I've had two kids, both ending in emergency c-sections after many hours of painful labour.
A few months after my second was born I got kidney stones. And that pain completely erased any conception of pain I had up to that point. Paralyzing, terrifying, unrelenting. It fucking sucks.
Oh good. So I wasn't overly dramatic as I broke down to the floor, crawled to the toilet and threw up from the pain when I had one? That had to be the worst physical pain of my life. Hope I never feel this again.
No. Literally everyone I talked to in the hospital when I was in for my few all said the same thing, it'll take even the biggest, baddest, meanest guy out there to his knees in tears. Until someone has experienced one themselves, it's impossible to describe, but I understand EXACTLY what you went through. I have no shame in admitting I cried. I'm pretty good with pain, I'm the weirdo who literally enjoys the feeling of being tattooed.
I just s suspected stone stick in the urinary canal two years ago. Damnnnnnn. First time I literally was sweating from the pain.
Still don't know where the fucker went, I never got the satisfying clink as it hits the porcelain.
I pay a lot more attention to my water consumption since...
I had bad effects of them for several years. My dad did too at similar age. The consultants thought they could pass by themselves as small enough but got stuck in ureter and had to be pulled out. Ive had two years free of them since then but every now and then get warning signs.
I don't think mine were as bad as some people, I was never floored to the ground but have witnessed others curled up on floor with them. Having said that it's still the worst pain I've had and it was not just the pain it was that there was no relief, it was just constant wave after wave of it with no let up, no position to move or lie in to make it stop. It turned my stomach.
The day I had them take out, peeing afterwards was a horrible burning and stinging blood filled tomato soup of a thing that went on for a couple days as healed but despite that I was delighted that the real pain was gone.
Is there any real solution to not get them again? I just try to drink lots of water, watch weight, and keep eye on salt intake. I've heard fizzy drinks and cola are bad but despite seeing a number of doctors I never got any other advise outside of the above. I had hoped they would test the stone so would know it's make up they took out but they lost it!
I still live in fear of them and sadly suspect I will get them again.
Same with me. I felt ill overnight, and if I sipped a tiny bit of water, I would throw it up moments later, still cold. I tried to ride it out until morning, but the pain was so severe I had my wife take me to the ER.
I was embarrassed at how much I was vocalizing at the ER, but it was like nothing else I've ever been through. I've broken off almost a whole toenail, and that was nothing.
Same. I had my first one when I was in another country (fortunately, my wife was from said country and I was covered under her insurance, 'merica!). I thought I had to pee really bad, and the feeling never went away. And within minutes I was on the floor in a ball with tears in my eyes. Because of the way military insurance worked, we had to get approval from the post doctor, who originally told us it'd pass. He called back within minutes and said "yeah no, that's an emergency, get to the hospital now."
That was the day I learned how people get addicted to Vicodin (I didn't, I just realized how great they felt).
Anyway, I've had 12 more since, that I know of. Lots of people form stones that cause no pain. I've had surgery for 4 of them, the rest I just took meds to help pass them faster.
Actually passing the stone from your bladder to cursed "birth" is the easy part, I always say. It's over in a second. The problem ones are when they get stuck in the ureter. One of mine actually got me bumped ahead of a guy having a heart attack. Not sure how that worked. Another one resulted in an infection around a stent, which then likes to move, and feels like a mega-kidney-stone. From what I understand, the doctor who saw me that day was going to escalate because of the total lack of medication they sent me home with (nothing for infection, and a handful of Tylenol 3. For reference, it took 10mg of morphine to effectively manage the pain).
Anyway yeah, kidney stones are literally the worst. My aunt has had 4 kids, and gets stones like I do, and has said repeatedly that she'd rather have more kids. That's pretty damning.
About a year back or so, I had a double epidural injection into my spine to relieve pain from pinched nerves/messed-up discs. They stuck two needles into this deep source of pain in my spine that nothing had ever touched so directly. It was indescribably awful. I still cringe and can imagine the pain when I think of it. I don't think I'd do it again without being put under.
Extreme gallbladder attack. I'd gone through a few in the months prior, and while excruciating, I wouldn't call unbearable. The last one though? The one that put me in hospital and required emergency surgery that day due to risk of rupture? Yeah. I've never felt pain like it. I've been stabbed and had kidney stones before. I'd rather get stabbed and have kidney stones again than EVER feel the level of pain that rotting, inflamed, shard-filled organ put me through (and kidney stones were fucking BAD.) I'm a 31 year old 6ft1" man, and this thing had me writhing on the floor in pain for hours before my wife forced me into the passenger seat of the car and rushed me to the ER.
I later found out that the 'food poisoning' I was hospitalized for around 5 years earlier was actually a gallbladder issue, and the hospital never told me. Basically, this fucking thing had been slowly rotting inside me for 5 years and I had no idea until it almost killed me out of nowhere. I'm still extremely fucking angry about it.
I had a very similar situation, aside from the stabbing part. Emergency surgery after about a week of pain cuz no one could figure out what was wrong.
Funny thing is my grandmother in law called it correctly on day one.
Blew myself up (long story) and the damaged skin had to be abraded (scrubbed) off of my arms. It’s quite amazing how many nerve endings you have in your skin and how angry your brain gets when the skin is torn off bit by bit. Your brain is similarly unhappy when there is no skin covering your insides.
I believe they gave me fentanyl for the pain. I don’t remember exactly, except it was iirc fairly new at the time (1997), administered in microgram doses, and one nurses job during the procedure was just to ensure that I didn’t stop breathing.
Yeah no thank you... glad you only partially blew yourself up!!!
Same.
I was standing in my kitchen with a chef's knife trying to work out just how to position everything. I didn't think I could get a good angle on it. Then I stopped and went to ask Wikipedia if people can live without a big toe.
Wikipedia told me that without a hallux you'll walk funny. And between having an unwillingness to walk funny and not being able to figure out how to actually take the swing, I ended up calling someone to take me to an ER.
It's a little embarrassing to be complaining so much about "Ow. My big toe hurts." but holy shit that pain is real.
My worst ever is a gout flare that I got in my knee once. That's when I discovered I don't like morphine.
But yeah, I've had sciatic issues associated with spinal disease, a three-hour tooth extraction, a section of flayed skin. All of that doesn't compare to gout.
When a stone had my gallbladder blocked to the degree that they rushed me into emergency surgery when they saw it on a CT and it ruptured before they could remove it.
I have a very high pain tolerance and I couldn’t do pretty much anything but curl into a reverse ball and grit out a few words. They gave me as much morphine as is medically allowed and it did almost nothing. Dilaudid works though, not gonna lie lol, that finally helped until they put me under.
What’s funny is the memory of the pain has faded away somewhat, what I feel like I’ll remember on my deathbed is the sheer clarity of relief I felt when I woke up after surgery. I can’t describe how good that felt…
Burst ovarian cyst.
It's the only time I've literally felt like vomiting from pain. I went to the ER, waited for hours and went through a bunch of tests for them to tell me they couldn't really do anything and that it would feel better over the next few days. $12k bill came in the mail a few weeks later.
Same here. I think they gave me antibiotics, but other than that just said it happens sometimes and sent me to curl up in a ball in the comfort of my own home. It really does feel like what it is, just something bursting inside your body. Not great!
I had bursitis crop up in both my shoulders at once. The inflammation was so bad I couldn't lift my arms, and the pain when I forced it was horrible.
Then one day I was climbing a short ladder to a loft. The ladder slipped and I caught myself on the ledge. Yay? Nay.
I lay curled up on the floor in agony, not even noticing that I'd deeply cut my shin...literally didn't know. I've got a deep divot in the bone there still, but all I could think about was not vomiting on myself from the pain in my shoulders.
The docs had tried to put me through physical therapy to deal with the bursitis up to this point, and the day after the fall I told them to fuck off and give me cortisone shots. I went from crippled to cured in 2 minutes. Sometimes it's worth it, y'all.
When I came out of a two-hour knee surgery. It was exploratory to see if I needed a major knee surgery (I did), and when I woke up, I was in so much pain I literally went into shock - I remember waking up, then excruciating, mind-numbing pain, instantly being freezing cold and starting to shiver uncontrollably (which made the knee pain WORSE), and the nurses rushing me to the recovery room then covering me with blankets and constantly checking my temperature.
For my second knee surgery, they gave me an epidural beforehand.
That was before I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which can cause anesthesia not to work properly. I’ve actually had an anesthesiologist write a medical paper on me after I had a surgery. I’m guessing my reaction to anesthesia is odd, which is why time coming out of my first surgery was hell.
I had to get my pointer finger frozen to stitch the nail back together. Fingers don't freeze like teeth. When they stuck the needle in to freeze it, it felt like someone grabbed my cuticle and ripped it back to my palm.
I have chronic pancreatitis. Some of the worst attacks were beyond imagination almost. Dilaudid is the only thing that helps and I've still been screaming in pain with it.
Same here. Aside from one of the injections (brief stinging/pinching pain in the roof of my mouth), the entire process was painless and I didn’t even need painkillers afterwards.
That said, I can see how there’s a lot of room for different experiences between countries, different orthodontists/dentists, and even between individual patients depending on which tooth and how bad the decay was.
Not OP but the dentist thought the nerve was dead so didn't bother. It's one of my clearest childhood memories from more than 40 yrs ago and was the worst for me until about 10 yrs ago.
I've had too many of them, and yeah, they were mostly easier to sit through than a routine cleaning. It's definitely the kind of work where it's worth going to that small practice that ONLY does endodontics though. Nothing against the regular dentists, they just have a lot on their plates, and generally don't have the same perfectionist attitude about it when they have a schedule packed with all different types of work.
Testicular torsion. It felt like I was being kicked in the balls every time my heart beat. It was my senior year of college and I was home for the weekend, but my parents were gone and I didn't think I could drive myself to the hospital. Luckily my uncle was around to take me. I dry heaved out the passenger window the entire drive there.
I had barely gotten into the room when the doctor came in and helped me strip down, then proceeded to do what he called the "open book maneuver", wherein he rotated my testicles to remove the twist. The relief was instantaneous, like my balls had been released from a vice grip. Luckily no permanent damage was done, but an ultrasound confirmed that I'd need surgery to prevent future torsions, which I had during spring break... yay.
It took me 4 different urologists to properly diagnose this. I had it for YEARS. Every single time it happened I thought I was going to die. The only thing I could do was lay down on a hard flat surface (usually the floor wherever I happened to be at that time) and just let it pass with lots of heavy breathing and silent crying. I basically was immobile, couldn't even move without getting super light headed and felt like passing out.
Once I finally found a dr that properly diagnosed it, he taught me the open book trick and MY GOD what a difference. He is also the same one that did the surgery, and it's been many years now without an instance. Life changing.
Torsion is seriously no joke.
Might not be that bad compared to others issues here but has anyone experienced a gout flare up?! Not cool, not cool at all.
Testicular torsion.
I had a bulging disc and one day I was laying on the couch and sneezed. I felt this pop in my back and the pain was indescribable. I started helplessly crying and yelling for help. After waiting in pain for 20 minutes, my gf brought me to the ER where I cried in the lobby for 8 hours straight waiting to be seen.
Turns out I herniated my disc. I went to PT for 6 months and have slight nerve damage to this day. Funny enough a new latex mattress saved me. I live pain free every day when before that was unthinkable.
For me pain is multidimensional, there’s different kinds of “worst.” The short drop onto a hospital bed after surgery was by far the strongest, sharpest, brightest pain I ever felt, but it only lasted a millisecond. Kidney stones can be sharp and radiating, but the pain tends to be localized with ebbs and flows. Pancreatitis was not as “sharp” as a kidney stone, but it was bigger, harder to tolerate, more attention consuming, and came with aweful nausea.
I had a bad hip for years. It was quite painful. I never got it looked at because I was really, really, busy. life slowed down a bunch, and even though my hip wasn't that bad, I went to a physio to get it fixed up finally. She did dry needling in my back, and made my entire lower back and hip nothing but agony. To the point where I was hunched over while walking. I kept going back, since the onset of the pain was delayed by a few days, and It took me a while to figure it out. It made for a really crappy spring this year.
Thankfully, a massage therapist saved me from purgatory, and released the tight hip flexors so they could heal up, and I'm way better than I was before.
I don't have hip issues (yet) but I'm entering the age group where I'm definitely noticing a lot of my body I didn't think about until it started hurting... life is good though, glad you're feeling a bit better!!!
Damn! I hope the healing gets better
Waking up in the post-op recovery area after having my gallbladder removed. Immediate intense pain so sharp I couldn't breathe. The nurse asked me if I was in pain and i couldn't speak I had to just nod vigorously, panic setting in.
Morphine kicked in and I was out cold again.
Flipped over the front of my bike as a kid and knocked my two front teeth out. But it wasn't that part that hurt. It was when the dentist shoved them back into the hole. I about levitated out of the chair out of sheer pain.
I have a chronic illness that can cause a lot of pain. Specifically, I have had to go to the ER several times because I legitimately thought my appendix was about to burst. (It wasn't, but the doctors still told me it was good I had come in.)
I thought that was the worst pain(s) I had ever experienced. Then I had a kidney stone. My god. Gonna go hydrate now.
I stabbed myself in that soft spot on the hand, between the thumb and the finger you point with. That wasn't the painful part. I had to get stitches, they said the anesthesia injection would hurt as much as just having the stitches, so I agreed to do it without any anesthesia/painkiller or whatever you call those injections to numb the area.
That is the worst pain I've ever felt and I had to feel it twice, because as soon as I left the hospital, I let the hand hang down my side and the blood rushing there caused the stitch to loosen and blood to run out, so I went back inside and they grabbed both ends of the knot on the stitch with pliers and pulled to tighten them. That hurt so much that I actually made a little girly yelp that I've never heard myself make before or after.
Maybe I'm a wuss?
The anesthesia does hurt quite a bit, probably that bad. But what they neglected to mention, the pain is only about 5 seconds. Sounds like you had more than 5 seconds of pain.
Real bad tooth infection. Hurt so bad I couldn't sleep, just constant indescribable pain for 14+ hours that you cannot numb with OTC products until I could get in to the emergency dentist appointment. Genuinely would not wish it on my worst enemy.
Second place would be getting tattooed on the elbow ditch. It hurt about as much as above, but didn't last nearly as long.
I'm suffering from migraines. Sometimes it feels like the new universe is being born inside of my skull. I'm cold and hot, I can't move and I can't open my eyes. I'm in an absolute darkness and it feels too bright. It's most likely the worst.
I have scoliosis, and it was not noticed when I joined the USA military. Then, during a training exercise, I fell down a flight of stairs while carrying >100 lbs of gear.
After medical and a discharge, I was at home and I stood up from my couch only to hear a loud crack and suddenly realized that when people see stars they LITERALLY see stars
My lower back felt like someone had jammed a needle between two vertebrae, and I could see pulsating waves of red and blue over my vision. 0/10, do not recommend. Don't join the military 👍
I get migraines, so I’m weirdly used to high levels of pain. I had one migraine so bad I vomited, fell asleep for about 6 hours, then woke up and kept vomiting uncontrollably. Ended up in the ER because I was puking straight bile. But as far as pain goes, not the worst.
When I was pregnant, they had to induce me. They try to keep you off an epidural as long as possible, but I was having contractions every 5 minutes while 0% dilated. Hurt like a bitch, and they wouldn’t let me lay in any comfortable position because the heart rate monitor wouldn’t register. But that wasn’t the worst.
I had a kidney stone impact in the lower part of my ureter. They had gone in to remove it but couldn’t because it was impacted and infected. So they placed a stent. The doctor said I must have been in a lot of pain before surgery. Didn’t feel a THING. The next day I felt fine. Went to work (desk job). Came home and laid on the couch. Over the course of an hour I started shivering uncontrollably and spiked a massive fever. I developed sepsis. I was in the hospital for 5 days. Still wasn’t the worst.
No, the worst was my third kidney stone which was apparently caught on scar tissue in my ureter. I was in so much pain I couldn’t think. I couldn’t answer questions. I couldn’t do anything.
It's not very exciting, but sinusitis. Three weeks in bed, unable to do anything to distract myself because moving/light/sound made it worse, sobbing from the pain despite maxing out on painkillers. Felt like my brain was trying to crawl out of my eye socket.
I’ve lived a life mercifully free of pain, but one notable exception was after my weight loss surgery, when referred gas pain near my shoulder made it feel like someone was taking pruning shears to my clavicle. Once they figured out what was going on, some simethicone chased it away pretty quickly. I never would’ve guessed mere gas could hurt like that.
I stepped on a stingray while swimming in the ocean when I was 16. Felt like a thick needle I'm my foot. 10 mins later I could feel the venom crawling up my leg. Like a charlie horse you couldn't work out, throbbing pain creeping up my foot, to my calf, into my thigh.
Got to sit in the lifeguard station, where they have you stick your foot into a bucket of hot water. As hot as you can stand to draw the venom out. Sat in the water for 2hrs before I could walk again.
Only good thing, got taken care of by cute Jr lifeguards.
9/10 wouldn't recommend. Lol
I relate to that, needles in the palate/gums is no fun...
My most painful experience though was when my kneecap dislocated and stuck to the side of my leg. Happened twice in my life. The first time when I was ice skating and the second just climbing stairs. Had to take an ambulance trip to the hospital :/
Close tie between getting shot close range on my hand and my lower-back hernia that burst while I was doing a squat with weight on my back.
I'm currently laid up in bed with some kind of sciatica thing. Not too bad when I'm lying down, but burning agony when I walk.
Still don't think it's the worst I've had, that would probably be when my gall bladder flared up. Couldn't inhale without stabbing pain in my side.
I had a pilonidal cyst that was pretty severe. I would feeder dream from the pain meds and pain about being shot in the head to end the pain.
Same as you OP but, it was in my lady bits, not my mouth. Gotta love when glands don't function properly and decide to get blocked. I screamed so loud, the kid across the hall started crying.
I had a pulmonary embolism about 2 years ago, absolutely awful. The fun part was after I went home from the hospital and coughed up a blood clot.
Back in the military, dental was covered. So I went with removal of 4 wisdom teeth - both sides, top and bottom. I was numbed for it, but the recovery for the next 4 days as brutal. 10/10 mindbending pain.
And all they gave me was Tylenol.
Oh they gave me vicodin when I had it done in the military... I remember trying to eat some ramen after a day or something and the pain with not even really chewing but trying to get the noodles down was ridiculous
Appendicitis is the worst pain I've ever experienced. The three-ish hours from when the pain first started to when I got in the ambulance were horrific!
I was vomiting near constantly, to the point where I'd thrown up my stomach lining. I had complete tunnel vision, everything was black except the very centre of my field of view. I felt feverish, I sweat all over. Not to mention the physical pain. It was torture I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemy.
When the IV painkillers finally took effect, it was a relief I'd never known before. If I remember correctly I actually fell asleep for a bit, likely due to exhaustion from earlier.
I later learnt it'd gone septic too - scary stuf - but luckily some strong antibiotics and a surgery later, I was much better off. That experience only served to renew my appreciation for the NHS fir sure.
I've suffered from migraines since I was a kid, though thankfully not as frequently as some people. If I can catch it early enough with medication (I'm lucky one works for me) it's not the end of the world.
The few times I haven't been able to get the meds have been the absolute worst pain. 10/10 pain scale, everything hurts, every nerve on fire. Not only is your entire body protesting its existence while someone is jamming a spike into your eye and wiggling it around while someone else is splitting your skull open with a something dull, but everything external causes extra pain. Lights hurt, sounds hurt, smells hurt whatever that means. It's the only time I've been suicidal if it meant ending the pain.
When someone tells you "Oh, I've had migraines they're not that bad I just try to ignore it" no, they've had a headache. Migraines leave you sobbing in a dark room hoping you die sooner than later. Do not recommend.
Aftermath of a seizure and car accident. First caused the second within seconds. The seizure pulled every muscle I had and some I didn't even know I had. The wreck caused a nasty concussion, messed up a vertebra in my back, and the resulting brain damage is still affecting me 6 years later.
I'd like to tell you, but if I try to remember my brain stupids and I can't function the rest of the day. Surgery with insufficient local anesthesia is as close as I can get to the memory.
A few years back I went through what could be referred to as a severe mental health crisis. During that time, I'm not sure what exactly it was - but for whatever reason I didn't want to be able to hear anymore. I think it might have been this warped logic that is I couldn't communicate with people, I could distance myself from everyone and shut myself off more or less. So I started going to an indoor firing range in my area, then I would take off the hearing protection while shooting. I know it's incredibly dumb, but I just wasn't thinking straight at all.
Eventually, this just wasn't enough so I turned to trying to blow out my eardrums. I bought an air compressor and got an attachment that could fit in my ear. I tried doing it a few times, but it just wasn't working how I imagined. So the last thing I did was buy one of those digital otoscopes. I mounted a needle on it and then used that to physically poke holes in my eardrums. Again, I'm aware at how crazy this all was. But to take it further I faked having an ear infection for a virtual urgent care appointment, then made up this story about this being common growing and Neomycin something that worked for me.
So they gave me a prescription for that, and for those who don't know - Neomycin can cause permanent hearing loss if it comes into contact with your inner ear, which the eardrums protect. So using this little poker, made holes in my eardrums and then poured in the Neomycin, then used my hands to create pressure that would push it through the perforations. I will never forget the pain of those drops coming into contact with my inner ear. I've been through a lot, but that was a 10/10 and I nearly threw up each time. Looking back is easy to see how unhinged it was, but at the time it all made sense
I broke my leg when I was a kid. When my family was helping me to the car, I put weight on that broken leg out of instinct of... y'know, how I'd been walking up 'til that afternoon.
It was like a lightning bolt shot through my leg, mind-numbing amounts of pain.
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Kidney stones. I've passed three of them and the last time my wife called an ambulance because I couldn't get off the floor. Think I'll go drink some water...
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