rode his bicycle down a dirt hill with, of all things, a concrete culvert at the bottom. You are supposed to turn before you get to the culvert (duh!). He didn’t. He broke both wrists (actually the large bone in the forearm, near the wrists), and busted out two more teeth, for a total of three. He had lost one front tooth already, from a baseball hitting square in the mouth, and was wearing a “flipper”, a removeable fake tooth. He had casts above the elbow for three weeks. It hurt him, but I think the humiliation of Mom having to bathe him, wipe his butt, feed him, do everything for him at 14 years old was worse pain.

My husband had pancreatitis once. This is an inflammation of the pancreas caused (they think) from gallstones “hitting” the pancreas. He was in intensive care for 4 days, with his own little morphine pump. He’s a big tough football player-type guy, and I have never seen him in so much pain. Actually, it was life-threatening, but he was so out of it he didn’t know it till later.

Now for me. The worst would have to be when (as an adult) I had an ear infection, and the doctor wanted to put in a tube. I agreed, eager to get rid of the pain. He put anaesthetic drops in and it felt better already. Then he poked a needle or something through the eardrum. There was no anaesthetic on the inside! I screamed and wanted to writhe but he told me not to move for fear of damaging my ear. Jesus that hurt.

Second was when I was 12 and fell off a horse. I braced myself with my left hand, and ended up bending all my fingers backwards and breaking the top knuckles of 3 out of 4 fingers. I also broke my cheekbone in three places. The worst pain was when I had to go to the ER and they wanted to X-ray the hand. They had this little foam rubber stairstep thing and the nurse started to spread my fingers on it. No way! I did it myself, with a lot of sweat and tears.

Third would be labor.

Fourth would be falling off my (13-yr-old) boyfriend’s bike right in front of all the boys playing football in my yard. I hit a bump and landed hard on my chin and split it open. How humiliating, and painful! Hours later I finally convinced my Dad that my jaw was broken and he took me to the emergency room where they wired it shut. Thankfully I had braces that made that easier. Dad felt bad, heh heh. He was the kind of parent who felt you had better be dying to go to the doctor, and he was a dentist!

There’s more, but this is too long already.

109

Oh, Jman reminded me of an incident that I had just successfully put out of my mind. We used to have a microwave/stove vent mounted over the stove. One day I thought that a nice hot bowl of instant grits sounded good. I go to pull the bowl out of the microwave and for some reason it just kept on going past my hands when I turned and landed on my foot. (I’m just so thankful I was the only one in the room.) I was right by the sink so I flung my leg up in the sink and turned on the water. I had no idea I was still so limber. Oh, the agony, the intense fire pain ow. My entire right foot was blistering as I was rinsing the grits off. WHY WON’T THIS WATER GET ANY COLDER?

The scars are starting to fade as well as the fantom pain when I think about the incident.

110

My appendix ruptured last spring. I thought it was indigestion at first, but then I realized it was almost too painful to stand and walk. I was trying to sleep it off and awoke with the shivers. I called the campus cops to give me a lift to the hospital. There were two entrances to my dorm building, and I ended up waiting at the wrong one. I stood there trying to maintain consciousness and warmth for like 10 minutes before I realized the cop would probably drive up to the main entrance. When I got there she was almost leaving and acted put out that I, feverish and nearly unable to stand, hadn’t been waiting outside in the 2:00 AM cold for her.

There was not any one moment when the appendicitis was the most painful thing I could imagine, but the fact that it felt REALLY bad for a period of about 72 hours puts it at the top of my list.

Not looking forward to kidney stones.

111

Ugh… I’m not really sure why I read all that… but since I did, I’ll contribute.

Although I don’t remember this, being born with a dislocated hip was probably painful. I was a few months old before the problem was discovered. Apparently, I was a fussy baby until I was put in what appeared to be a very uncomfortable leg brace and then a cast. My legs stuck out at odd angles, but evidently I was very happy to have my hip relocated.

The most painful thing I remember is the surgery to have the second of two chalazions (chalazia?) removed. A chalazion is sort of like a big sty, and I’ve had two on my left eyelid. They were both removed in the same way: the eye doctor numbed my eyelid, then scraped out whatever it is that causes the problem.

The painful thing wasn’t the scraping. Oh, no. It was the numbing. More precisely, it was the needle in my eyelid. The first time I went through this (I was in elementary school both times), during the injection I kept saying “take it out, take it out, take it out!” However, the second time, I knew what to expect. I screamed at the top of my lungs for the duration of the injection. Afterwards, the ears of everyone in the room were ringing. I wonder if there was a stampede out of the doctor’s waiting room after that!

112

of having a thyroid biopsy done. The anesthesia part was what reminded me… they had to numb my neck before they could insert this HUGE needle in. Numbing my neck (novocaine) felt like they’d just lit up a blow torch and applied it to the skin for a few minutes - I was kind of surprised that my skin didn’t blister in automatic reaction to the sensation. Oh, and then they insert the biopsy needle (size of a small knitting needle) and turns out that the novocaine HADN’T TAKEN EFFECT YET! Which, of course, I let them know… Wherupon (DUMB ME) they applied another blow torch to my neck! I wanted to pant from that pain, but they didn’t want me moving while the other needle was still in my neck.

Still didn’t beat the broken ankle, because that hurt like hell on wheels for days, and then hurt like hell for another week. But for short intense pain, novocaine in high-nerve areas is not fun.

And let me just say OW OW OW OW OW for everyone else’s painful moments. Can’t imagine why I read this whole damn thread, wincing and yelping all the way through! Except it makes me thankful for the pains I have avoided (did that make sense?)

113

I’ve had two children and frankly,thanks to the joys of an epidural, it was a breeze. (The first time I thought was cake until the second time, which really WAS cake and made the first time look like it was really bad.)

What’s the old saying, " Sticks and stones may break my bones, but paper cuts hurt the most."

I couldn’t agree more.

(I want you folks to know that I just blanched at reading some of your posts. Yikes, you guys and gals are an ER episode waiting to be filmed.)

114

This is not my contribution, but I felt her pain. One of my friends young kids (around seven) was running with a stick and tripped. The stick went in to her mouth and gouged along the roof of her mouth, resulting in a deep crevice that, one milimetre to the left would have pierced in to her sinus. Ouch.

For me I have:

  • Had a deep, large sliver removed from below my thumbnail

  • Wisdom teeth removal that resulted in being unable to physically close my mouth due to swelling. Then three dyas later, the joys of dry sockets and bone being exposed

-Appendix being removed whilst suffering menstrual cramps, a regular plethora of joys

-Migraines. Terrible nauseating, debilitating migraines. The worst is my bf says he gets them too, but then says no he doesn’t want anything for it because “He doesn’t neet it. He can handle pain.” I figured from that point he doesn’t get them, I would take a hammer between the eyes if I thought it would help.

-I broke and dislocated my baby toe. Nothing compared to takeing my sock off and looking at that poor little appendage, facing the wrong way and rapidly turning bright blue.

  • Bit through my cheek when I was younger. Don’t remember much though.

-Had some cells removed froma swollen lymph gland on my neck. YOW!

115

Far out! I have those things occasionally… I had one, quite large, inside my lower lid… the doctor said I could apply heat and try to get it out, and I finally did. He told me about the surgery thing.

Of course, no one had ever heard of the things, and were like, ‘now what did you say you had?’

I stopped using any moisturizer around my eyes, and so far no more have shown up. I guess I’ll just have to have the wrinkles after reading about the surgery! Yuck!!!

116

Due to my allergies, whenever I’m in a plane that is landing I get severe sinus pressure. Severe pain right above my left eye. I have to put my head down and sometimes stamp my feet to try and get my mind away from the pain. That’s the only pain that’s ever made me cry (as in eyes watering and out of breath after it finally subsides a little from holding in the screams I want to let loose).

Now I take some sinus medication with me on every flight and take it an hour before landing. Helps immensely, though I still feel some slight discomfort.

117

The most excruciating (short term) pain I’ve ever felt, was a severe ear infection that ruptured/eroded my eardrum. It came on suddenly and the intense pressure and left me incapacitated. I was rather embarrassed after the fact, at needing to be driven to the clinic by my mother when I was 23 years old. The worst thing is that I was susceptible to these infections in my left ear, and used to get a pretty bad one about every other year. Thankfully the one when I was 23 was the worst. A close second was smashing up my left knee while simultaneously breaking my right thumb and wrist in a hockey game. Sounds bad, but I actually didn’t realize I had done anything to the thumb and wrist for quite a few minutes until the knee pain subsided somewhat.

The most nauseating (long term) pain I’ve felt, was the result of a severe hematoma in my right thigh (another hockey injury). After a couple of days, and for the next week, it felt like someone had inserted 60 grit sandpaper between the muscle layers in my thigh. A close second was the large “all over” bruise I received during a motorcycle race as a result of hitting some oil on the track at well over 70 mph and “rag dolling” across the track. Just thankful nothing was broken (on me). Can’t say the same for the bike.

Now that I am older I seldom break any bones. Now I seem to have bad luck with teeth and puncture wounds (mountain biking).
If I wasn’t unlucky, I’d have no luck at all!

118

Okay, you know how the roof of you mouth kind of dips down in the center. Well, when I was eight years old I was playing this cheap wooden flute thing, and I wasn’t watching where I was going, (in my typical eight year old manner) and I walked into a closed door. The pointy part of the flute slammed into that dip in my mouth and basically peeled off the roof of my mouth. Oh my god it hurt!!! I still flich thinking about it. OOWWW!!!

119

This is localized pain, and as such may not compete with some of your overall body traumas, but I have the most vivid memories of it. So maybe it counts after all.

About 3 years ago, my Dad and I were carrying a big, boxy cabinet outside. When we started down a long flight of stairs, one of the doors swung open and the hinge caught three of my fingers in the most painful, agonizing death grip I’ve ever felt. I screamed and screamed, saw stars, felt hot and cold shivers up my spine, etc. Dad wanted to know what was wrong, I couldn’t stop screaming to tell him, and I could not change my grip nor put the cabinet down, since we were on stairs. We also couldn’t back up really well. I finally gasped out “Don’t Stop! Move!” and had to go down all those stairs with my fingers still pinched in that damn hinge. YOU try placing feet carefully so as not to fall down a flight of stairs when you’re in that kind of physical pain.

Of course, judging from these posts, I’m sure there’s a “been there, done that” response coming…

120

I experience something similar, though I don’t know if it’s due to allergies. During landings, the back of my head feels like it’s going to explode. At those times, I really wish it would. No amount of ear-popping helps. Sometimes, it can be a couple of hours after landing that the pain finally goes away.

This troubles me, since I have to fly to Phoenix, AZ on Monday. I am dreading the experience (of course, it doesn’t help that I’m afraid of flying in the first place) :frowning: