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People Are Revealing the Absolute Worst Physical Pain They've Ever Endured

Ouch!
Vlad Serebryanik | Stories
Published June 21, 2024
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1. Burned My Johnson

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I burned my dick, and then, when it was healing, accidentally tore it again. So, there's no easy way to say it, I was masturbating. I was in the shower, had work in an hour, figured some me time was appropriate, and did so.

My great sin is that I forgot I was wearing a cloth bandage on my finger. In the nice warm water, and with the hormonal bath that is an orgasm, I couldn't feel that I had effectively rug burned a hole into the skin of my penis. How? How does one not feel that? I have no clue either friend. And yet, when I stepped out of the shower, I felt every fuckin bit of it.

With only a half hour before work, I found the best bandage I could, and went to work with my new secret injury. The whole day was hell, every other step felt like knives and eventually I had to take my manager aside and explain what went on, because he asked if I was sick. My face was red and my eyes were full of tears I was trying to hold back. This continued for about half a week with it slowly getting better.

Eventually it was time to remove the bandage and see how it was doing. My wife had friends over and they had a good laugh at me as she explained my new limp. I went into the bathroom, and couldn't get the damn bandage off.

Part of the adhesive was stuck to the newly healing skin, as the wound was larger than the bandaid. I ducked my head out into the hallway and explained the predicament. They brought me some olive oil, saying that would help break down the adhesive.

So, I spent an hour massaging oil into the bandaid until it finally came free. Satisfied that the wound wasn't bleeding, and seemed to look better, I washed off the oil, redressed, and left the bathroom to talk with our guests... I took only one single step out the door after having pulled up my pants, and immediately collapsed in pain.

The second the cloth of my underwear even slightly grazed the wound, my vision went white, and my knees didn't just buckle, they failed. I literally fell through the doorway I was just opening, slamming it all the way open as my face collided with it. I laid on the ground and just fuckin shook.

I've broken bones before. I've had second degree burns before. I was once stuck so hard by a metal pipe that came unstuck that I couldn't speak properly for a week. This, this was the single most painful thing I'd ever experienced.

The friends asked if I was ok, my wife asked them to kindly leave, and she dragged me to the couch where she constructed a little sling for my penis to go into, by unraveling cotton balls as padding, using a couple popsicle sticks like you would splint a leg, and wrapping the whole thing in so much gause that my penis looked more like it was in a cast.

Bless that woman. If you're asking why we didn't go to the ER, my answer is simple: We live in America. The wound left a permanent mark, a dark colored scar across its side. It's still laughed about to this day.

Username: Skrighk
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2. Tooth Explosion Knocked Me Out

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I commented this on a similar post a while back: I was a director of one of the largest museums in the United States and walked out on stage to give a pretty controversial presentation. I was already pretty nervous.

There’s a loud bang from the center of my head, I don’t feel my body drop but I can tell I’ve hit the floor, my vision blurs and turns red, and in the 3 seconds after the bang, I come to the conclusion that I’ve been shot and have seconds to live.

I’m a very large man and as I’m fading out, I see my friend, the 90lb(40kg) museum nurse trying to pull me up. I was in shock and the pain didn’t really faze me, but damn did it hurt.

Indescribable agony that in just two seconds made death seem like mercy. I accepted very calmly that my nurse friend’s face was the last thing I’d ever see and faded out. I got to “die” a dramatic death and live to tell about it.

I woke up 4 hours later in a hospital after an emergency surgery. I hadn’t been shot after all. I somehow had an abscessed wisdom tooth that had become highly infected and the abscess exploded upwards into my head, splitting the tooth from tip to jaw and breaking my left maxilla.

It erupted with such force that my eyes bled and the pain knocked me out. While I was out, my wisdom tooth was pulled without anesthetic and the infection drained. I get phantom twitches just thinking about it.

To answer everyone’s questions:
•⁠Yes, I had had a toothache for a few days and had an appointment for two days later to have it checked out. I had been soothing it with toothache mouthwash pretty effectively.

•⁠I’m an evolutionary biologist and the presentation was about accepting certain facets of the science of evolution in order to move forward in the global bank of medical knowledge. This may seem pretty “duh” to most of you, but our museum is in the South, in a county where 70% of residents don’t believe in evolution or climate change. It was pretty hot button.

•⁠Not very many people knew it was possible, including some of the medical professionals I worked with afterwards to repair my face. They all said it was an absolute freak incident that had to have precisely perfect conditions to occur.

•⁠Yes, I do have a bit of post-traumatic stress concerning it. I go to the dentist at least 6 times a year now and I have considered having all of my teeth removed on multiple occasions. I get little twitches from where nerves were cut on occasion and my heart sinks, I wince and sometimes cry or whimper.

Not from pain, but just the fear that it’s happening again. I don’t eat any foods that may cause tooth decay or pain, which has honestly been great for my health overall. Thanks for checking in. :)

Username: Most-Cow-2474
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3. Baby Hemorrhoids

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I had a prolapsed hemorrhoid when I was 38 weeks pregnant and the doc said I needed surgery. Note: I had been suffering with this pain in the butt for a few days before seeing this specialist.

But when I'd gone to the OBGYN medical practice (at a teaching hospital) days before, the doctor there had *incised* my hemorrhoid and "drained" it...so there had already been an incision on my anus for a few days by this point. I needed to poo, but of course was holding it because it hurt SO BAD!!.

The area continued to swell and worsen. I tried everything- epsom salt, water, walking, vitamin C, heat...everything!! The butt specialist (proctologist) said he needed to do surgery ASAP- it was BAD! I was told to report back later *that day* to the outpatient surgery center, which i did.

I've actually had lot of surgeries (long stories), so I knew the protocol. I wasn't *that* nervous. What the doc failed to mention was that the only pain relief they would be able to give me AFTER surgery was two Extra-Strength Tylenol...every 4 hours (b/c pregnancy).

THAT'S IT!!! I went in, had my surgery -in and out of the OR (awake the whole time BTW!!!) in under an hour. As I sat in recovery with my husband and the epidural wore off I became increasingly more and more uncomfortable. Here's the thing about the anus....it's filled with very sensitive nerve endings.

An hour after surgery it felt like someone was pressing a red-hot fire iron onto/inside my arsehole. My blood pressure rocketed to dangerous levels. I'd suffered with Preeclampsia with my previous two pregnancies, but this pregnancy had been okay! All of a sudden things were very dangerous....and extremely painful!

I was emergency transported to the hospital where my doctor was located. When I arrived to my Dr.'s hospital, the pain was radiating up through my vagina, up into my hips and abdomen, and down my thighs. But the worst was my butthole. It was constant, unrelenting, unimaginable, searing agony.

I was like a caged wild animal. I couldn't get comfortable. I couldn't get away from or find any type of relief from the pain. The hospital ice packs are a joke!! I tried to get some comfort in the bathtub, but I was pulled out by the nurses because my husband and I kept falling asleep and they didn't trust us alone (I think it was 2-3am at this point).

They hooked me up to some kind of drip line that I could push every 15 minute or something for pain relief (I was up and down all night long). Somewhere in there I screamed at my husband and anyone else in hearing distance, and insisted on a c-section and a tubal ligation (this was my third baby and third c-section, but I'd planned to deliver this one vaginally), either way, my husband and I knew this was our last baby- sterilization was the answer.

The doc came in and laid it out. She'd been up all night delivering emergency babies. She needed a few hours of sleep before she could operate again. I was actually stabilizing with my pain by this time (close to 3-4am, I think). She made me as comfortable as she could while we all got some rest. I was scheduled for surgery first thing the next morning. I was woken up a few hours later to prep for surgery.

Just after 8am my sweet baby boy was delivered. I had to fight with every ounce of strength to stay awake long enough to hear him cry and meet him for the first time, which took awhile because he was pretty sedated from all the drugs I'd been given.

He bawled out, they brought him to me, we got a quick snuggle and kiss, and then I passed out for the next hour or so. I saw him again when they shot me full of whatever they give you to wake up after surgery, and then he nursed like a champ.

My doc took pity on me and left my epidural tube in for an extra 24 hours after I woke up just to give me a reprieve from the pain so I could bond and snuggle with my boy. Worst pain ever. Scariest delivery EVER! Worth every second to deliver my sweet, healthy baby boy. He turned 11 three days ago.

Username: alsoaprettybigdeal
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4. Like Being Put Into the Rack

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Reading through some of these stories and I can **identify** with a bunch of them...but....I’ve got one that might take the cake...So I consider myself someone who has a high pain tolerance level/threshold for pain. I play sports actively and have torn my ACL, not once but twice.

Both times hurt very bad, kinda like the feeling of having your knee broken at the kneecap and then forced backwards into your mouth, bending the wrong way. Yeah. It’s no picnic. **However** I would rather do that a **thousand times** again than what I think was the worst injury of all of them:

While playing basketball, I went up for a rebound, and in the air, got my arm interlocked with a guy much taller than me (he was around 6’8”) and when I came down, my arm ripped out of the socket and dislocated as my full body weight was coming down and leverage from this taller guy caused that much pressure to pop it out of joint.

So I have a severe dislocation. What you should know, is that not all dislocations are necessarily the same. Some are more painful than others, some are actually subluxations which means it pops out of joint and then back in quickly. However a full dislocation is out of joint and stays out of joint.

**How bad did it feel?** There are really no words to describe but I’ll attempt it: with my arm pulled out of the ball-and-socket joint, all of the tendons, ligaments and nerves in the arm are being stretched and screaming in pain while the torque from your now-hanging limb is being pulled away from it in one direction.

Move it upwards and now the other tendons, muscles and nerves are being tortured from the underside. It’s a lose-lose situation. Any way you twist or turn, it feels like a hot knife stabbing you in twenty places repeatedly.

This is searing, tortuous pain. This is the same pain experienced by people who were tortured to death in medieval times using **the rack:** https://allthatsinteresting.com/rack-torture

But that’s not all. As your arm is helpless to avoid any painful position, with the slightest bit of movement causing excruciating pain, your body naturally tightens up as a defense mechanism and so it then becomes impossible to get it back into socket without medical professional help.

It took three hours to get to the hospital due to the intricacies of how to fit into a vehicle (no I didn’t call an ambulance but in retrospect I should have), my friend driving some back roads really slowly from the basketball court because every single little bump in the road was excruciating, and then there is the fatigue.

When you go through something this harrowing, your body gets tired, your muscles start to fail, and I could no longer hold my arm over my head easily so it started drooping, causing even greater pain then before. Again, this is a lose-lose situation with the positioning.

Long story short...or shorter, anyway, upon reaching the hospital, at the ER, they had to knock me out using anesthesia because the body won’t loosen up those tightened muscles enough to get the bone back into the socket.

They gave me a double shot of morphine for the pain, but I tell you it did absolutely nothing. I asked the doc why and he said sometimes the pain is too great, the morphine won’t have any effect. It’s rare, but only in extreme cases. Lucky me, I was an extreme case 😵‍💫

This has happened to me more than once, the second time, they didn’t have an anesthesiologist on hand at that time, so they tried to manipulate it back into place manually (which I didn’t even know was a thing) which means one of them basically had to sit on me to hold me still while I’m laying on the table and they start working my arm back into the socket by pulling and twisting some ligaments and tendons around. Like a chiropractic manipulation from hell.

So yeah, that was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. People ask how bad the pain was compared to an ACL tear when you see pro athletes crying in pain on the football field. I said an ACL tear is 11/10 for pain. But my shoulder dislocation was a 58/10 for pain. But hey, I heard some people had some pretty nasty hangnails in here, so I’ll bet those are bad too 😛

Username: Pain_Monster
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5. Phimosis...Look it Up

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A couple of years ago I got really sick. Weird shit was happening with my body and I was frequently seeing my doctor but they couldn't work out was going on. They eventually worked it out - a bad UTI (my first). The standard antibiotics were ineffective and my condition deteriorated.

It got to a point where I basically couldn't urinate. I had a constant urge to pee but could only manage a couple of drips. I went to my GP, who felt my chest and stomach and determined that my bladder was close to rupturing. I rushed to the hospital ER where they were briefed by my GP - they needed to insert a catheter urgently or my bladder would burst.

So, they're fumbling around down there and brief me what's going to happen. They give me a local anaesthetic (which hurt). Now. This is where it gets a bit (more) personal. I had a condition called "phimosis", which basically means I couldn't retract my foreskin. It was something that has been in the back of my mind since I became sexually active, but, at the time, I was in a form of shock/delirium from the infection.

They retracted my foreskin, with force, and I screamed in pain. Then they swiftly inserted the catheter tubing up my urethra which, you may remember, had effectively swollen shut. I started screaming and, at first, no sound came out.

Then, I remember the sound. Gutteral. Desperate. I begged the doctor to kill me. I screamed for them to just kill me. I begged, BEGGED the doctor, the nurses, to kill me. And then I blacked out.

When I came to, I was alone on a hospital bed, naked from the waist-down, save for a crappy hospital blanket. I tried to avoid looking at that region of my body after that point - it made me physically queasy, and washing that area and touching the catheter made me vomit on more than one occasion

My road to recovery was long and destructive. The new antibiotics they put me on took weeks to work, and then they didn't anymore. The infection got worse and spread to my prostate.

I wound up in hospital and had two surgeries to insert catheters into my prostate to drain the infection from abscesses on my prostate. The tubes entered/exited my body from my perianal region (a.k.a. "taint"). I had three catheter bags strapped to my leg - one of urine and two for the blood/pus from my prostate.

I stayed in hospital for a couple of weeks to recover, and was on IV antibiotics for most of that time. (Also, I hadn't pooped in about a month at that point. I remember thinking, when the moment finally came, that I was either going to rip my anus or die on the toilet. Neither occured.)

On one occasion, I hung/tied my abscess drainage bags on a handrail in the shower and tried to walk away having forgotten to remove them. Very painful, but less so than the bladder catheter.

When I got well enough, I requested (and received) a medication that has, thankfully, erased the memory of the removal of the prostate and bladder catheters.

Within a week of leaving hospital, I found myself dumped by my partner and made redundant by my employer of six years. It was the lowest moment of my life and I often thought about just ending it all. Buy I persevered - it took six months, 150+ job applications, and thousands of dollars of debt, but I got a job and started to rebuild my life.

Also, I got circumcised. Wish I had done it earlier. It's awesome. For multiple reasons, which I'll keep to myself. And that, dear Redditor, is the story of the greatest pain I've ever experienced.

Username: lessrepressed
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6. Spontaneous Lung Collapse

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A few months ago my left lung spontaneously collapsed. When I first felt it, it oddly felt like a pinched nerve on the rear left side of my neck and the pain radiates down my left arm. Thought, “what the hell, I probably just pinched a nerve.” So my dumbass decided to go to bed and sleep it off. As I got into bed and was falling asleep, it got very hard to breathe and every inhale became a sharp pain. If I laid on my right, I couldn’t breathe. So I went to bed sleeping on my left side.

Next day the pain was worse and I couldn’t breathe in all the way. Called my doctor and he told me to go to the ER immediately. Got to the ER, went to a room and got a x ray and some scans. Doctor comes in and says comically, “well I found out why you’re having your pain!” I just looked at him and he said, “Your left lung is collapsing.” I was beyond shocked. Out of everything, I was not expecting this. So up until this point, my pain was like a 5/10. Wasn’t really painful per say but just uncomfortable.

I went back into the X-Ray room, got some more X-rays and a CAT scan. This is when I felt the worst pain in my entire life. The nurse had me lay and position myself in a certain way and it was downright excruciating. I’ve broken numerous bones, had cluster headaches, a testicle infection (which was the prior most painful thing I’ve ever experienced...felt like torsion), and even a pericarditis attack that felt like a heart attack. None of those compared to this moment. The pain was so intense I legitimately screamed in pain. And I’m 22.

Doctor took me back to my room and he went over the x-rays and cat scan (they were used to determine how much of my lung collapsed. He said it was significantly collapsed and we need to do something about it now or else I can have life-threatening issues that given my state, were unfortunately likely.

Doctor has to put a tube from the outside of my chest that lead into the inside of me to my lung. They couldn’t put me under (anesthesia) because I could stop breathing. So, they gave me Fentanyl. Putting the tube in sucked.

After being transported to a different hospital and staying a few days in the hospital I experienced the most weird and odd feeling ever. It wasn’t too painful but it’ll make you cringe reading what I’m about to tell you. And yes, it felt as weird as it sounds. If you’re a queasy person, I suggest you not read what’s next.

When they were going to release me they had to take the tube out of me. For reference, the tube was in my left chest entered in my left side under my armpit. The new doctor wasn’t the best and the most gentle guy. He had to manually pull the f’ing tube out of my left side. I couldn’t feel the tube before but when he pulled it out, I felt it rub against my insides, my intestines, everything.

It was such a weird and odd feeling I threw up after. And I’m not a queasy person. I then sat staring at the edge of my bed for 15 minutes because I couldn’t comprehend what just happened. Again, wasn’t painful but extremely cringeworthy of a feeling.

Username: Virt333
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7. Mouth. Nerve. Abscess.

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Abscess in the roof of my mouth sitting right on a nerve. When it hit its max pain (rate it a 9 on the scale) the only thing I was mentally capable of was running in circles while screaming. I had to go to the hospital to get it looked at as it hit just before a holiday so I couldn't find a dental office to deal with it. I can't even remember what happened at the hospital as I was so beside myself.

Since then I developed partial peripheral neuropathy. Usually this results in deadened nerves. In my case it resulted in chaotic signals shooting down my nerves. My brain not knowing what to make of them decide to label them pain.

The signals come down paths for sense of touch rather than pain receptors. So most pain killing methods have no effect. The pain moves around and shifts on a daily basis. But is always somewhere between 4-8 on the pane scale.

I have had gall stones which I would put at 8 on the scale. And while the abscess hit 9, the continuous impact of the neuropathy is more devastating. The only med, Lyrica, that works only takes certain aspects of the pain off. The primary pain still punches through. I have been through all manner of treatments and am currently told I am at the limits of what current medical science can do.

One of the treatments we tried was to insert a neural stimulator to interrupt the signal. It involved placing wires in the ganglia at the base of my spine with battery to send a shock to the base. Working like a tens unit built in it did manage to take a bit of an edge off,

But considering the constant hammering of the pain and edge is welcomed. However one of the downsides of being lean is that there is not as many ways you can insert a battery pack. The battery resting on my hip wound up pushing up through my skin causing it to not heal properly.

They had to remove the entire kit to try again after I healed. However when trying to extract the wires one of them became stuck and had to be cut leaving some wire in my spine.

About a year later after no problems I noticed a lump on my lower back. The lump got larger fairly rapidly. I made a Dr appt to figure out what it was. The story gets a little gross here so skip if squeamish. About 2 days before the appointment I was having a bout of diarrhea.

The lump was fairly big by this time. I went to the bathroom and reached back to wipe. And I noticed my hand was wet. Disgusted I pulled my hand back expecting brown. My hand was bright red. The lump had erupted and a fountain of blood was shooting out.

The blood was of course following gravity and oozing down my back straight into my crack with all the diarrhea, I had to call my ex (still besties) over to help deal with the horrific mess.

What had happened is that the wire had formed an abscess and filled with fluids. Fluid dynamics being a thing it had pushed through from the left side of my spine to the right and formed the lump which then exploded. This all happened in 2020 right at the start of the pandemic.

Because of the wire they could not do an MRI. So identifying where the wire was was difficult. And the hospitals were overwhelmed. Due to complications from diabetes and covide I could not schedule the operation to get the wire out for 2 years.

It was apparently causing pressure on other nerves as it caused radiating pain to start shooting down my leg and made it impossible to stand up fully without pinching a nerve causing me to double over. The day the finally got it out my mobility was restored about 98%.

There remain some damage in my right side that persists in hurting. But in the scale of things to my continued neuropathic pain it is minor in comparison. Oh and I have chronic migraine too. Yay team pain.

Username: Azlend
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8. Muscles Turning Black

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I was an IV(vein)and IM(muscle)drug user in my mid to late teens. I would reuse needles. They were mine, so I wasn't sharing. But, they weren't sanitized before each injection. I was shooting a lot of Ketamine amd other sedative/hypnotics into my deltoids, which is your upper arm, between your bicep and the top of your shoulder.

I remember my arm began to get more and more stiff over a couple of weeks. It felt weird when I would push the needle in. Almost like the needle was tearing its way through layers of muscle. I had to push the needle more forcefully.

Anyway, I was starting an old lawnmower, and when I ripped the cord to start it, I felt a pop in my right upper arm. Almost thought I could hear it. I turned 17 like two months prior and weighed like 95 pounds from addiction. Things moved quickly from there.

That night, I was in a bed, and my arm was throbbing so badly. I had to hold my rughr arm in place as I lay in my bed. It had to be hels with my elbow touching the bed with my arm and hand raised at a 90-degree angle. I couldn't let it move, or the pain was unbearable.

If I moved the tips of any finger, I would get tears in my eyes. My arm was pink at this point, was swelling, and was hotter than the rest of my body. The swelling around my bicep and deltoin was adding probably an extra 1.5" to the diameter of my arm.

Nobody knew I was shooting up, so my dad thought I kind of tore my muscle. Took me to a naturapath(😂). They were like, nope. We can't do shit for this. They said go to a doctor. We went to an orthopedic doc. He took x-rays.

As soon as he began to check them out, I saw him open his cellphone and called the ER next to the practice. He told them to prep an operating room immediately. He said go there now. I'm getting in my car and I'll meet you there in 5 minutes. I think every appt he had that day got canceled.

I got there, and I was sweating, pale, it was hard to walk, and I was in unbelievable pain from my arm. My arm had gotten even larger and was bright red at this point. My dad signed me in and filled out a couple of pages of intake paperwork, and they were already out to get me.

They grabbed a wheelchair because I couldn't walk anymore. They took me up and literally wheeled me into the actual operating room. Put me on the operating table and induced anesthesia about 10 seconds after I was wheeled in.

From the time the x-ray at docs office was seen to the time anesthesia was induced was maybe 8-9 minutes. That included the time to drive, park, and walk into the hospital. I woke up the next day with my arm wide open.

They had sutures holding the skin around my arm together so it wouldn't hang too low. They did that to not close in any of the abscess. They took me back in for more operations to drain more and cut out more muscle tissue.

All together, they sucked out like 1.5-2 cups of pus and removed a couple sq in's of muscle. Final diagnosis was necrotizing fascitis and blood poisoning from the infection, which basically made me go septic.

So, kind of like what happened to Jared Leto's character in Requiem for a dream, only there was no "black" on the outside. However, part of the muscle that had died inside my arm was beginning to turn black. So, I have a sick scar that is 6" going vertical on that part of the arm.

t was so large that it took about 6-7 months for the scar to fully close in the center and harden enough to where it felt like it wasn't an open wound. Also, I was dumb. The day after I got out of the hospital, I started shooting up again.

I got two smaller pea sized abscesses in the same arm, but those were cut out early and are only small scars. Anywho, I don't use drugs or even drink. That was 22 years ago. The moral of the story is not to do drugs.

Also, I've had a thunderclap headache that hospitalized me, and I've had kidney stones. The abscess was the worst, followed by the headache, them kidney stones. PAIN SUCKS.

Username: Aggressive-Watch-994
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9. Migraines From Hell

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I get them frequently but every now and then I will get a particular flavour that is so painful it feels like my head is inside a pressurized chamber and it's getting worse and worse. In these instances, nothing helps. I can't move around without being in so much pain I'm crying, but crying makes the pressure even worse.

Light hurts. Sound hurts. Movement hurts. Trying to poop might as well be a death sentence because that also makes the pressure in my head go extra hard. Essentially anything that involves existing makes it worse.

I can't even lay in bed in the dark because that hurts too. And in these cases, nothing will make it go away. I just have to keep eating meds, keep icing the back of my head, keep soaking in a bath, and hopefully at some point something will work.

It can last a day, it can last weeks. Longest I ever had was 36 days. I'm very very glad I work a job where I can afford to miss a lot of work (tech sales). Even more so the industry because I work remote, I start when I feel like it, my sleep is a lot more consistent, and I don't need much time to hit quota.

My boss is very understanding. This year has been a tough one, had one of the worst migraines and a really long period with them in Feb and March, and a portion of April. But it's because I was late on my injections.

For anyone wondering, there's a treatment you can do now with botox, believe it or not. Every 12 weeks I get a series of injections around my head, neck and shoulders. It essentially paralyzes a bunch of muscles that are known contributors to migraines.

The first few times you get it done, you'll have a monster migraine for like 7-10 or so days. This is because a bunch of secondary muscles you don't usually use as much are now doing all the heavy lifting. Over time, they strengthen so that monster migraine week eventually goes away.

The month before I started my first treatment, I had a migraine 26 out of 30 days. 20 of them were really bad. Once I started treatment, I had 3 migraines that month. It reduced them by like 95%. I still get them every now and then, but so much less often.

This year was bad because I have an issue where the botox is wearing off at about 10 weeks and this Feb I got a really bad migraine when mine wore off. It was so bad I wound up being off by a day and went to my injection appointment a day late, only to find out I'd missed it.

Had to wait 3 weeks to get the treatment and in that time I was just dying. Then I got the shot but my muscles had been doing the heavy lifting again, so when I did the shots, the secondary ones were all pissy again.

Cases like mine where it wears off at 10 weeks require a few rounds before insurance will approve the 10 week cycle but I'll be switching to that in June. My sister had the same issue and 10 weeks worked great.

Honestly this botox thing has been life changing. If anyone out there struggles with chronic migraines, absolutely talk to a neurologist about this. I can't remember to take meds for shit and this has by far been the most effective treatment ever.

I do not regret it, and if anyone in the greater Seattle area needs a good Neurologist, Dr. Droker with Swedish is literally the best doctor I've ever had and is worth the wait to get your initial appointment. He's very good at what he does and fantastic to interact with (a neurology dork in the best of ways).

Did some testing on some nerve issues I have in my hands and arm and he satisfied my incessant need to learn what everything is and what he's doing. I'm a sucker for a crash course in science, haha. So it's fantastic when doctors explain it to me because I'm as excited about it as they are.

I had a good laugh when he was sending electrical signals through my arm and making it jump. The nervous system is super neat. Anyways if anyone that gets migraines hasn't tried it and sees this, seriously look into the botox treatment. I've tried everything and this shit is by far the best one.

Username: -_Empress_-
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10. WARNING TO ALL MALES

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I got two things on the list of pain I wouldn't wish on anyone, based off of what I experienced. The first one is a punctured ear drum. I punctured my own ear drum, cleaning my ear with a q-tip. Yes, the thing they say not to clean you ear with. I immediately yelled in a way I never thought was possible.

I dropped to the floor in pain, crying. My neighbor came to check on me. It felt like the entire side of my face got a basic first degree burn. I couldn't hear from my right ear. I thought I'd never hear again.

I was still able to call out of work, call someone to give me a ride to urgent care, and help me find a ENT specialist for that day. It even hurt to eat. Had to be careful showering for 2 weeks, as to not get water in my ear. Needed cottenballs with petroleum jelly all over them to be stuffed in that ear to shower. This is the second worst pain I've felt.

The worst pain I felt was testicular torsion. WARNING FOR ALL MALES: If you are squimish, stop reading, I don't want you to feel the phantom pain in your own balls. For those unaware, testicular torsion is when your balls get twisted.

Either one or both of them is literally being choked anf starved of air, literally dying. And it can happen from just about anything that causes your balls to move. Imagine getting kicked in the balls by a steel toe boot with a spike as hot as the sun on it.

The pain is similar to being hit in the balls, only you weren't hit and have no clue why you're in pain, when it will stop, or if it will stop. You can't get comfortable, every moment you make that moves your balls causes the pain to spike up. You're dealing with debilitating pain.

You have to get your balls untwisted, not just to get rid of the pain, but to literally save one or both of them, and you only have so much time to do that. Most cases require surgery to get fixed. I was still in highschool at the time. My dad carried me to his truck, then into the emergency room.

I couldn't answer the doctor when asked what was wrong. My dad yelled "MY BOY'S BALLS ARE HURTING!" Eventually, they did an ultrasound on my nuts, and I got lucky. My balls untwisted during the ultrasound.

To this day, I have no clue if it was only one or both of my testitcals that were at risk. I must live the rest of my life knowing there is a chance it could happy again, from something like running, riding a bike, going up or down steps, etc.

And now, any guy who read this far not only felt pain in their own nuts from my description, but they will also have this new fear unlocked. Sorry not sorry.

Username: nottme1
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11. Saw: The Dentist

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Root canal on a very infected molar. I was maybe 24, and i had horrible mouth hygiene. I would maybe brush 2 or 3 times a week. I cracked my molar eating chicken wings, and wasn't able to get it looked at as I didn't have very good dental insurance at the time.

A month passes and the pain in my mouth is 9/10, so I go to the dentist. They said I needed an emergency root canal surgery. A few days later I'm laying on the operating table feeling very anxious and super scared. They shoot me up with as much pain medicine as my insurance allowed. And this was when I should have just walked out, but I was like fuck it let's do it..

They tried numb me up and after waiting 10 minutes they start the work, but there is a huge problem.... I can feel everything. They explained to me that they could not give me anything else as the insurance wouldn't have covered it, so I'm laying there scared for my life because my tooth was so sensitive and inflamed shooting water or air on it would give me a 11/10 on the pain scale.

Knowing I was about to go through a torture chamber I decide to go on with the procedure. I will never forget that day....

They start the procedure and as soon as they touch my tooth with the drill I start to scream. I was a 24 year old grown man, and I was screaming with pain. The doctor keeps stopping asking if I'm OK, and I'm like "no it hurts a lot, I feel everything." I tell her to just jeep going.

I am laying there awake, with my mouth wide open trying to be as fucking tough as possible but the pain was something I've never experienced before. I just give up and start fucking crying. I couldn't hold it, and I was feeling really ashamed if myself.

Then the dental assistant looks down at me and asked me if I was crying, and she was a young black girl, so I'll never forget the way she said it, "is you crying?" I remember looking to the side and like sucking my teeth thinking bitch, don't be trying me right now, I'm going through the worst experience of my life have some fucking empathy.

Needless to say I was unable to finish the root canal. I had to leave because I was just unable to be operated on. I ended up having to go to another dentist and just had the tooth pulled instead. Compared to what I went through, the tooth pulling was a 1/10 on the pain scale.

Username: hypo305
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12. Brain Couldn’t Tell Me When to Pee

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I have ASD and when I was a kid, my brain couldn't process the signals that told me when I needed to pee very well. Often I would pee only once per day.

Well in 2016, when I was 20, I started getting severe pain in my urethra. It felt a bit like a bladder infection, only even worse. It's hard to describe, but it constantly felt like I had to pee and it hurt and burned like hell.

When I got an "attack" I had to either sit on the toilet or, what worked best was lie perfectly still and relaxed (any movement or touch hurt for some reason) in bed with a bunch of towels under me to catch the pee until it passed.

The night before my birthday I got an attack and I lied on the cold bathroom floor for hours because sitting on the toilet didn't help enough and I couldn't do the bed thing because it was in the middle of the night.

I got tested for bladder infections multiple times, every time the result was negative. Doctor had no clue what was wrong with me. I got scared of drinking water because then I had to pee and peeing hurt. Well eventually, I found out that drinking lots and lots of water actually helped with the pain.

I kept on doing this and eventually the pain went away and as of this moment, I pretty much never get it anymore. I still have the habit of drinking a big glass of water after everytime I pee.

I never got diagnosed with anything but my theory is that holding my pee so much as a kid trained my pelvic floor to be much too strong, which eventually resulted in this painful "episode". I don't really know the exact mechanisms behind it of course.

I can tell that my pelvic floor is still very strong because I have to actively push to get the urine out and my stream is much weaker than that of other women from what I hear in public bathrooms. I think the reason sitting on the toilet or lying in bed with towels were the only things that brought relief is because I could fully relax my pelvic floor muscles in those situations.

This is probably nothing compared to most other stories in this thread because I have a really low pain tolerance and I haven't have a lot of painful things happen to me in my life, but for me it was by far the worst. Next is getting my IUD inserted but that didn't last for more than a day, fortunately. The bladder problem lasted for almost a year iirc.

Username: cuddlyvampire
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13. Crushed Arm

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My arm being crushed. Worked for a moving company and was unloading the customer's stuff at their new house. The people were loaded so all their furniture was massive and heavy.

Went to unload just the top half of an armoire with a coworker. I was the one walking forwards, the other guy walking backwards. You'd think that would be easier on my end, but since the piece was so large and boxy the only way to hold it meant my face was right up against the side I was holding so the only way for me to know where I was going was to look up and walk with the center of the roof of the truck so I could make sure I hit the ramp.

Apparently I was a bit off and when I went to step onto the ramp my right foot barely clipped the edge and down I went. I tried to push the piece towards the ramp as I started to fall to keep it from falling with me which in turn sent me tumbling and unable to really catch myself. I ended up landing on my right shoulder with my right arm out in front of me, five feet or so drop, and as I started to look up I saw the piece following after me.

Idk if I was just dazed or if there just wasn't time to react, it's a bit of a blur, but the face of the piece landed basically flat on the ground with my arm under it. "Luckily" the top part of the face had some trim that stuck out an inch or two which is what hit my forearm. If it had been flatter or a flat side landed on me, it could have crushed my wrist/hand or if it had fallen a foot further it could have crushed my head.

The impact snapped the radius in two places about an inch apart, and the separated piece of bone split down the middle longways leaving it sharp which then tore through my skin. Ended up with about a golf ball sized hole in my arm.

Somehow I never lost consciousness and luckily we were just a few minutes from a nice hospital so the ambulance was there in less than ten minutes. probably fifteen or twenty minutes from the accident I had enough dilaudid in me to forget about my arm.

For whatever reason there wasn't a surgeon available at the time so I had to wait till the morning for the surgery. Now it's just a gnarly scar, a plate, some screws and some minor mobility issues.

Username: Bickermentative
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14. Massive Pimple in the Booty

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A perianal abscess. Imagine a massive pimple near your anus creating so much pressure and pain walking becomes literally intolerable and practically impossible. You have no idea what it is but finally the pain becomes so unbearable you wake up in the middle of the night screaming in pain only to find this thing has now exploded.

You go to the hospital the next day only to lay flat on a table in a room with your girlfriend (if 6 years fortunately) and a room full of 3 or 4 nurses with your butt out so the can spread your cheeks and peer into god knows what.

Now imagine they do surgery to drain this thing and say that 90% of the time it won’t come back and form this thing called a fistula, but then 2 years later it does just that. Now we’re back to square one getting wheeled into a hospital again. You go to see the top anal surgeon in the area, interesting specialization to choose, and performs the surgery to remove the fistula.

Few days after the surgery while showering you see blood just start pouring out from your butt/anus. You reach back and feel some golf ball sized piece of something hanging out of your anus attached to what felt like a string or cord. Panic immediately sets in as you have no idea what this is or why it seems like your insides are falling out and your gushing blood uncontrollably.

My girlfriend, of now 8ish years, rushes home to take me to the hospital. I’m sitting in a wheelchair wearing a diaper in a pool of blood for at least 2 hours in the seemingly empty ER. Anger sits in. I’ve asked to go back to the room numerous times because I know I’m still bleeding. When I finally make it back and drop my trousers blood pours onto the floor and they have the nerve to ask why I didn’t ask to go back there sooner.

Come to find out the blood clot that formed after surgery had just fallen out. After patching it back up all was good aside from my blood stained clothes. This was not only the most painful experience but also most embarrassing. Having numerous people examine my anus for weeks, embarrassing yet tolerable, but how do you explain to your coworkers why you’ve been out and working from home for weeks?

Username: coffee_code_beer
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15. Kidney Stones

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When I had a kidney stone. I woke up one day with a crippling pain in my abdomen. It got progressively worse until I could no longer scream in pain, I just laid there silently as tears rolled down my face. I had to literally be carried to the hospital.

Once I got to the emergency room they were able to find out that I had a kidney stone that had gotten stuck in the ureter on its way out. They pumped me full of painkillers and referred me to a urologist. But the urologist said I would be fine when it passes and didn't seem to be too concerned, despite my protest.

He gave me some pain pills but they ran out after a couple of days. I tried and tried to get the doctor to see me again and/or prescribe more medicine, he refused and said I would be fine. After a week of being bed ridden and not being able to move because of the pain, I finally just went back to the emergency room to get more medicine.

The ER doctor asked me how long I've been like this and immediately gave me pain medicine and scheduled me for immediate emergency surgery. They surgically removed the kidney stone. They also put in a stint that alleviated the pressure on my ureter while it healed, since it had been under duress for a week and a half at this point. Going to the bathroom was absolute agony with this inside me.

The urine that came out was a cloudy, dark orange with all the blood that also came out. But that wasn't even the worst part. They had a braided nylon cord coming out of the tip of my penis so that they could remove the stint when the time came. This nylon cord slid in and out of the tip of my penis quite frequently, and it had frayed to the point where the individual braids came undone.

This meant that I had three strands of nylon constantly puncturing the inside of my urethra for a few days anytime I moved and even breathed. I nearly passed out when they yanked the cord to remove the stint. That was about two and a half weeks of hell.

This whole ordeal was seven years ago. Although, I remember it like it was yesterday. And I have one more kidney stone in my other kidney that still hasn't passed. I can occasionally feel it moving around, which is quite uncomfortable, but it's also a reminder that I may have another similar experience to come at some point in my life.

Username: Au_King
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16. Tooth Extraction in the 80’s

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Ooh yeah, tooth extraction by an air force dentist in the 80's. Apparently the roots of a baby tooth had wrapped around the tooth behind it, and no amount of anything that guy shot into my mouth (I think we were up to 8 or 9 by the time it was over) prevented me from feeling every second of him ripping that fucking thing out of my mouth. It's what I use for 10 on my pain scale.

So let me tell you about the SECOND worst pain I ever experienced! It was back during the blizzard of... was that 2007, 2008? Something like that. Anywhoo, we don't usually see much snow out here but this time it was piled up 6 feet deep. Texted my room mate and told her not to come home -- the snow plows had got the main streets but not the ones in the neighborhood. Just check in to the closest hotel in Boulder and hunker down.

So 4 hours later she comes knocking on the door because she'd got her car stuck at the corner. So I go down there and try to push it to no avail, and eventually some guy in an SUV shows up and gives her a push to the end of the cul-de-sac. Couple hours after that the neighbors come knocking all pissed off that her car is blocking the entrance, so we spend the next couple hours shoveling out the cul-de-sac so she can get her fucking car in.

Next day I wake up and feel a lump. In my crotch. Call my insurance, who tells me that the urgent care half a mile from my house isn't covered and I'll need to drive 20 miles to Broomfield. Mind you there's still 6 feet of snow on the ground and more coming.

So I get to urgent care and tell the lady I have a crotch lump. She asks me if I ever had a hernia and then takes a look at it and gives it a good solid squeeze. I go "OUCH!" and she's like "Oh, that's not a hernia, that's an abscess!" So I'm like "you mean it'll have to be pulled?"

She's like "No, It'll have to be drained. And I don't want to do that here because of all the plumbing right there, so you should go down to the Urology Center in Denver (Another 30 miles) and get that taken care of.

So I drive down to the Urology Center and they get me up on the table with my legs up in the air and he's about ready to hit me with the local and I hear "Oh, I've never seen a needle like that before! It's curved?" Just about the moment I'm about to say "WHAT?!" he jams the thing right into my bean bag. Oh yeah, solid 7 on my pain scale.

Any way, very long story just long, he ends up scooping me out with a melon baller and then tells me that he can't just close up the wound because it would just abscess again, so he had to put a wick in me. A crotch wick. And that'd have to stay in there for several weeks until the wound dried up and closed up from the inside.

Then he sent me on my way with a prescription for some Vicodan, which did exactly nothing to soothe my discomfort over the next few days. Getting the wick out a few weeks latter was also one of the more disgusting and unsettling experiences of my life, too. Overall 0/10, would not recommend.

Username: FlyingRhenquest
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17. Nail/Off

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i accidentally closed the car door on my thumb and nailed it exactly on the door hinge. the pain was nothing crazy, i was able to just laugh it off but there was a little purple spot.


during the next few hours the pain started becoming unbearable and more and more purple, i had to start putting ice on it because it was hot and painful but it was still not awful
the next day i went to the ER of a public hospital, they xrayed it and confirmed nothing was broken but they gave me some painkillers and told me to come back if it doesnt fade in a few days, at which point *spoiler* they would probably have to puncture or rip off the fingernail to release the clot.


at this point, the whole fingernail was purple and puffy and hurt when touched while the rest of the finger was red. i went 2 days later to a private hospital because i knew they would likely rip it off and i wanted better and faster service, so i go there, visibly in much pain. they had a doctor on call, so i had to wait while on some anesthesia.

when he got there, he started by trying to puncture it which would have been painful even without the clot and swelling so you can imagine, and then pressed it to try to get the blood out all the while im screaming
after a few tries, he tells me that this doesnt seem to work and that he needed to remove the nail. i was like well we got here why stop now.

so yeah he goes ahead and started using his tools that could double as torture tools, it was blurry for me but i remember one with a ratchet that spreads the nail from the finger and all types of clippers and pliers
from time to time, he would give me doses of local anesthesia which were painful and barely helped relieve anything

it was frankly horrifying all the way through and climaxed with the final rip of the nail, at the end i was shaking and sweating from head to toe even if im not one to sweat like that usually

few honorable mentions:
- went to change the bandage a few times and a couple times the bandage kinda stuck to the wound and ripping it besides the many techniques used was hard

- one time i saw a little bump at the base of the nail when changing the bandage, i told the nurse so she told me she had to give it a little puncture to see if its puss or blood (it was the new nail pushing through). my heart immediately sank to my feet when hearing that and it was as painful as expected

idk if i wanna post picture of it but if you guys are sick enough i can show you

Username: cuntsquiggle
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18. Traumatic Liver Transplant

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I am a liver transplant recipient. I was a baby when I got it, so I don’t remember the actual surgery, but I have grown up with the aftermath. I have chronic abdominal pain. I have also experienced a number of the other things people have commented. I currently have an IUD.

I have had migraines, UTIs, wisdom teeth removed, tonsils and adenoids removed, carpal tunnel surgery on both hands at the same time, and I had 7 abdominal surgeries prior to this incident. All of those were horrible, but without a doubt, the worse physical pain I have had was a perforated bowel from a bowel obstruction, followed by 2 emergency surgeries.

When the ER doctors saw my medical history and saw that I couldn’t answer their basic questions because I kept passing out from the pain, they figured something was really wrong. Yeah, my abdomen was full of poop.

Was taken to a specialty hospital by ambulance and had emergency surgery. I was doing fine for a little while after I woke up. About 36 hours later, I had even more intense pain. My incision was leaking bile through the staples. I had a morphine drip.

Nurses thought I just wanted drugs and told me that doctors would not give me anymore medicine. (It was about 2 am.) I finally begged for a hospitalist to physically come see me. She actually looked at my incision and saw all the bile leaking onto the dressing. She ordered a CT stat. CT showed my abdomen was full of bile because my liver was cut during the prior surgery. So that was emergency surgery #2.

After that surgery, they didn’t close the incision. They packed the opening and let it heal on its own. Anyone that has had a would/incision packed knows how bad those dressing changes hurt. And how traumatic it is to look inside your own body.

But the worse pain by far was recovering from severe depression after a break up with my fiancé, losing my best friend, having to move out, get a new job, and a new place to live, all at the start of the COVID lockdown. I would take all of those physical pain experiences again, over having to experience depression like that again.

Username: Intelligent-Crow-742
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19. The Pains of Poison Oak

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Family and I went on a road trip to British Columbia in Canada. We lived two provinces over. When we hit the mountains, my brother and I had to pee, so my dad pulled over and we went on the side of the road. Because it was a 14-16hr road trip I was wearing my pjs for comfort.

We did the trip in two days so we stopped at a hotel and stayed the night. The hotel had a hot tub and I slept in those pjs. I wore the pjs again for the 2nd day of the road trip and also that night because, their my fucking pjs and why not.

The next day I begin to have a rash. Not the worse thing in the world. Thought it was dry skin. Wore the pjs the next night. Woke up, the rash got worse. The day after that my legs and belly and even my forearms break out in boils and a rash.

My parents are pretty concerned but we have no idea what is causing it. The only thing comfortable are my pjs. We have family in British Columbia who a physicians and my uncle has seen less severe cases of this but he says it looks like poison oak.

And the thing about poison oak, it’s not like poison ivy or stinging nettle where the plant has sharp hairs or prongs that stick in you, poison oak is my the oil on the plant. So when we were by the side of the road, I was standing beside poison oak. And the oil got on my pjs, and for 3-4 days I let this oil sit on my body because I was wearing these pjs.

The pain was extremely persistent and the lack of sleep was extreme. It was at this point I started smoking weed at the tail end of the rash which made the pain just feel like a warm sensation. It covered probably 75% of my lower half and arms. The boils would pop and that wouldn’t help the cause. I think at its most severe it lasted 6days, but it did not completely clear for 3weeks.

Now I have cracked my skull, accidentally chopped the tip of my finger off, had a complication because of prk laser eye surgery, chipped my front tooth, popped my shoulder out. But the pains of poison oak is the first one that comes to my mind.

Username: euler00000
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20. Down to the Bone

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I had a gash in my shin down to the bone. it was large enough that the doctors required two separate surgeries to fully close the wound, and only half closed it after the first surgery to allow drainage and so the nurse could visually monitor the interior (it happened in a dirty environment, lots of debris was inside the gash so infection was a concern especially with an exposed bone with a opening in the bone).

every morning the nurses would unpack and repack the hole in my leg that went down to the bone. one day they forgot to remove on of the thin pieces of dressing packed inside because it was laying flat against the inside wall of the gash. as my leg healed, it healed over this fabric dressing.

my very open cross section of a leg and every exposed nerve ending inside of it had healed over and fused with this fabric. when the doctor finally discovered it, he had to remove it immediately (obviously) but there was no good way to do it other than putting me under, and they were afraid putting me under general anesthesia so soon after my first surgery and so close to my next surgery would be too dangerous and unnecessary.

so they tried just yanking it out and ripping the flesh and nerves from my leg and it is to this day, almost 20 years later, a pain i can still vividly remember. then they decided to give me morphine before the second pull, and it was 99% as painful still.

they gave me so much morphine they had to bring in a specialist to monitor me and put me on an oxygen mask because i had so much morphine my lungs could keep up anymore because they had slowed down.

eventually they had everyone on hand hold me down and he just ripped and tore at it until it came out. and it didnt help that my knee and ankle were both broken at the time too, so once the ripping and pulling was at full strength it was not only tearing the flesh on the inside of my leg open and tearing all my nerve endings directly at the source, but it was also jostling my broken joints with every pull.

Username: [deleted]
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21. I Swear By Steel Toes

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I worked in a lumber yard for a bit in my twenties. I was working in the yard pulling wrapping off new lumber bundles that had come in. They sit on these racks that look like a sideways H; you sit the lumber on the back and bottom and it holds the racks in place. They are thick steel. A forklift comes in and can pick up the units for shifting around.

So, I’m in back pulling the wrapping off a unit of 2x4x20s in back while one of the other guys was placing units on the rack in front. Well we were both kinda new and didn’t really think that the racks had to have a unit on the bottom to brace it all. The forklift guy placed a bundle on top to set it; I don’t know if he meant to put it on top permanently or if he was just setting it there temporarily.

Anyways, I was moving between the 18s and 20s when I felt the 20 unit press into my back. I thought the forklift was sliding the unit sideways and I hollered at him that I was there. What was ACTUALLY happening was the rack was too heavy with the only unit loaded on top and began leaning. I tried to get out back to the inside but it had slipped down and over enough to catch my thigh. I was pinned for about 30 minutes in this vice that was slowly pinching my leg.

I screamed like a little girl, you have no idea. They get the forklift over, I got guys around me trying to calm me. They get the lift in at an angle to take the pressure off, but it can’t get the forks in straight. Finally enough pressure releases and they can pull me out.

But, it was like a dam releasing. With my leg no longer “holding” up the wood, the whole unit came crashing down off the lift and racks, and slammed down into my left foot as I was being dragged. I was wearing steel toes. They held the weight enough for the guys to pry the unit off my foot.

I had severe bruising, a calf torn and pulled off the back of knee that needed surgery to be reattached, and plenty of steel to fix my foot from multiple breaks. Needed therapy, both physical and for severe claustrophobia.

I have never been in so much agony at any other place or point in my life. I wholly and unequivocally swear by steel toes.

Username: greyves
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22. Pulled, Yanked, Twisted, and Crushed

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Gallstones. Plain and simple. Got it by following a rapid weight loss plan that actually worked. I dropped 90 lbs within 6 months, but apparently according to my GI doctor, I should have been supplementing it with bear bile.

He said in rare cases with certain weight loss programs, some people are genetically disposed to developing gallstones, and I was the unlucky one with my genes. Although my father having gallstones should have tipped me off.

When it happened it w was the worse pain I've ever felt. I was chatting on PS4 chat with my friend while we were playing something. It started as a discomfort in my lower back. I tried roughly massaging it, but no dice. It got worse over time and then my friend suggested I go to the ER. I told my wife, we called a NP friends of ours who asked her a few questions. By that time the pain moved to my abdomen and I was doubled over in pain. The best way to describe it is like a crushing, twisting sensation in your guts. Like something was twisting and wringing my insides.

I started going outside, then threw up. She got me in the car. I felt every pothole, every bump on the road while still writhing in unrelenting pain. Took forever to get me in a hospital room and for them to take my vitals. After hours of pain that would not give up, they put me on morphine and the pain subsided. I was so exhausted from dealing with the pain, I fell asleep.

They told me I had "hundreds of gallstones" but one in particular really flared up causing the attack. They removed the entire gallbladder. Recovery was bad. I didn't want to lay down because it hurt my abs to sit up, so I slept in a recliner for a month and a half.

Rarely moved, except to use the bathroom, shower, until my body recovered. Basically could barely do anything more than watch movies, TV, and play games until I was well enough to go back to work. I still remember though the feeling of my insides like they were being pulled, yanked, twisted, and crushed over and over again.

Username: Draketooth
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23. Chest Tube While Conscious

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Having a chest tube inserted in the ER while awake. I was suffering from a collapsed lung due to pleural fistula caused by an infection from valley fever that caused a hydro pneumothorax. My blood oxygen levels were in the 80’s, i was having trouble breathing and the pressure in my pleural cavity was so great it was putting pressure on my heart, which was beating in the 130’s range.

The ER doctor kept apologizing to me about how painful the chest tube insertion was going to be. He said normally it’s done after the patient has been intubated and he doesn’t like doing it when the patient is awake. He assured me it is one of the most painful things to experience, right up there with open heart surgery. I asked to be sedated but apparently I didn’t meet the criteria.

The rolled me on my side and strapped my arm down above my head, gave me something to squeeze and asked if I wanted something to bite down on. They gave me dilaudid and used lidocaine at the incision site.

The ER doctor made the incision, then used his finger to burrow through the meat and fat to the muscle and rib bones. I could feel all of this, although the pain was muted. At this point they use a rigid tube to push through the muscle wall in between my ribs and into my pleural cavity.

Him puncturing through my muscle and pleural cavity was by far the most pain I have ever felt. Dilaudid didn’t do shit. I am damn sure everyone in the ER heard me that night. I was yelling at the top of my lungs. I even threatened to punch the Doctor.

It was heat of the moment and I was delirious from the pain, I later apologized lol. There was so much fluid and air released that it drenched the whole side of the bed and the pressure relief I felt was instantaneous.

I lost 20 lbs in two weeks while in the hospital. The chest tube diet works great but 10/10 wouldn’t recommend.

Username: WizzMcFly
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24. Cyst the Size of a Tennis Ball

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I had a pilonidal cyst at the base of my coxcix about the size of a tennis ball, coupled with sciatica from the base of my spine into the sole of my foot. I couldn't sit, stand or position myself in any way that relieved the pain and spent the better part of 3 days crying about the red hot bag of puss I had clinging on for the ride before deciding it wasn't going away on its own. Took a further 5 days to get and undergo the operation.

2 weeks later i also had my bottom two wisdom teeth break in half, get infected and the dentist proceeded to pull them even after acknowledging they were infected and told me that she shouldn't pull them. She did. 5 days later I had an intense tonsil and glandular infection which resulted in lock jaw (I couldn't open my mouth more than a centimetre without excruciating pain) and a trip to the ER with my mother as my interpreter because I couldn't speak properly at all, I sounded like the dude Rick shouts at in the episode of Rick and Morty where they go in the detoxifying machine except x10 more phlegm in there to distort my attempts at communication.

The doctor offered to lance my tonsil in order to drain it and hopefully restore some speech/comfortability. I accepted. He tried to numb my tonsil with a leave-on-spray which did nothing other than hit the tonsil and seat itself on my tongue, offering 0 numbing to the tonsil.

He stabbed it and I just had to roll with it because at that point in time I didn't care and just wanted whatever was wrong with me to be over. 2 weeks of antibiotics and 4 months of jaw exercises later I was actually kind of able to chew food again and didn't have choose between solid food and pain or a nourishment shake.

Apparently I had Quincy of the tonsil and if I left it another day or two the likelihood of it turning septic and me dying was very much on the table :) Not the most painful, but definitely the worst few months of my life for illness haha

Username: Relevant_Fly_1700
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25. Scraping Off Handfuls of Skin

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In 2019 I suffered a severe drug reaction called Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, which is a skin rash so severe that it could kill you. About 65% of my skin was affected by these deep blistering wounds, of similar severity to a 3rd degree thermal burn.

There were similar wounds to my mucous membranes, including my eyes, mouth airways, everything make being alive a good time. I needed skin grafts head to toe, including my head, genitalia and face.

Now getting the grafts on was ok (even tho it's considered surgery), what was more tough was getting them removed. In a process they called simply "Whirlpool", the grafts were allowed to dry out a bit (they had been in place for maybe 8 or 9 days?), and then they had me soak in this jacuzzi looking thing with gentle jets and a mild soap in the water.

After a few minutes myself and two nurses all set to work peeling the grafts off of the partially-healed wounds all over my body. I just used my hands to get at them, the nurses had "debriders" which are scalpels basically, to scrape them off.

Some places they came off easy, but there were plenty of areas where they were still very very stuck to me, like my nipples and all of my upper back. I had a trach in at the time so when I vocalized in pain, only a whispered version came out.

We worked for more than an hour, and occasionally they would fish around and pull the pounds of accumulated graft material out of the water, just handfuls of skin. My blood turned the water to a murky brown. The nurses were really good to me, and kept asking if I was ready to stop but I wanted to make as much progress as possible right then. so I held out until my pain tolerance crashed and I couldn't handle being touched at all anymore.

I needed another blood transfusion after that. And then I had to do it a second time the next day. But the second time wasn't nearly as bad or as long as the first.

Username: magratheansun
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26. Manually Dilated

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Being manually dilated for an IUD, followed only by having said IUD inserted.** I met a woman who had given birth 3 times, and she told me she'd rather give birth again than be manually dilated. Threw up getting it inserted/removed.

Threw up 2 hours later when they removed it because my body wouldn't stop clenching to try to reject it (I passed out several times during those 2 hours). **Having it removed felt like someone pulling a giant staple out of your genitals.** I don't want this to discourage anyone - tbf, I didn't have anesthetics, but that involved getting a shot in my cervix, so double-no. Also, my doctor wasn't the best. I'm at a different gyno now, and I'm requesting they put me under to get it put in.

Endometriosis attacks.** I've prayed that I don't die during them because it feels like you are. I black out a few times when I have them, usually, and will be on the floor for at least 2 hours, too weak to speak and call for help if I can't get to a tub of warm water in time to get enough relief to not pass out. The stabbing pains I get during them feel like just that - stabbing pains. Feels like someone is repeatedly driving a sewing needle into my cervix.

Yet, the nurse scheduling my surgical consult tried to convince me getting the surgery that'd fix it at least for a few years, if not permanently, wasn't a good idea.im having my consult on Wednesday and I'll threaten that doctor to let me have it if I have to.

Abscessed teeth.** I needed dangerous objects to be kept away from me while I had it because I sincerely wanted to unalive myself to make the pain stop. I spoke to a veteran at the time who'd fought during the Gulf War. He told me that he'd much, much prefer being shot through the leg again to an abscessed tooth. Said the pain doesn't last that long if a bullet goes all the way through you, so that it's absolutely less.

Username: CaliBounded
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27. Breathless Anxiety

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The worst anxiety attack I've experienced, new to my job maybe a month of working in this kitchen, really really busy day, getting our asses handed to us, orders are behind by 40 minutes and more are still coming in. Eventually after about 3 hours straight of just going full tilt, no stopping, we got through it.

I've found that with my anxiety, sometimes I can just put it off, I don't really know how to explain it, but I can just put off feeling my anxiety, maybe I just don't have room in my mind to be anxious until I get a break to think about something that isn't whats currently happening but what ended up happening was 3 straight hours of just "Holy shit were fucked, were so absolutely fucked" just flooded into me all at once.

I walked outside to try and just breath, fall back on my strategies that I generally use, nothing worked, went back inside to try and just get back to work and try and distract myself, and I just broke.

Imagine for a second a 6'3" 200 lb man just starts bawling in front of you, i mean just ugly crying while you're at work, two of my coworkers just kinda looked away and just kept working, my other coworker came over to help me.

I was propping myself up on a table because my legs had given out on me and I couldn't hold myself up, in the most coherent I could speak I asked them to help me to a chair to sit down. At that point every muscle in my body was tensing up, it felt like I had a cramp in every muscle in my body, I sat there in a chair just riding out the pain, audibly crying out in pain multiple times as it felt like my body was trying to tear itself apart.

I'm not sure how long it went for, I think at least 5-10 minutes before I could get up again and I got back to work, doing some very laid back kitchen work. The days week, I felt as though I was hit by a truck, everything was sore, every muscle in my body just ached.

Username: TonicFour
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28. Motorcycle vs. Truck

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T-boning a truck at 45mph on my motorcycle. The only way to describe the pain is intense, electrical, full-body shock. I couldn't feel or pinpoint a single part of my body that hurt the most. I was just fighting to breathe and my vision would come and go and the things I could see seemed to be outlined and shaded in purple. 🤷‍♂️

Just to preface... Got into a motorcycle wreck at 18. Month long hospital stay and 5 days was in the ICU.

Punctured lung, fucked my liver (got a stint and drained bile multiple times during my stay) open compound fractures on my arm, broken ribs, and severe burns from the muffler due to being mostly unable to move and floating in and out of consciousness.

Out of all these injuries, the fucking burn hurt the worst for the healing process. I couldn't stand up straight, I couldn't sit, couldn't sleep, and could barely walk. I felt like it impeded so much of my other healing processes just because it sucked so much energy from both physical and mental standpoints.

However, I barely noticed the burn pain in the hospital from the surgeries on my arm and chest pain from bouncing off a truck at 45mph. I suppose that since it was the one that lingered the longest, and I wasn't blasting pain killers and morphine line in the hospital, it was easiest to recall.

The only lasting problems is my fucked arm. I can't rotate it at the elbow at all and unable to fully extend it. Maybe only 70%? Burns on my entire butt cheek is just a cool looking scar and same thing with my punctured lungs.

I just have chest tube scars on either side which usually sparks a conversation when in a hot tub with friends or something. I've had 2 kidney stones and one of those I had to hospitalized. I'd rate that pain at a 6.5-7.5 range compared to the tbone smash.

Username: Temple_Name_Is_Jesse
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29. Blood Vacuum in the Nostrils

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Story time! I had surgery to fix a deviated septum when I was ~14-15. The evening I got home from surgery, my nose entirely packed full of gauze, I started bleeding. I woke up in the middle of the night vomiting blood that had been draining down my throat into my stomach.

The gauze soaked through and it started leaking out the front, too. My mom took me to the ER around 3am and they woke up my doctor. He came in grumpy and half asleep, told me to try not to move or I'd tear my stitches, and went straight to work tearing gauze out of my nose with forceps, then rooting around in my nostrils and sinuses with a metal vacuum tube to suck out all the blood.

Fresh surgery wounds that were now being disturbed by a tired old man rooting around in my nose with a metal tube. I was in utter agony. But I was told not to move. So I clenched my jaw and held still.

A nurse on my left had been holding my hand. I think she saw the pain on my face and started crying and had to leave the room. Once he was done with whatever the fuck he was doing, he finally took a look at my face as I let the tears flow.

I'm 38 years old and I will never forget this exchange - he turned to the nurse and said "Nurse, how much anesthetic did you give him?" She gasped and said "We didn't, we were waiting for you!" "Shit!" He rushed out of the room and came back with a squirt bottle of ice cold liquid that he squirted up each nostril.

The pain vanished. "That was liquid cocaine. You're going to fall asleep now." And I did. A few hours later I woke up to a nurse changing my IV and telling me I was going to fall asleep yet again.. And as she injected something into the IV, I did.

Again. I'm still horrified by anything going deep into my nose. COVID testing was NOT fun for me.

Username: GWindborn
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30. Broke Both My Legs on the Slopes

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I had a snowboarding accident and broke both my legs at the exact same time. Yes both. It was singularly the most ridiculous pain I could ever imagine. I had zero shock and knew exactly what had happened as soon as they broke, it sounded like tree trunks snapping.

I was on this ski mountain called grouse mountain near Vancouver, bc. I was going up the same track the whole day with my friends.. hitting a big jump at the top of the peak then landing on the right to speed down to the flat. I ended up losing my friends at the end of the night and saw my brother who had a few friends up there too. I was like sure I’ll just stick with them for the “last run”.

My brother was smoking weed with his buddies, I was 13 at the time and wanted to partake but my brother wasn’t having any of it.. he shunned me to the side then was very aggressive saying how I “need to hit the jump big so he doesn’t have to wait for me”

I hit it big.. way too big. I landed on a cliff and tapped the edge ... flying down the mountain at 100 miles an hour it felt like... I tried to stop toeside (facing uphill) on a flat zone before it dropped off and it was so icy that day that I just hydroplaned and flew off the next cliff.

Landed with my knees almost locked and all the pressure went into my shins. They both snapped instantly and folded over the top of my snowboard boots.

My brother came up behind me and was screaming at me “get up you pussy!!!” He didn’t see the crash so he was just being a dick, when he got closer he saw that my face was flat on the snow.. with my snowboard and feet also flat on the snow. If you can imagine that.

To add, I walk completely fine now and have titanium shin plates . My shins broke so clean that they just popped some plates in there and I’m good lol

Username: Sarcastic_Beaver
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