What's The Worst Physical Pain You've Ever Felt?

When I was away at university, slept on a cheap Ikea futon. Just before 1st semester exams started, I woke up one morning and my whole back was in so much pain it felt like I'd been stabbed in my sleep. Took me a few hours before I forced myself to get out of bed and make it to the kitchen for something to eat, and to find any painkillers. Laid on the couch the rest of the day, barely able to move without my back exploding.
The next day I managed to stagger to the drug store for some back pain patches. Took at least a week for most of the pain to go away.

Originally posted by blocula
i'll start by saying that i have slammed a hammer onto the tip of my finger which split it open and blackened the nail. i have had a six inch splintered piece of wood driven up inside my foot and i have fallen backwards twenty feet onto a pile of rocks and if you combined all three of these together they would'nt even begin to compare to the all consuming agony of an "abcessed tooth". of course in the beginning i ignored the problem until it was too late and one evening hell paid me a visit inside my mouth. the relentless pain quickly spread from the infected area of the tooth and spread out all the way from the top of my head, around my face and down into my throat. i could'nt think, eat, sleep or work. pain killers were ineffective because i threw them up and i actually cried and screamed out loud because it felt like my head was clamped tightly in a vise. imagine your head on fire and shoved inside a beehive, getting stung hundreds of times simultaneously and you'll begin to understand how horrible this infected abcessed tooth actually felt. i stood in front of the mirror in tears with plyers in my hand, ready to rip it out on my own but could'nt do it. i have read of people that actually committed suicide as an escape from this pain. i was taken to the emergency room, because it was on a saturday night and no dentists were open and the hospital would not pull it or do anything. they gave me three weak painkillers that i threw up and they sent me on my way. i guess the hospitals dont want to infringe on any of the dentists business. i finally had it pulled out and i was instantly in pain free heaven again. the terrible ordeal had ended. lots of people never have major problems with their teeth, they dont know how lucky they are...

edit on 2-9-2011 by blocula because: (no reason given)

Woah.

Are you me?

Seriously, apart from two of the three injuries at the start of the OP, the abcess and throwing up painkillers, that is EXACTLY how it was for me. Even down to the crying in front of a mirror with pliers in hand unable to pull it out myself, going to a hospital on a saturday and being sent on my way after a few painkillers.

For me, it was a wisdom tooth that had somehow not only grew out almost sideways but also had a huge hole in it too.

reply to post by Leg1on


Had something similar to that.

Used to wrestle somewhat in my teens, nothing too dangerous but long story short, I was spiked on top of my head and for a short time couldn't move until I was dragged up and dropped on the floor again. Lower spine was bruised and the bruise even showed through the skin for several years, had back trouble ever since.

Now, every time I do anything physical for a long time or even walk for 10 minutes my back is killing me but the worst was working at a rehearsal studio and dragging amps up by myself with no one else in the building. Ended up having to lie across one of them for up to an hour while my back went into spasm and throbbed in the most intense back pain I've ever felt. Literally didn't think I'd be able to move from that position. Took some effort to do so.

if theres a living hell, its the exposed and infected nerves of our teeth,the agony defies description...

Abcessed teeth, upper wisdom teeth. Writhing in agony for 2 entire days and nights, got about 4 hours sleep during all of it.
Walked about 2 and a half miles ( little over 5 km ) to see a dentist who insisted that I take a week long course of antibiotics.
$25 and a week later, after losing 6 kilo from pain related muscle contractions I had them pulled. it cost $150 per tooth and after I woke up (from the 100th time passing out) I hugged the dentist, cried from joy then laughed then slept for 2 days.
Worst pain ever! and I've been stabbed in the hand.
I,ve also had an exposed nerve in one of my front teeth that I had drilled out by the dentist after a week of agony. was once hit in the head with a steel bar and had skin removed from my penis (don't ask) None of it came close to my wisdom teeth for pain.

i think that infected abcessed teeth take the sinister prize as being the worse pain imaginable,extreme anguish and agony that lots of people experience on a daily basis...just ask someone whos been forced to live through this kind of hell, where there is no way to escape from it and nowhere to hide from it...and just imagine that hospital "emergency rooms" will not really do much of anything except tell you to go see a dentist! and then what if you dont have the ca$h or proper insurance? just the thought of being trapped in this pain, in these kinds of situations, which i have experienced more than once, is very frightening. the hospitals really have a good $$$ deal going on with the dentists, dont they...

Tooth abscess and childbirth among the natural instances of pain.
Those bloody evil Whitening crest strips for self inflicted agony.

Also teeth problems. Some nerve basically died and got infected with bacteria which inflicted all kinds of pain. It was horrible and made worse by the 4 weeks of going to the doctor who worked on it with some weird instruments ("Don't worry if it smells burned now" - Yeah, that's something i wanna hear )
First and only time i ever had problems with my teeth or anything else. I walked pretty safe through life so far, never broke a bone, never had any problems

I suffered for a good year with what the emergency dentist, doctors and hospital diagnosed as Trigmenial neuralgia. Nice thing that they call it the suicide disease. Absolute agony and forced me to give up breastfeeding through the sheer number of pain killers I had to take. (I'm surprised I didn't kill my kidneys and liver).

Low and behold a molar finally fell apart and they realised it was down to a cracked tooth and abscess. That's right..Not the dentist, doctor or the hospital spotted it. The physical pain I've gotten well over, the heartbreak of cutting short breastfeeding my then 7 month old son still pisses me off greatly.

when my sister was little, she and some of her friends were playing "hop scotch" jumping over a broken rusty metal pipe and one time she didnt make it all the way over and she landed on the pipe! that pierced and penetrated her thigh. she was actually hanging off of it! she had to be lifted off of it as it slid an entire foot out of her thigh. she almost bled to death and died right there where it happened, at a highway rest stop many miles from a hospital here in mass and the massive wound required over 200 stitches inside and out! and she even said that "nothing" ,not even that, compares to the all consuming agony of an infected abcessed tooth!

Researchers say that when a person feels intense physical pain the mind has a built in mechanism that causes a person to pass out from the pain.

Sort of like tripping a fuse in the brain.

I attempted to pick up a piece of metal that I did not know had been heated with a blow torch and had just changed color from red to black.

I touched it just long enough, that when I pulled my hand back my fingerprints were left behind.

I passed out from the pain.

I now have no distinguishable fingerprints on my right hand.

The worse pain I ever felt that I did not pass out was when I "snagged' a part of my genitalia in a metal zipper.

I screamed twice.

Once going up that trapped it and once going down to free it.

That was the last time I went "commando".

imagine pressing that hot metal ^^^ against you face,throat and head for 36 hrs screaming and crying the whole time and thats what one of my abcessed infected teeth felt like and i have also grabbed very hot metal that burned like hell and my "hell tooth" was worse...

reply to post by blocula


I feel your pain

years ago was driving home from work and got a weird almost magnetic feeling in my mouth, as if my filling was a heavy magnet and someone was standing next to me with an acme magnet. didn't think nothing of it as I continued to drive. then all of the sudden, WHAM!!, it hit me!! it felt as though someone was pouring hot magma over every nerve in my face. next thing I know I'm on the side of the road and my steering wheel is nearly taco'ed in half, apparently I hit it in a fit of painful rage.

went to ER which was pointless. this horrendous pain lasted a few days till I could get it pulled. spent most of my time laying on the kitchen floor, gulping booze and pain pills, both of which did absolutely nothing to help. even tried pliers, and that sucker wouldn't budge.

1: Kidney stone
2: torn MCL, I fell down the basement stairs and literally layed on the floor crying until medics could get me up the stairs and to the hospital. That was last December and the knee still hurts every day, at least the kidney stone passed after a few days.

stepping on a 3 inch rusty nail that sticks all the way into your foot is a painful,cruel and unusul agony and pulling it out is a really weird and nasty feeling that i have unfortunately had to do before and as a matter of fact, when i think about all the bad physical punishments that i have endured and the sad fact that they far outweigh the good things that have happened to me and its probably that same lopsided unfair injustice for most people everywhere...hmmmm?...i wonder why?...i know why,but thats for another thread...

born w/scoliosis....have l5/s1 degen disc..bone spurrs....ankylosing spondylitis..rheumo and arthreo arthritis....had a spinal tap...worst

sciatic nerve pinch fire shock stab cut shoot real pain..

steroid/hyalgan injections in knees...pressure!..never again

39 yrs old....now waiting for test results on MS diagnosis

the people in these links should have stayed home in bed on the days that these horribly painful things happened to them > www.dailymail.co.uk... >>> en.wikipedia.org...

abses tooth my eye was swollen shut

reply to post by blocula


Abscessed tooth first. Second falling off a wretched little Shetland pony who stepped on and crushed my foot when I was eleven. Aside from natural childbirth, I would say those stand out in my mind the most.

Originally posted by jplaysguitar
abses tooth my eye was swollen shut

exactly and abcessed teeth can easily kill you but they do not have dentists in hospitals at least not here in Mass...the dentists and hospitals sure have a good $$$ deal going on between them...don't they...if everyone went to the ER no one would hardly go to the dentists so there must be all kinds of $$$ kickbacks from hospital "emergency" rooms sending people away..."go see a dentist"...