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Worst physical pain of your life?

Removing asphalt, denim, and dead skin from my knee wound after a motorcycle crash was pretty awful. When it gets really bad you get chills down your spine.

Not the worst pain a human can endure, certainly, but nevertheless not something I'm eager to repeat.
 
Dislocating my kneecap, so my kneecap was rotated 90 degrees around from where it should have been. Rather than facing forward, my right kneecap was facing my left leg.

I was given two full canisters of anesthetic gas to inhale, 4 injections of morphine and an entire bottle of liquid paracetamol via an IV drip. After all that I was still in pain.
 
When I was in traction with 30 pounds bolted to my head to straighten my broken neck. It wouldn't have hurt that much but I had a giant hematoma across the back of head that was under constant pressure. I was screaming at the nurses and surgeons that the back of my head was killing me but they apparently didn't know I could tell the difference between my neck and head.
 
Kidney stone. First time I learned that you constantly vomit when you're in a lot of pain. Though apparently it was pretty small, so the pain wasn't as bad as it could normally be. That terrifies me.
 
fluffydelusions said:
Pinched nerve in my lower back. Just laying in the floor not being able to move and the worst pain ever. I've broken bones and everything but nothing compared to this
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Ugh, I had that. I finally somehow will myself off the floor. It felt like my spine was gunna sever. Finally some sweet relief when I was able to sit in the recliner.

But that still doesn't compare to when the dentist stuck a needle in the nerve of my tooth. I went through the ceiling. I'd rather keep my hand on a hot stove than deal with that again.

*shivers*
 
I cycle a lot (not as much as I should lately). Was riding in Rock Creek Park with a ton of traffic, so I jumped I the tail rather than dealing with drivers in the street. As I was almost at the top of a huge hill, this fucking idiot decided to lunge into the opposite lane from behind his dad and smashed into me. I rolled down the hill and smashed into a car below.

Fractured two ribs and had a punctured lung. Couldn't breath too heavily, couldn't cough, couldn't sneeze, basically nothing without basically crying in pain..was out of commission for about three months. Fuck that idiot..
 
Playing paintball, I dove behind the snake but the field left a spare stake in the ground. Entered the side of my knee hit the knee cap then went down about 4 inches.

That part did not hurt, it was the day after when I got rushed to the emergency room because my entire leg got red and hot (found out it was e-coli) leg was so sensitive that when they touched the wound it was horrible.


*I went to a clinic the day of the injury but I guess they did not clean it out well.
 
Gout in my big toe, I guess. It's excruciating, thankfully I have not encountered it in years thanks to meds. Also hurt my back falling off a treehouse as a kid, but I can't exactly remember the pain, just flashing images of me not walking smoothly for some time.
 
Fell about 20ish feet out of a tree and landed on a root with my right foot. The impact broke my talus bone instead of my heel bone (which is what normally happens). No insurance so i was reluctant to head to the doctor but i had also broken my leg in two spots. The 2nd night at home with no cast or anything and I was trying to sleep and couldn't because the only thought running through my mind was that if i got a big enough kitchen knife i might be able to cut my foot off.

Easily the most consistently long lasting unbelievable pain i've ever felt. If i raised my leg my foot (not really connected to my leg very well anymore) would "drift" up from the pressure below it and feel like knives. If i hung it over the edge of the bed/couch it would "drift" down and felt like my foot was slowly tearing off the rest of my leg.

Went to the doc on the third day. He took two steps into consult room and said "Your leg is broken." without even touching me. Hooboy was he right.
 
Two big painful incidents I've had were when I sliced a big chunk of my pinky finger off with a knife (totally my fault and was being an idiot, don't ask), and then once I pinched a nerve in my neck which was exruciating for a few days.

Neither of them compared to about mile 23-26.2 of running a marathon slightly under-trained though.
 
That's an extraordinarily diverse range of experience. We should all be nicer to one another, knowing that we are heirs to such pain.

For me it was acute pancreatitis. That was an entire universe of pain.
 
Ambient80 said:
Even this isn’t enough for some. For some it’s diet, for some it’s dehydration, for some it’s genetic.
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So I could only drink water till the end of time and still get them? We humans need a fuckin' hardware update if we have a flaw as big as that. Jesus Christ.
 
So I see a lot of people are saying kidney stone is the worst pain they went through.

Once I had one that got stuck in my Ureter... the solution was to insert a small catheter in my penis, through the Urethra. When I got the catheter out... JESUS CHRIST ON A STICK. It hurt like fucking hell. I had forgotten this tbh. I peed blood for 3 days and it felt like I was peeing fucking razor blades.
 
I'm a very cautious person so the worst was when I let my brother hit me in my solar plexus I couldn't breathe and even though the pain was intense what made it worse was the fact I couldn't breathe in to yell kinda funny now that I remember it....
 
Pain is always subjective but I'll still top all of you. I have cluster headache (Horton's syndrome). Trigeminal nerve pain is one of the worst feelings a human can feel.
 
tonysidaway said:
Note to self: don't ever move to a country without a proper national health system.
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I was let go from the Clinic i was working at like 5 months prior. I was lucky in that not only did my talus bone start healing on it's own (a freakishly low chance i was told) so i didn't need surgery but my old workplace (and the doctor i'd been seeing since i was 12) hooked me up and did the X-rays/CT for free.

Still had to buy a 600 dollar brace. Still had to pay for the doc visits. Still had to pay for my pain meds for 2 months before I got another job. Shit was rough.
 
When a wisdom tooth caused some nasty ass infection in the back of my mouth. Christ. I've broken my hand before, had two pretty bad crashes, and so on, but that fucking tooth I was sure was going to be the end of me.
 
Had a fish bone lodged in my tonsil for a solid day and a half.
 
Cramp on my taint while in the shower. Took me to my knees. Felt it from my balls up through my asshole. Had it lasted more than a minute or two my heart would have probably given out.
 
Getting my head stitched back together after I cracked it against some rocks, while playing ghosts with my relatives. Yes I was a dumb, dumb kid back then.
 
Havok1313 said:
I had testicular torsion once. Look that up.
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My son had that. Off to the Accident and Emergency department of the local hospital, a quick snip (they let me stay with him until he was given a general anaesthetic). I cannot imagine how painful that must have been.
 
I have CRPS in my left hand, it is known as the most painful disease in the world. It is also called the suicide disease as there is no cure and the pain is debilitating. I am not suicidal but I have a really great support system.
 
Also when I was young I was stung by a sting ray but I thought I had stepped on broken glass. Sat there on the beach for an hour feeling the throbbing pain crawl up my leg before a lifeguard passed by and told me what it was. Told me to go their main building to get my foot in water. He then drive away and made me limp the entire way there with the help of my dad.
 
Eppy Thatcher said:
I was let go from the Clinic i was working at like 5 months prior. I was lucky in that not only did my talus bone start healing on it's own (a freakishly low chance i was told) so i didn't need surgery but my old workplace (and the doctor i'd been seeing since i was 12) hooked me up and did the X-rays/CT for free.

Still had to buy a 600 dollar brace. Still had to pay for the doc visits. Still had to pay for my pain meds for 2 months before I got another job. Shit was rough.
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From your writing I presume you are American. If you're not, that doesn't matter; clearly you are living in some kind of hell. Please, as a matter of urgency, vote for sensible representatives who will pass laws to take basic worries about the economic costs of healthcare away from citizens of your country. This is a basic requirement of civilisation. You get sick, we care for you. Otherwise what's the fucking point?
 
Seirith said:
I have CRPS in my left hand, it is known as the most painful disease in the world. It is also called the suicide disease as there is no cure and the pain is debilitating. I am not suicidal but I have a really great support system.
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I'm not suggesting an amputation, but just technically, would the pain go away if the hand went away?
 
Worst pain was chronic spasms in muscles running down the back of my neck and across my right shoulder blade. It started out bad anyway but by the end of the night the intensity and frequency had got unbearable.

Spasms were lasting around two minutes with only 30 seconds of relief in between. At the peak of it I was practically delirious and just laughing constantly. Of course being spasms all I could do was take pain killers and hope to sleep it off but it took at least a week for the pain to fully go despite them stopping over night.

I didn't realize spasms could hurt so much. I've broken bones that hurt less.
 
I injured my hip exercising and stubbornly chose to keep working out and being active thinking it was just a minor strain that would go away. A month later I was in so much constant pain I was going nuts. Everything I did hurt, even laying down was painful. I was taking so much Tylenol and ibuprofen just to dull the pain enough to get dressed in the morning, that I was worried about liver damage.

And then I slipped on a wet tile in a courtyard and slammed my hip into the ground while also wrenching it from trying to stop myself from falling. I laid there soaking wet in the rain for what felt like forever unable to move while it felt like my upper leg tore itself apart from the inside. Even after I got up and onto a couch it just got worse and worse until I had to take an ambulance to the hospital where they shot me up with morphine. It didn't go anything so they shot me up again. Still nothing. After about five hours the pain slowly subsided enough for me to hobble out on crutches.

Six months later after it still hurts when I do certain things that put stress on my hip.

The moral of the story is don't be a stubborn dipshit like me when you get an injury, no matter how small.
 
A car slowly passed one of its back tires through the top of my feet like a week ago. Nothing happened (zero broken bones etc), and it only hurt during the process, but it was without any doubt the worst physical pain I have ever experienced. I screamed like crazy.
 
Ran 5 marathons in 5 weeks and ended up with 27 stress fractures around my left leg. Had to leave my lacrosse club and have never been the runner I once was. Incredible pain.

Colitis flare ups are really bad too. One I swear was going to kill me back in highschool.
 
I got a really bad bronchial infection about a decade ago. It was just something that had been going around I guess. Around 11pm It felt like someone had hammered a spike into my lung. Couldn't sit up straight, couldn't lie down flat or on my side, had to kinda lean against my bedroom wall. Only time in my life I had ever passed out from pain, hours later. Woke up at like 6am.

After I got antibiotics and coughed up some phlegm there was blood mixed in with it. I've broken my arm and had dental work done and had my hand slammed in a van door and nothing else came close.
 
Hyoukokun said:
This pales in comparison to what most of you all are describing, but have an infected in-grown toenail is probably the worst thing I've experienced. Felt like I was being stabbed in the toe every time I took a step.
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This, I got it while trying to cut my nails in basic training. I cut the inner left side nail of my right big toe in an edged shape that was basically stabbing the inside of my toe. first it just hurt but mildly, then it got swollen, turned purple, and the slightest tap of that toe put me in extreme pain.
 
Ryaaan14 said:
Chest tube insertion after a collapsed lung. Whew
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My nephew just went through this this weekend. Yikes.

As for me, I had my finger smashed by that same nephew in our front door. I was leaving to play basketball and didn't let him use my PS3 while I was out. He got mad and ran to slam the door as I was walking out, but I was guiding the door to close rather than letting it slam. It crushed my finger, tore my skin to the bone, and gave me a gnarly reaction fever. Good times.
 
I had no problems getting my wisdom teeth removed, my dentist was sweating like a pig due the force it took to get them out.

Breaking my leg wasn't so bad either, as the adrenaline basically helped me endure it. Allthough I felt like vomiting right away, so I drank a big bottle of water and I was fine.

Breaking my thumb was rather tame and I continued to play a whole match of footy (soccer) as keeper.
Getting the thumb back into position was a bit more painful.

The worst pain I felt was during my teenager years. I was on my way to school and tried to take a
shortcut over a fence.
As it was freezing, I slipped and landed right on my balls...Fell right off and instantly started to cry with the insane stomach pains that followed.
Had to vomit and went back home.
 
Probably just some random stomach ache based on how agonizing they can sometimes be when they go on for a long time. If we're talking about the worst feeling pain in one singular moment, I would guess it has come from getting my finger stuck between a door, or stubbing my toe, or something of the sort.

Looking at the answers here, it seems like I am quite talented at avoiding pain. *knocks on wood*
 
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