Ask Lemmy

Small stuff compared to some others on here, but noteable for being 100% self-inflicted and fairly warned. Not me, I watched someone stick almost a quarter cup of wasabi in his mouth. It was the first time he'd seen it, was warned by multiple people, and did it anyways. His eyes rolled back into his head. He vomited. He passed out briefly. Someone had to drive him home because he was basically acting like he was intoxicated.

He said later he figured it would taste like pistachio ice cream.

Had a random sinus pain that was so debilitating had to call my dad to take me to the er. Was around 13 to 16

phone call could barely understand me. Bridge of my nose to back of head felt like sharp daggers in waves.

By the time made it to er was gone had 0 pain and I never experienced it again. Dr's said it was sinus but I still don't have a fucking clue what that was

My ankle had a tendency to swell up and hurt in my 20s, and I had no idea why. Just figured it had never really healed from a previous injury.

One day, it was worse than ever. I couldn't walk on it at all. I hopped (literally) into the ER, and they told me that the only way they would know is to draw fluid from the joint. Keep in mind, this particular joint is twice the size it should be and can't have any pressure put on it.

That was the kind of pain that's so bad your body doesn't even know how to react. I was sweating, cold, nauseous, and dizzy. It probably only took a few seconds, but it felt like it lasted 10 minutes.

Turns out I have chronic gout. Which can be determined with a blood test. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Got kicked in the balls when I was younger. It's not pain, it's something else. Of a different nature. You're transported outside of everything, outside of reality. It was transcendental.

I had a JJ stent removed without anesthesia. I have a penis so they enter this way to get it out.

I thought the pain of the kidney stones, which were the reason I had a JJ sten, twere the most painful thing I could have in my life. Turns out I was wrong.

Remember to drink, really.

If we mean emotional pain, heartbreak.

If we mean physical pain, alcohol withdrawal.

had a large abscess excised from my right thigh. they did a wet-to-dry pack instead of closing it. while I was under, they were able to get two full gauze rolls into the hole. the pain of getting it back out was the worst pain I'd ever experienced in my life

Broken bones. Worst was the broken rib. Couldn't do shit. Just breathing hurt.

I had gallstones that turned into sepsis and they had to press on my abdomen to do imaging.

Three herniated discs in my back causing sciatic pain. It wasn't that the pain was bad on a moment-to-moment basis, but that it just want on and on and on. It was agony to sit down, so I had to stand in my cubicle to work. It was painful to lie down, so I ended up getting about 4 hours of sleep each night. I was taking several grams of ibuprofen, acetaminophen (yes, I'm lucky I didn't destroy my liver), and naproxen sodium daily, just to be functional. This went on for over a year.

The fun part is that when I first starting having sciatic pain, I was pretty sure that it was my back, because I hadn't done anything that would have injured my leg. I had really good insurance at the time, but my doctor refused to order an MRI or even an x-ray; he thought I was trying to get a prescription for drugs. It took about 15 months of pain, and multiple visits to my doctor, an ER, and even attempting to see a chiropractor (who was at least self-aware enough to realize that he shouldn't touch me without an MRI first), before a scheduling error got another doctor in the practice to look at me, order an x-ray, and then order an MRI on the basis of the x-ray. Within about two days of the MRI being read I had received a referral to a neurosurgeon, in less than a week he was asking me whether I wanted a laminectomy or a spinal fusion. (These days I'd be opting for disc replacement), and I was recovering from surgery about a month after that MRI.

I had my fair share of health problems,from a major motor vehicle accident with a broken spine,burns,ruptured nerves, etc. to a stroke, a dislocated shoulder and knee, etc.

But the worst one? By far?

A fucking kidney stone. It literally redefined my 10/10 pain level.

The very sudden and very quick pain I had in my back this morning. It was so bad I very nearly passed out.

spine surgery

Fucking Crohn's Disease sucks. All of my "adventures" with it have been painful, but the one that takes the cake:

A couple of years ago, my GI wanted me to do a pill endoscopy test, which is where they basically have you swallow a pill that has a camera embedded in it, and it takes pictures while it traverses your insides. You're supposed to naturally "pass" it like anything else you eat, but in my case I did not, and it got stuck. My GI did not believe me, and it just kept getting worse and worse. To put a timeframe on things, this happened in early February of that year.

I had ER trip after ER trip throughout that year, they determined that it wasn't going to pass on its own and needed to be surgically removed, but since it was not "life threatening" they couldn't just wheel me into an OR immediately and have it done, it had to be scheduled. Took forever to find a surgeon to schedule me under. One of the times that I was in the hospital due to this, the doctor on my "care" team wanted me to do what she called a "supreme bowel cleanse" to see if that would dislodge it. I was hesitant to do it, but I was pretty much willing to do anything at that point to end this nightmare, and only because she promised me that if it didn't work, they'd take me into surgery and do it the old fashioned way. That ordeal was terrible, I've had Crohn's since before I was a teenager, I'm very used to doing colonoscopy prep - this was far worse than that, the pain was unbearable and the amount of bowel cleanse that they gave me must've been right at the border of their ethical limits (or at least, I imagine that has to be a thing, right?) and plot twist she did not hold up her end of the bargain when the pill still did not pass, instead she gave me a few days worth of pain meds and discharged me the next day.

My condition continued to get worse and worse, yet my operation wasn't scheduled till early July. The hospital that the surgeon worked for agreed to pre-admit me into their care 2 months in advanced because it got to the point where I could barely even hold down regular water and I had to be put on IV nutrition with a PICC line and all.

Fast forward to the operation day, they ended up having to do two surgeries in one go, the first being to remove the pill, and the second was to try to fix the damage that had been revealed on the camera. The moment I woke up from the operation I was screaming in pain, and begging them to put me back under (which they could not do). They kept giving me pain meds and I'd end up passing out eventually from the pain, wake back up, and the whole ordeal would start again. Eventually they put me on one of those self-administered pain med pumps where I could click a button every so often and it would give me some pain medication through my IV.

I didn't end up going home until the very beginning of September (first week I believe), and I had arrived there sometime in the middle of May. I will never do one of those pill endoscopy tests ever again. I also switched GIs since my current one at that time had refused to listen to me when I told her something was wrong at the beginning of the "experience".

Well I had hives about a day or two after I had bottom surgery and had to switch to otc painkillers, so it’s either that or the cluster headaches I had as a kid.

Third place goes to the infection I had after a particularly invasive removal of wisdom teeth, also sans opiate.

Being allergic to both opiates and one of the most common antibiotics really fucking sucks.

Emotional pain it’s either my mom’s death to cancer or my ex father disowning me

Cluster migraines.

Heartbreak, death of friends family, migraines

Two weeks ago I stubbed my pinky toe so hard that I was sure it was broken, whilst talking my dog out in the middle of the night. It made my entire foot swell up for days. It's still sore today.

It's worse than when I broke my wrist as a teenager.

Double middle ear infection, couldn't let my head tilt to either side for three days, or absurd pain ensued for an hour.

How did I sleep then? Exactly.

It's a throw up between dislocating my arm while kiting and wearing both wrist straps for the brake lines. So my arm dislocated in mid air, fell to the ground, kite inflates but doesn't take off and dragged me along the ground by my dislocated shoulder until I hit a rock.
Falling while climbing solo breaking my ankle and having to crawl out to find help.
And finally crashing while skiing and landing my hip on a rock, the ski patrol didn't know if I had a spinal injury and couldn't give me painkillers to get me off the hill, so they took me down a slushy bumpy spring slope on a sledge. Turns out I'd just fractured my hip so after the xray my friends dad the doctor got me loaded up with painkillers to make up for it.
Edit: that's just some of the worst I can think of, I am very grateful that the human mind cannot remember pain.

I've been lucky, just throwing my back into spasm.

Losing people I loved.

Inflamed sacroilliac joints causing stabbing pains in my legs while on a city break where we were walking everywhere. Thought it was sciatica at the time but multiple MRIs later was confirmed to be something similar but different..

Never broken a bone so don't have much to share in terms of the painful experiences.

Humerus knitting while I'm trying to sleep sitting up without moving it.

Ok so here's the kinda crazy part. I'm a sideshow and fire performer. I've suffered large burns, I can drill into my sinus cavity, I had my tongue surgically split, I staple myself with an upholstery stapler all the time.

Nothing has beat dental pain.

Getting hit by a truck while walking down the road, after the initial ragdoll physics were over. EVERYTHING hurt, from my hair follicles to my toes. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Dislocated shoulder. It went over the front of the socket which is apparently quite rare, and the most painful. I was blacking out front the pain, a friend fainted, ambulance gave me laughing gas which was great. Hospital visit was not fun, they tried various kinds of morphine which didn't seem to have much of an effect, then ended up giving me some sort of date rape 'cooperative sedation' meds and letting the student doctors take turns to fail at relocating my arm and fuck up the socket even more.