ITT: The worst physical pain you've ever experienced

I haven't broken anything yet. But I occasionally get sharp shooting pain in my knees without an apparent cause. The pain was so severe last time that I dropped to my knees. It went away after about 15 seconds.

This one time I couldn't log onto Styleforum....

Actually, the last lacrosse game of my senior year in highschool I got hit in the ribs. It was an intensly sharp pain when I inhaled or exhaled. There happened to be a doctor there and he said that it wasn't broken but it hurt too much to go back in (still regret that). It continued to hurt off and on whenever I got hit there during my college career for the next 5 years.

Ohyeah, sometimes my left knee will painfully lock into place if I kneel or squat awkwardly.

I twisted my ankle once and it hurted like a sumabitch

Originally Posted by brlfvr

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F**cking kidney stones, period.

Amen. I would equate it to someone stabbing me in the lower back and lifting me off the ground with the knife.

I have to distinguish here between purely "physical" pain and pain that's accompanied by psychological horror - they're a bit different.

The worst physical pain I've experienced was in college - I was clowning around (as college students are wont to do) and I fell about six feet from a platform and landed, with all my weight, on the side of my left foot, so that it sort of folded and I could feel this succession of rips and pops along the side of my lower leg. I was totally incapacitated with pain - like, no amount of grim, heroic masculinity was going to prevent me from screaming like a little tortured kitten. It took me about six months to fully recover, and I can now knowingly nod when people say "muscle tears can be worse than breaks."

The worst pain I've experienced in accompaniment with psychological horror? I've had cavities drilled with no anesthetic - worse, this was in a jungle in the Philippines. Think "Marathon Man" except in a jungle tent. I'm not going to bother typing details, because "jungle dentistry with no painkiller" should be enough to convey what I mean by "psychological horror".

DH

PS. Of course any mother who's ever experienced natural childbirth can come and post in this thread and win automatically.

Originally Posted by brlfvr

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F**cking kidney stones, period.

RubeBabe II has had a couple of bouts with these. She is a tough cookie, and seldom shows any emotion, let alone pain, but watching her writhe was enough to make me never want to experience a kidney stone.

Originally Posted by MrG

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My recent bout with dry socket might be the worst pain I've ever felt (though this may be influenced by the fact that it's so recent). It was what I'd imagine a root canal to feel like sans anesthesia. I've heard it compared to child birth more than once. It hurt worse than when I fell on my thumb, dislocated it, and popped it back in on my own.
I think I'm winning here... I'd rate a dry socket, second most pain i've had, 5, at the most vs mine's 10. I was 14 or 15, I was night skiing with one of my friends. Going as fast as I could and hit a nearly invisible "grooming error aka big ice jump" just as the hill started to get steep so I got an enormous amount of air. My friend said I was a good deal above the top of his head. I hit the ground, and rolled for 4-5 seconds. I told my friend I think I broke my leg, and he was like "it doesn't look broken... see what happens if you move it?" and when I tried to move m leg upwards, I noticed a bump forming at the UNDERSIDE of my leg. I realized my leg was entirely spun around. So, I broke my femur, my leg spun around so I cut up lots of the muscles in my legs pretty badly, luckily I didn't hit my femoral artery. And now I'm on top of a hill having to get dragged down, horrible horrible horrible. The bone pain was constant and searing, and the muscle spasms were unbearably painful. Got to the hospital, shot up with loads of morphine, cue 4-5 month recovery period with pain every day and little to no walking. PS I'd be willing to bet this was worse than childbirth... If you haven't broken a bone this large and torn most of your leg muscles at the same time, you just cannot comprehend.

I don't even know what happened I was on my last run down the hill and I ws heaidng to my right when the next thing I know I feel the worst impact I have ever felt. I was to my left and literally wrapped around one of the snow fence posts, sliding into the ditch, the only thing keeping me from falling into the ditch was the post and me bracing my hands against the snow fence. That was the most terrify thing that has ever happend to me. I knew instantly my femur was broken, that is the worst pain, it was worse than childbirth. Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/healt...#ixzz0hog1atrD

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Originally Posted by Listi

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I think I'm winning here... I'd rate a dry socket, second most pain i've had, 5, at the most vs mine's 10.

I was 14 or 15, I was night skiing with one of my friends. Going as fast as I could and hit a nearly invisible "grooming error aka big ice jump" just as the hill started to get steep so I got an enormous amount of air. My friend said I was a good deal above the top of his head. I hit the ground, and rolled for 4-5 seconds. I told my friend I think I broke my leg, and he was like "it doesn't look broken... see what happens if you move it?" and when I tried to move m leg upwards, I noticed a bump forming at the UNDERSIDE of my leg. I realized my leg was entirely spun around.

So, I broke my femur, my leg spun around so I cut up lots of the muscles in my legs pretty badly, luckily I didn't hit my femoral artery. And now I'm on top of a hill having to get dragged down, horrible horrible horrible. The bone pain was constant and searing, and the muscle spasms were unbearably painful. Got to the hospital, shot up with loads of morphine, cue 4-5 month recovery period with pain every day and little to no walking.

PS I'd be willing to bet this was worse than childbirth... If you haven't broken a bone this large and torn most of your leg muscles at the same time, you just cannot comprehend.

Holy crap. This is horrifying. If my pain is second only to this, I can live with that! I can't conceive of something that is twice as painful as the feeling I had when that socket was really hurting.

Gout

I once ruptured my sleen, lacerrated a kidney, broke a couple ribs and punctured a lung all in one fun-filled boating incident. **** sucked, bad. At the time I thought I was gonna be dead within an hour for sure

My stomach ache when my appendix was about to burst. I knew it was bad when it woke me up.

I've got a hangnail. Owwie.

Originally Posted by Listi

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I think I'm winning here... I'd rate a dry socket, second most pain i've had, 5, at the most vs mine's 10.

I was 14 or 15, I was night skiing with one of my friends. Going as fast as I could and hit a nearly invisible "grooming error aka big ice jump" just as the hill started to get steep so I got an enormous amount of air. My friend said I was a good deal above the top of his head. I hit the ground, and rolled for 4-5 seconds. I told my friend I think I broke my leg, and he was like "it doesn't look broken... see what happens if you move it?" and when I tried to move m leg upwards, I noticed a bump forming at the UNDERSIDE of my leg. I realized my leg was entirely spun around.

So, I broke my femur, my leg spun around so I cut up lots of the muscles in my legs pretty badly, luckily I didn't hit my femoral artery. And now I'm on top of a hill having to get dragged down, horrible horrible horrible. The bone pain was constant and searing, and the muscle spasms were unbearably painful. Got to the hospital, shot up with loads of morphine, cue 4-5 month recovery period with pain every day and little to no walking.

PS I'd be willing to bet this was worse than childbirth... If you haven't broken a bone this large and torn most of your leg muscles at the same time, you just cannot comprehend.

I'd like to retract my prior posts. They are quite embarrassing in light of this.

Yeah that probably wins. Yay for skiing accidents. I've had some good ones but thankfully nothing extreme like that.

My worst was getting sand in my inner ear while bodysurfing in a tropical storm in hawaii without realizing it, and then going through the pressure change when the flight home lifted off. Getting nutted is a walk in the park by comparison.