the most acute physical pain you've ever experienced

actually I did have toothache once randomly. No idea why, my teeth are fine </British> and it never happened again, but jesus fuck that hurt

felt like he was pulling about 2-3 feet of vas deferens out and winding it around some chopsticks before actually cutting it

https://i.imgur.com/deMiXWm.gif

Has anyone here boxed or done mma or the like? Blows to the liver can be absolutely devastating. The pain takes a couple of seconds to kick in, but once it does, you just collapse and want to die.

I have no first-hand experience of this, btw.

WilliamC your description of the vas deferens extraction is excruciating just to read.

Then my work here is done. *tapdances out, stage left*

Yeah, you had an incompetent doctor. That’s ridiculous. May I ask what year this was?

1990

got a handjob from a girlfriend with press-on nails. you can connect the dots

serious answer though, I've been fortunate (*knocks on wood*) to not suffer any serious painful injuries. my top 3 isn't really that impressive...

*split my head open at age 7 on a swing set. Pushed it up as high as it could go, stood in front of it, and told my brother for whatever reason "this is about to be a big ceremony!". let it go and I was right, but for reasons different than I intended. The pain was p much over in a moment though.

*had an enlarged spleen due to healing mono and was in an (unsanctioned) production of Reservoir Dogs as Mr Pink. we hadn't yet blocked the scene where Mr Pink separates Mr White and Mr Blonde as they're about to tear each other apart, and Mr White weighed about 80 pounds more than me. We attempted to run it raw and he steamrolled me into a wall. was worried I'd ruptured the spleen but turned out to just have bruised myself in that area.

*had a week long, migraine-esque headache that was bad enough that I went to get an MRI as it wasn't improving. turned out to be bad case of chronic sinusitis (which I'd never had previously).

see? nothing impressive....some of the posts upthread made me nauseous just reading, hats off to everybody who had to endure shit like that
*

One of the most fascinating pains I've ever felt was from having my achilles surgically detached, the bone shaved down, the tendon reattached and the whole situation being encased in an old-fashioned plaster cast. I guess it helped my walking and saved some shoe leather and it was worth it, but

It was a different kind of pain. I've had broken bones, corporal punishment, fallen on my face and rearranged my teeth, diverticulitis, sex headaches, and other interesting forms of pain, but something about that particular sharp deep pain that the pills could only ease but not erase is the one that stick in my mind.

It's still no big deal and I can barely imagine it now, because the brain and memory and so forth. I haven't had the other foot done and probably won't.

Sidebar from the opioid discussion on the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries thread:

A couple years ago, my wife had outpatient surgery to fix her deviated septum from a broken nose she suffered in childhood. Because she was being prescribed pain meds for her recovery, we were given a mandatory lecture on opioids by a nurse prior to the surgery. It lasted 10-15 minutes and was very stern and finger-waggy. My wife and I are grown-assed people who are aware of the dangers of addiction, but we nodded along. My wife wasn't overly concerned because she assumed that the pain wouldn't be any worse than the incident that broke her nose in childhood. We would later find that this wasn't to be the case.

Once she came out of surgery, we were given a Vicodin prescription that they assured us would last us through the weekend until her follow-up appointment on Tuesday (hers was the last surgery on a Friday afternoon). A few hours later, whatever they had given her during surgery had worn off and she began to experience excruciating pain in her teeth, so she took the recommended dose of Vicodin. An hour later, her situation had not improved. She likened it to getting dentist drilled on all of her upper teeth at once. We contacted the doc through his answering service and he suggested doubling up on the dose. He said that it might have been nerve-related pain due to swelling.

Unfortunately, the pain continued. She used up her Vicodin scrip two days early, but just resigned herself to suffering. She did not ask for more medicine at her follow-up. The pain gradually cleared up over the next couple weeks.

So I'm just curious, did they cheese out on her meds because of the opioid epidemic? Or was there really nothing better that they could have done?

Post hernia recovery, definitely. Even worse than getting a spike rammed through my chest with minimal local anaesthetic after I'd had a collapsed lung.

Physically, I've been relatively lucky my whole life. So: Europe's "The Final Countdown."

Had to get a massive cyst next to my shoulder blade lanced/squeezed and it was so infected that they couldn't really fully anesthetize it. That was pretty bad.

#1. About six years ago I went out for a bike ride and woke up in an ER with severe facial and moderate spinal injuries from having been hit by a car, My whole body was bruised/damaged from two collisions (windshield and asphalt) and being tangled up around the bike frame. I didn't go back to work for a month and it was the most debilitated I have ever been. It was hard because the pain was everywhere--it hurt to sit, walk, stand, breathe...everything.

#2. Two or three times I've had dental nerves get infected and die without treatment. (I didn't have health insurance at the time.) If this has never happened to you, let me assure you this is a "if I cut my whole head off, would it stop the pain?" level of experience.

I took Advil for all of the above, no opioids because they give me vertigo. The Advil might have ruined my stomach though--I've had food issues since after #1.

I had the same pain in my teeth as peace's wife due to a sinus infection. I was given Vicodin, which did nothing. After three days of not eating and sleeping I took Aleve which helped I guess reduce the swelling. Either that or the infection had run its course. The relief I felt after that was incredible.

My mom had a femur break and subsequent surgical repair involving a metal rod being driven into the bone etc, with a recommended 4-6 month recovery period. She took the opioids they gave her, as recommended for the pain, which I understand was significant. She still ended up addicted, which I know because she called me after she finished the meds and said she was worried because she seemed to be getting a lot sicker, and then she told me the symptoms and I was like, "Mom, you might want to sit down for this."

For a little while she was really shocked and ashamed that her prescribed meds had made her "an addict," I know she felt like it reflected on her somehow.

My dad had a neverending series of back and neck surgeries, pain from what he thought was scar tissue and another back surgery scheduled. He was in the hospital (military) for a non-related serious illness and was there for several months. During that time a different group of doctors took a look at all the drugs he had been prescribed over the decade and were supposedly shocked. The drugs were stopped and his back pain disappeared. No more surgery.

My sister was in three car collisions within the space of three years (none of them her fault) and her body was so fucked up that the amount of opiods you could take would certainly make her an addict. She has them but opted to have an IMPLANT stimulator for her pain. It's in her back and it buzzes and stuff. I felt it, it's like she's a cyborg or something.

hey, peace, man, I don’t think I could answer your q unless I knew where you were at, and then even if I were familiar with local laws and the prescribing guidelines of your health provider a lot would depend on your doctor’s judgement and approach to treatment.

unfortunately what you described doesn’t sound like an unusual situation, ime. The nature and intensity of pain your wife was experiencing was obviously unexpected and frightening, and is a terrible thing to go through. If I had to guess I would say that her doctor leaned into the fact that she had a common procedure with a well-established recovery period, and that the pain would dissipate even if it presented at a high number and continued for longer than expected. It seems like this turned out to be true, though what was obviously missing was proper patient education about the nature of pain, reasonable expectations for how it may manifest, and strategies for mitigation without available rx. The pre-op lecture was obviously totally inadequate, and much of both our current treatment and dependency protocols depend on garbage like that thrust upon overworked and undertrained support staff.

Send post for the moment; I’ll reply more to this and other posts when time allows.

You're answer is much appreciated, sciatica! We're in Maryland.

btw, on the topic of your user name, I had some pretty serious irritation of the sciatic nerve last summer/fall due to what I believe was a bout of piriformis syndrome. Since we're on the acute physical pain thread and all. Shooting electric pain from my hip all the way down my leg. Seriously limited my daytime activities like standing or walking or sitting and frequently woke me up at night.

(that is not my most acute, but it's definitely up there)

I got a couple:

Herniated disc at C5-C6 last year. Numbness down my left arm. By the time I walked five minutes from my office to my car my neck and shoulder would be on fire and I was ready to cry.

Broke the tip of my pinkie on my dominant hand back 90 degrees playing basketball. My friend couldn't drive stick, so I had to drive us to his place so he could drive me to the emergency room. Shit was throbbing when I got there and they told me I had to sign a form. I tried signing and couldn't hold the pen. Just started laughing from the pain.

When I was in 6th grade, I started having knee pain. Eventually we realized that my leg was growing crooked, so during spring break in 7th grade I had surgery to correct it: they broke my leg, straightened it, added a piece of bone from the bone bank to my knee, and inserted two 3-4 inch metal screws. Full leg cast for 2-3 months with crutches. The idea was that as the knee healed the pins would be forced out. So the day they removed the cast, I looked down at the atrophied, shedding skin, funky ass leg, with 3/4 of an inch of metal sticking out and started yelling my head off. Only one of the pins didn't come out, so they gave me a general anesthetic and pulled them out with pliers.

those are good, those will take some beating tbh

aside from the pneumonia upthread, i did my anterior cruciate ligament at a five a side a few years back and boy did i fuckin roar until they put the gas in me

i tell a lie. it was iirc the collateral

Talk of opioid addiction, which I have some experience with, reminds me of the constipation that would result, and yeah that is definitely some of the most pain I've ever felt. Maybe the worst.

When I was abusing the drugs, I knew I should be taking heaps of stool softeners, fiber, and laxatives. But there was one period when I just couldn't be arsed. I remember the day of reckoning, when I could no longer ask or force my body to give me just one more day. It was time. I remember screaming bloody murder.

gallstones, about 16 years ago less than 6 months after i had moved to US permanently
pain was so bad it made me vomit, ended up lying on the bathroom floor because it was the only place that felt remotely comfortable

went to ER where they triaged me for what felt like days, lying on a guerney next to an addict in extreme withdrawal & both of us crying and or barfing in harmony at many points throughout the wee hours of the morning

they finally saw to me & said i had gallstones, i could let them pass naturally but maybe have more attacks, or they could remove them with lasers
i demanded that they get the fuckers out of me

THEN they finally gave me the good drugs ie demerol & that relief was maybe the most magical feeling ever. so much so that i was a bit scared of it.

sidebar to that: after the surgery, they gave me vicodin which gave me constipation & then hemorrhoids as result of the constipation, and of course they also gave me antibiotics which gave me the worst case of thrush i ever had. i was almost hysterical after a week, i was so miserable. couldnt hardly walk, sit, stand & would just lie face down on the couch & cry.
kinda funny now but ugh it was the worst of times

i don't know if this even counts as physical pain, but i will revise my above answer by at least mentioning what an incredibly awful experience benzo withdrawal was for me and how lucky i feel to this day to have somehow managed to survive it

A test for checking my fertility. Thght my belly was going to explode. I threw up afterwards. Year later I had contractions. Same feeling. Lol. It's painful but I think my tolerance is higher than I thought.

Most pain pales next to migraine attacks. It just makes me so depressed.

when I got my wisdom teeth out there were complications, namely three dry sockets. not really sure where this fits into the pain scale compared to other things but I have a distinct memory of waking up at like 4:30 am in the most excruciating pain I've ever experienced because the painkillers (I think hydrocodone) the doctor had prescribed stopped working

nathom was that the thing with the dye?

Yes! The doctor said:"oh now worst part is over" I knew it wasn't. I felt so silly cause I was moaning. Lol. I felt like I was in Alien. But tummy burster instead of chest burster. Haha

Dislocated and immediately relocated a kneecap while playing football. The intensity was brief but the throbbing after pain lasted.

who relocated it?

nathom I had that too, worried shitless about it beforehand because I read so many accounts like yours. but I barely felt a thing! ? sorry yours was so awful.

My mum warned it me it was the worst thing ever. Afterwards I thght: ok, my pain level is higher than I thght.

It was painful but it was short. So 🤷🏼‍♀️
I think pain that is short is much better than being in constant pain. Because it wears you down.

I went through a two week period of acute pancreatitis post-gallbladder removal. That led to my very first non-overnight hospital stay and a lifelong battle with postcholecystectomy syndrome. Anyway, I think it was during that two-week period when I was a few weeks shy of thirty that I began to lose all my faith in a higher power, such was the intensity of my pain. Several years later I underwent reconstructive surgery on my upper arms to correct some deformities I was born with, but had my pain poorly managed and have suffered chronic pain from that ever since. During the immediate post-recovery period (where I was coping with the grand total of 100 stitches on both arms, 50 per) I was in so much pain that I had to rely on a meditation podcast to help me fall asleep. Those were the two most painful incidents I've ever lived through.

BTW, correction above: it's not "lifelong", I know. It's just been ever since the gallbladder removal, so about ten years.

Hugs Dee

Hugs Dee

So sorry I'm only seeing this now, sweet Nath; all my love to you, sweetheart. Anyway, I feel like my chronic pain issues have toughened me up and made me a better human, as cheesy and clichéd as that sounds.