What is the most physical pain you have experienced?

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

The 3-4 day period after my breast surgery. I felt like I was being beat in the chest with a baseball bat.

 

[aristocatz]

My epidural. It was worse than the labor pain!

 

[low-key]

come on now, we all know pain of the broken heart is the worse

 

[lovin'fl]

One was a several day migraine that was so bad I was vomiting, couldn't see properly or lift my head up and I ended up in hospital on IV.

Another was getting a filling. Dentist gave me numbing needle and must have stuck it in nerve as a pain shot up my face and into my eye that was THE worst pain I ever felt. It was a pretty quick pain, unlike the migraine which went on for days, but it was extreme pain. Now I get panicky at the dentist.

I prefer childbirth again over either of those 2.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

I had a wisdom pulled, and the tooth broke off before he got the root out. He sent me from his office to an oral surgeon's office. The novocaine wore off while I was sitting in the PACKED waiting room. The pain was so bad, it was the only time in my adult life that I cried in public. There was no way they were getting me in before the appointments, it was 1 hour of torture. I finally got called backed and the needle they stuck in me to numb me sent me over the edge.

I say this having given birth to 3 children, gall bladder attack, ruptured ovarian cyst, and a rheumatoid arthritis flare that had every joint in my body swelled up and throbbing, that tooth pain took the cake.

 

[javeyloveschelsi]

When I was having my second child via C-section, the dr opted for a spinal tap after my epidural didn’t work so well during the c-section of my oldest. Actually, they had to knock me out after my first arrived because my body was going into shock. Anyway...the anesthesiologist bent the needle for the spinal tap in my spine. It hurt pretty darn bad, but she re-did it again and the c-section went great. However, because she did that, she caused some sort of spinal injury that included air in my spine, so for two weeks straight after having DD #2, I couldn’t move at all and just threw up constantly. It was SO painful, especially after having stomach surgery, to be getting as sick as I was and I’m allergic to most medications as it is, so I got no pain relief and a blood patch would not work with the type of problem I had. If I hadn’t had a newborn, I would have wanted to be taken out back and put down. I’ve had a lot of surgeries and health problems, but that one takes the cake.

 

[sigp228]

Getting Tased.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Another bout of severe pain I had was the day I was in a lumberyard and a gust of wind blew a tiny little sliver of wood into my eye and it lodged under my upper eye lid. The pain was excruciating!

I'd gone to an Urgent Care Center that was close by because the pain was so bad. They were like the Three Stooges there, nobody could figure out what was wrong - they didn't even have a Wood's lamp like my vet does - but they put a dressing on my eye and told me to keep pressure on it.

I couldn't even see (as moving the unaffected eye caused the injured eye to move and each movement was excruciating), so, in agony, I called my primary care office and they sent me into Mass Eye and Ear ER where they turned my eyelid inside out under a microscope and found the culprit splinter. The drops they used were the first bit of relief I had since it happened.

Turned out the worst thing I could've done was put pressure on it, as I was told to do. Grrr. My cornea was all scratched up. That experience taught me a to have a healthy respect for eye pain - Mother Nature knew what she was doing so that we'd take good care of our eyes, they have to last a lifetime.

 

[Snowysmom]

Childbirth and gall bladder attacks were the worst. My knee replacements were a picnic compared to those.

 

[Kellykins1218]

Oh, I totally forgot one. When I was getting my tubes tied, the doctor started cutting me open and I wasn't numb. I remember screaming and then I woke up & it was all over. They had to knock me out to do the surgery.

 

[pahoben]

Childbirt for me.

The worst I've ever witnessed as a nurse: trigeminal neuralgia. It was horrible to see, I hope to never experience anything like that.

I suffered from cluster headaches for 20 years which is a trigeminal neuralgia that lasts for an hour or so several times per day for three weeks or so a couple times per year. Just suck it up and gut it out and at the end of an episode is celebration that you lived through it and wonderful appreciation of pain free life. I am male so don’t know about childbirth but kidney stones are just a mild discomfort in comparison.

Be

 

[becalubob]

With my first born I had back labor. That was the absolute worst pain I ever had; made my next three labors (all without meds) feel like a cakewalk. Passed a kidney stone some years back but I’d put that at a very distant second place compared to my back labor.

 

[ronandannette]

With my first born I had back labor. That was the absolute worst pain I ever had; made my next three labors (all without meds) feel like a cakewalk. Passed a kidney stone some years back but I’d put that at a very distant second place compared to my back labor.

Back-labor resulting in a fractured coccyx and a vacuum extraction delivery all without anesthesia; still gives me nightmares sometimes.

The only time I've ever fainted was when I accidentally ruptured a ganglion cyst on my wrist that was apparently formed around a nerve.

Right now I have bone spurs in both a shoulder and a big toe. Blessedly they only "catch" as a result of very specific motions (which of course I try to avoid) and the pain only last for seconds but it is truly excruciating. I let out an involuntary shriek every time it happens, which is very inopportune at work, when I'm out public or in the middle of the night when the entire household is asleep. It's infrequent but has given me huge compassion for anyone living with high levels of chronic pain.

 

[indimom]

I suffered from cluster headaches for 20 years which is a trigeminal neuralgia that lasts for an hour or so several times per day for three weeks or so a couple times per year. Just suck it up and gut it out and at the end of an episode is celebration that you lived through it and wonderful appreciation of pain free life. I am male so don’t know about childbirth but kidney stones are just a mild discomfort in comparison.

Be

That's what made this patient's experience so horrid, how long it was lasting. The patient had been at the hospital for three days on the night I met them. We were throwing everything at them that we safely could, and the pain was still terrible. They were trying very hard to minimize their respirations, would fall asleep for seconds only to be jarred back awake by involuntarily moving their mouth or head or whatever, would not drink, or allow anyone to moisturize their mouth/lips. We ended up sending them to the icu that night. I can't even imagine suffering like that.

 

[ronandannette]

That's what made this patient's experience so horrid, how long it was lasting. The patient had been at the hospital for three days on the night I met them. We were throwing everything at them that we safely could, and the pain was still terrible. They were trying very hard to minimize their respirations, would fall asleep for seconds only to be jarred back awake by involuntarily moving their mouth or head or whatever, would not drink, or allow anyone to moisturize their mouth/lips. We ended up sending them to the icu that night. I can't even imagine suffering like that.

Question, since I am not very knowledgeable about things like this: In this type of situation could a person not be sedated to the point of unconsciousness so they wouldn't "register" the pain, or does it not work like that? Several cancer patients I've been with have been pretty much kept "out of it" for quite a while by the end and did not seem uncomfortable.

 

[Jaime4004]

I'll go with the majority, childbirth. With child #1 for me, who was sunny side up and pressing on my spine the entire time. I can't believe I had any more children after her. Luckily the other 2 were super easy compared to that, the pain didn't compare.

 

[snappy]

I have had a couple painful procedures/surgeries, including bone marrow tests, natural childbirth after Pitocin, breast cancer surgery. Breast reconstruction wasn’t a walk in the park (flap reconstruction which requires donor tissue from the abdomen), but the only time I remember losing consciousness from pain was when I had a PRP (platelet rich plasma) injection in my shoulder by a orthopedic specialist circa 2010 to treat a small rotator cuff tear. When I fainted, I struck a metal shelving unit next to me in the treatment room. I ended up with frozen shoulder. It took weeks of fairly painful PT that left me in tears to break the adhesions. At least I avoided needing g surgery to repair the rotator cuff tear. Fast forward to now, I think I managed yet another rotator cuff injury in same shoulder. Needless to say I am seeing a different doctor this time.

 

[Feralpeg]

Chest wall resection. Unfortunately, the surgeon had to remove so much tissue that I am stretched too thin. I cannot lift my arm over my shoulder level. I have continuous pain in my left side. But...I'm alive!

 

[Feralpeg]

I had a spinal tap in 2017. The procedure itself doesn't hurt but they warned me I might get a little headache afterwards. OH MY GOD... a few hours later I was in fetal position. It felt like a hot poker stabbing me in the brain every time I stood up. I had to lay flat on my back for a couple days until it subsided.

You needed a blood patch. I had the same thing occur after a spinal tap. If the tap results in a slow leak of spinal fluid, it throws everything off and results in a terrible headache. Oddly, you feel fine laying flat. Stand up and it feels like you head's coming off. I went back to the hospital where they drew some blood and inserted it at the location of the tap. The pain stopped almost immediately.

 

[indimom]

Question, since I am not very knowledgeable about things like this: In this type of situation could a person not be sedated to the point of unconsciousness so they wouldn't "register" the pain, or does it not work like that? Several cancer patients I've been with have been pretty much kept "out of it" for quite a while by the end and did not seem uncomfortable.

Sedation alone wouldn't necessarily help, although it does have pain relieving properties. Patients in the ICU who are sedated do still need to be evaluated for pain and receive pain medication to manage symptoms. I can't say for certain what the treatment plan was once the patient was sent over, but I suspect sedation was part of the plan.