Are we human because we feel pain? Or do we feel pain because we are human?
Believe it or not, human beings can deal with a massive amount of pain. And if you work a job where you're constantly being asked to put yourself in situations that will cause you minor amounts of pain daily, your pain threshold goes up. But sometimes it's just too overwhelming--those stories need to be shared as well.
u/Addley1 asked:
What is the worst pain you have ever experienced?
Here were some of those answers.
Teeth Are Not Triflin'
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Split tooth. Misdiagnosed for six months. Searing, insane pain. "Makes you consider suicide" pain that oxycodone and alcohol couldn't reach.
We found that Neurontin (gabapentin) could address the pain. next time I went to my dentist, I said, "you know, I wish you'd look harder at that tooth."
he was mortified to have missed it. When the tooth (now infected) came out, it was in two pieces with a live nerve root.
Not A Precious Stone
Kidney Stones. Thought I was dying.
I just had my first kidney stone a few weeks ago. I was literally in a ball the floor of my managers office crying and dizzy. I thought the alien from 'Space Balls' was about to jump out of my side. They gave me torodol at the ER and I forgot why I was there. Then the torodol wore off and I chewed percocet every six hours for a few days.
Emotional Pain
My high school sweetheart got into drugs, left me for her dealer, got pregnant and didn't want the baby because he was born with Down's syndrome so she gave him to me. She died three months later of an overdose. The worst pain is everytime my son asks me about his mom. He's 24 now, I will never tell him his mom was a druggie who didn't want to be burdened by him. It breaks my heart.
He sees my wife as his mom, my wife and I have been together for 20 years and have 3 more kids. So he does have a mom who loves him as if he was her flesh and blood like I do, it just hurts so much that he'll never know his birth mom.
Pain Is No Stranger
Physical pain? Two sources.
The first: I had severe endometriosis, and more than once I wound up in the ER for it. The pain was so bad they thought I was in labor. I found out later I basically was, I just didn't get stuck with a baby after it was over. This was the culmination of decades of severe monthly cramping, and when I finally had a hysterectomy, it was the best. F*cking. Thing. EVER.
The other was Trigeminal Neuralgia. Imagine fighting Muhammad Ali, and how much it must hurt at the moment he punches you in the jaw. Now extend that split second to last days or weeks. That's what it felt like.
We're still not sure what set it off, but I think it was maintained by a minor infection no one could seem to spot and nail. It finally went away, but while it was in full force, the tiniest of breezes could make it feel like there was no light in life, only pain, and I was cursed. It was recurring for years but it's been fine for a while.
Emotional? So many to choose from, but when I was in junior high, literally overnight, all my friends stopped talking to me. Hell, they stopped acknowledging I was even there. I'd be talking to them and it was like I was invisible. I begged and pleaded for them to talk to me, to just f*cking LOOK at me, but none of them ever had a real conversation with me again.
I never knew why, just that it was on orders of one of their mothers. Frankly, I don't want to know. F*ck all of them. (Except Scott. He was in survival mode by joining them, and I don't blame him. Sadly, he was the only one of the group to die young. He deserved better, and the rest can burn in hell.)
An Added Surprise
So picture me 7 playing Skyrim for the first time. I head into Bleakfalls Barrow or whatever its called get into the spider cave bit. As soon as i get jump-scared a huge sting travels from my foot up my leg. Turns out there was a bee in my sock for about 25 mins without me noticing.
It's A Miracle Any Of Us Survived College
'Twas college and Meatfrappe and his roommates decided to go drunken sledding in the middle of the night, and grabbed whatever objects they had lying around that could serve as improvised sleds. This included trays that had been "liberated" from the dining hall, a rubbermaid trash can lid, and Bridgette--an inflatable woman originally purchased as a gag gift that had become the dorm room, um, mascot.
The snow on the hill had been soft during the day, and those sledding pioneers who had come before us had packed it all down and constructed a formidable jump, which by midnight had, along with the rest of the hill, frozen rock solid.
Meatfrappe climbed atop Bridgette, whispered something sweet into her latex ear, and let gravity take over.
Let it be known that an inflatable woman makes an extremely fast and surprisingly stable sled.
As Meatfrappe encountered the jump at an impressive speed, the curvature of his path required an equally impressive centripetal force. The magnitude of this force was, unfortunately, much more than Bridgette's delicate Chinese-vinyl seams could withstand. She loudly popped and rapidly deflated just as Meatfrappe and a now limp Bridgette left the lip of the jump and began a parabolic path like a Ruthian home run.
Meatfrappe, knowing that his flaccid sledding partner would provide no cushioning whatsoever, attempted to maneuver into a position that might minimize the violence of the impending impact, but his efforts were futile. He landed kneecap-first, exploding his patella into a multitude of fragments--a most unpleasant feeling.
You Don't Know Better Than A Doctor.
My step mom was an RN so she had that attitude she could doctor and cure any illness the family had so my brother and I ended up with strep throat for over a month. It got so bad the only thing that could help me from nearly crying when i swallowed was a cough drop but even it caused excruciating pain. I think I lost maybe 15 pounds that month because I just couldn't eat or drink anything more than jello and lukewarm water
Backs Are So Complicated
I thought 5 years of gallstones was bad. Until I strained my back go-karting. No accident or anything, just drove fast for too long in an ill fitting seat.
Result? 1 displaced disc and 1 torn disc. The tear leaked some matter that pressed on my nerves around the L5/S1 disc. The pain was utterly excruciating. Full on 11/10 for hours. I passed out from the pain on the toilet at 2am, had a huge drop in blood pressure and heart rate. Wife thought I'd done an Elvis as apparently I did a sort of death rattle... (She was wrong)
I was given gas and air, which helped, but also made me feel like time was altering speed as I was talking. Weird stuff.
From Bad To Worse
Oh, I've got this one. It's the stuff of nightmares.
Imagine getting a haircut, and getting a staph infection from the electric shavers on the back of your neck, at the base of your hairline.
Now imagine a day later, that staph infection is a baseball-sized, infected abscess that has to be operated on.
Now imagine when the nurse is cleaning/dressing this wound every couple of hours, dunking a bunch of gauze in saline, and packing it into this massive infected hole. Just feeling the air of somebody walking past is enough to make your eyes roll back in your head, and they are packing it with saline-soaked gauze.
Now imagine instead of saline, they accidentally used alcohol.
Now you can imagine the adrenaline dump that can cause a normal person to actually rip the metal arms off a hospital bed.
Playing Hooky
My cousin, uncle and I went fishing. We caught some small fish and started packing to go home. My uncle gave me the fishing rods to put them into his car. As I was putting them in, I moved my hand rather quickly downwards the rod.
For a moment, I was lost, as if I had lost consciousness. When I recollected my self, I was still standing. Confused, I looked over to my hand and the f*cking hook was deep in my finger (like 1,5 centimetres deep).
My cousin quickly called my uncle and he told me to sit down and stay calm. Alright, it didn't hurt at all at this point. Then, my uncle started to pull the hook out. It hurt like LITERAL HELL. Mostly due to the way the hook was shaped, it's not meant to let things go that easily. I almost passed out due to the pain (it was like when you stand up quickly and your brain loses oxygen and everything becomes blurry, hard to see the edges of your vision).
Goo Goo Gout
Gout, The very first flare up I had was misdiagnosed as Cellulitis a painful and potentially life threatening bacterial infection, spent 2 days in excruciating pain while they filled me full of I.V. antibiotics. While laying on a cot in the Hospital hallway a passing Doctor stopped looked at my foot pressed on my toe causing me to nearly pass out from the pain and asked "did that hurt?" I said yes, he said I think you have gout, one blood test later confirms it and I'm prescribed meds. 3 days later still in horrible pain go to the local walk in clinic where I am informed I was given the wrong medication, it was for preventing a Gout flare up, if taken during a flare up it makes it worse.
Finally given the right medication pain starts to go away in a few hours. Flare ups still occur and have landed me in the ER on a number of occasions. Every injury since when the Doctor asks what my pain is I have to say "well I have gout so this is like a 2 or 3 compared to the worse pain I've ever felt." And those injuries have included broken bones and a hand that was crushed bad enough I was off work for 4 months and almost a year later still doesn't work right.
You'll Shudder In Pain
Having my toenail ripped off. Accidentally.
My horse trod on my toe - no big deal, happens all the time if you have horses and I was wearing solid leather riding boots. But it must have done something to the nail, because later that day I was playing with friends, barefoot, and a friend accidentally stood on my toe and the action of putting down her heel ripped the nail clean off. It was absolute agony.
Oof, No Thanks
Dual ear infections and one with severe pressure on my ear drum.. I could only lay on my face and cry for 4 days.. My father almost punched the doctor in the face when he was swabbing my ears with those over sized q tips.. I was screaming in pain, my whole body was trembling. My dad knew this and couldn't take seeing.the doc causing this pain to me.. They doc was a nice man and my dad apologized after.. But that's the worst pain I've ever had in 30 years of life.
Bum Bum
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I wrote on another question about pulmonary embolisms that I had.
When you have those you get this really bad sharp pains around your chest area. This on top of bearly being able to breathe sucked. They weren't able to drug me until I got to the ICU, it took maybe 40 minutes to an hour get me there, pain the whole way.
Other than that, I got a paper cut the other day.
Nerves Are A Kicker
My cluster headaches. The pain feels deadly. "I can't possibly be in this much pain and not die soon" pain. I am in awe of the level of pain humans can endure and still live because of this condition. I didn't know it was possible. It is so absolutely visceral and debilitating. The kicker is that they disappear for years at a time so I almost forget that I am afflicted with them until they kick in for a month, out of nowhere, every day around bed time. Easily the worst pain I have endured and will again and I have been stung by a Man o' War jellyfish. The fact that they are clinically called "Cluster Headaches" makes explaining their severity to non-sufferers infuriating.
Take Care Of Yourselves, Folks
Rupturing ovarian cysts. It's such an instant, blinding, sickening pain that my brain literally had no idea how to process it. Do you scream, nope that doesn't describe it. Cry? Nope still not right. Wish for death? Yep, going for that one. The second time I had one was in the middle of the night, right as my boyfriend was coming home from work. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to crawl out of the bathroom, in the dark, all "the ring" like and just grabbed him. I couldn't even gasp out words, just mouth open silent scream. Scared the bejesus out of him.
