It's something you're taught when you're younger: you get hurt, you take medicine.

But what happens when that medicine doesn't work like it's supposed to?

Fear Of Losing Sight

"When I was a teenager I had a sinus headache so bad that I temporarily lost vision in my left eye (my sinus was physically pressing against the back of the eye), and I could not stop vomiting. Worse than the pain was the thought that maybe it was a tumor and this was how the rest of my short life was going to be."

"Then someone explained sinus medication to me. Twenty minutes after the first dose, I was fine."

"God bless Western Medicine."

faceintheblue

Brush, Brush, Brush Your Teeth

"My decayed, abscessed, impacted, infected, severely inflamed, exposed nerve tooth ache, in my years of living in a dirt poor family who couldnt even afford to buy basic pain medication"

"Take care of your teeth, please"

Raemnant

How Do You Miss? It Was Right In Front Of You!

"When I was ten I needed a kidney biopsy. The surgeon gave me a local anesthesia marked an x on my back and handed the needle to a resident. That resident proceeded to ignore the x miss my kidney entirely and stab me in the rib."

dogron

Some pain is so bad it can bring you to your knees, taking away your ability to function like a normal human being. Unfortunately, this is America, and you have a job to get to so just because you can't stand is no excuse and you need to show up to work on time, sir!​

Bringing You To Your Knees

"Kidney Stones"

"The stone itself hurt, but mine was too big to pass, so it just got stuck in my ureter (the tube from kidney to bladder). I laid on the floor in the emergency room until an angel nurse got approval to give me some morphine, and the doctor got me scheduled with a urologist the next morning."

"They had two choices for me. Blast it (I think it's called lithotripsy? Something with sound waves), or go in after it. Blasting it was 3x more expensive, so I told them to go on in. There is only one way in."

"For a while after surgery, you have a tube inside you, and a string hanging out. God help you if anything even tugs on that string. The biggest problem, however, is that the pain when you pee will bring you to your knees, but you're supposed to be drinking water the entire time you're awake to ensure that everything is cleaned out properly. So you drink, pee, die, drink, pee, die, for almost two weeks, until the urologist decides it's time to remove the tube, by pulling on the string that hurts to even touch."

"Next time, I'll pay for the blasting, but I've heard that it can be just as bad passing 500 tiny stones over the course of a few days too."

DifficultMinute

That's Rather Polite Of You To Wait

"Infection after a surgery. It was Christmas Day. I didn't want to ruin my family's day so I waited until they had opened their presents in the morning to then announce I needed to go to the Emergency Room. But I have to say, the morphine I got later was pretty sweet."

My_happyplace2

Heading To Work. Like You Do.

"Doctor left grapefruit sized mass of tissue inside of me post-c-section."

"On the morning my husband was to return to work after paternity leave, I laid on the floor writhing in pain. He thought I was having my first period after birth. I begged to go to the ER."

"As he got up to go to work, I grabbed the car keys and drove myself to the ER."

"He was forced to stay home with out newborn twins. (he's not a bad guy, he just had to go back to work.)"

"At the hospital, I moaned and begged to be knocked out. The pain was 100. My eyes rolled back in my head. I begged for mercy. Anything. Please, knock me out."

"One nurse listened, after several hours, and gave me a xanax. I finally fell asleep."

"Woke up an hour later, hemorrhaging from my vagina. I screamed, "Something is coming out of me!!"

"Alarms went off and a triage team rushed in, placing stickers all over me. It was a grapefruit sized mass. I lost a lot of blood. I was shivering so hard I thought my teeth would shatter."

"The nurse remained after her shift and stroked my head, asking me if I was cold. I said, "no. I'm scared." she stayed with me for hours."

"100% the worst pain I've ever endured."

octobertwins

Then there's the painful experiences some of us will never understand, when something that was once part of you is taken from you.

Something Gone, But Never Forgotten

"I've lost my foot in a car crash when I was eight. To this day, I frequently have phantom pains. It's not that painful in reality, but the fact that you've pain or just any kind of sensation in a limb you no longer have kinda f-cks with your head."

TheSixthMambo

A Fading Feeling That Comes Back

"Post amputation of my left leg, there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line that resulted in my medication being interrupted. When the nerve block wore off, it was like someone flipped a switch on millions of nerve endings. Lasted about an hour until they contacted the doctor."

facelesscog

Salute To A Fallen Comrade

"I got shot in the left nut at a shooting range. Felt nothing at first but after I realized what happened I fell like a rag doll. Thank God I have my right one or I'd be adopting"

"Since everyone's asking about how some idiot shot me in the testicle, I'll explain. I didn't see much from my view because I wasn't looking at him since I wasn't exactly expecting him to noscope half my family jewels. He was a friend of mine. He is bigger into guns than I am. From what I heard he was trying to "fix" the gun (I honestly don't know if it was jammed or something but the gun was messed up some way). He forgot to turn the safety off. We were still friends for a long time after that and he actually helped pay for most the medical bills (American, if the guns didn't tell you enough). We slowly drifted away after he moved to a different country. It was my first and its likely gonna be my last time at a shooting range. I don't know enough about guns to know what gun it was. Some kind of pistol. Maybe glock 19? I think that was one of his favorites. Can't believe my biggest post is about my balls. Worth it"

NuggetAlmighty

As a reminder, pain is relative, where everything you feel is unique to your own senses and tolerance. Never feel bad for something hurting you, or for feeling like you need to rest. Who knows? It might end up leading to something seriously wrong, as evidenced by the stories we've just shared.

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