Short-Term and Long-Term ??

For me, the worst short-term physical pain i have ever endured would have been just recently (two fridays ago)

I dunno how i lost my footing, but i kinda slipped while stepping off the seat in my boat and drove my knee straight into a section of the passageway to the bow and i swear i broke my patella. collapsed me to the deck of the boat and i grummbled out about every swear word in the boat clutching my knee in pain for about a good 5 minutes, unable to bend my leg, stand up, walk, or touch it. still, two weeks later it is kinda puffy and feels "weird".

Long-term, it has been over 13 years now since my near death car accident and as time keeps passing, my neck, my back, constantly keep hurting, sometimes i do not want to get out of bed because of the pain. On the "bad days" i have to take two dosages of 1000mg of ibuprofen just to be able to function....

the first time i dislocated my kneecap, playing ball in the eighth grade. Done it many times since, broken other bones, hurt my back, nothing came close to that pain.

Short term, landing flat on my back from about 5 feet up. I was going to grind a quarter pipe on a skateboard, instead it decided to not grind at all and I went flying. Knocked the wind out of me for a good 5 minutes and I even got to throw up everywhere.

Long Term, Trying to ollie my board off a loading dock and ended up gashing open my man bits. It was just the worst.

Appendix hurt pretty bad before I had it out. Felt like a knife inside of me or something.

Broke both my arms and had to had surgery on both at the same time that sucked.

Bone was sticking out of my right arm which was more scary than painful at first.

suicide boots on my Kidder blew up my ankle. Third degree sprain, didn't walk for six weeks. That was the worst in terms of long term pain. Fractured my orbital bone doing a face plant at 50 mph on the slopes. That kinda sucked too.

Long term: while playing basketball in high school, I had my ankle fractured in a couple of places by two others coming down on top of it and folding it a bit while we were competing for a rebound. To this day, if I just move it to the left there is a horrible grinding noise.

Short term: after having surgery for a pilonidal cyst when I was in college, I went to an A's game and the suture sawed through a vein. I had no insurance, so when we called the surgeon to let him know that there was a little blood, he said to meet him at his office since I couldn't afford another visit to the hospital. He had me lay down, put a bit in my mouth and squeeze first my mom's hand then a ball that he came up with after a few minutes while he cut me open and fixed the problems with nothing for the pain but a swab to numb me a little since I couldn't afford the anesthesia. Fun times.

Reading any of your posts.

When I fractured my clavicle mountain biking.

It wasn't the break, or the hospital visit that was bad. It was the next morning after all the adrenaline and pain meds wore off. And I was lying there on my bed unable to move from the blinding pain of the two broken bones grinding together.

kidney stone

m0ng0 wrote:kidney stone

Ditto. Minus the smiley face.

I've damned near tore my kneecap OFF in a dirtbiking accident. That was NOTHING compared to the kidney stone.

I dated a stripper once, and it ended badly. That has been a pain like none other. For me and those around me...

A toothache had me in the fetal position. Nothing would ease the pain, until I gargled with warm salt water. I felt a pop and it started bleeding then I felt the pain just release.

SacHawk2.0 wrote:I dated a stripper once, and it ended badly. That has been a pain like none other. For me and those around me...

i'm sorry, what the hell do you ever do ??

djTOY2000 wrote:

SacHawk2.0 wrote:I dated a stripper once, and it ended badly. That has been a pain like none other. For me and those around me...

i'm sorry, what the hell do you ever do ??

I frequently provide sarcastic and humorous commentary for those around me.

m0ng0 wrote:kidney stone

Twice now for me. At least the second time around I knew what it was.

Bleeding Rhoids. And having to play a double elimination Basketball tourney for the right to represent the CONUS Southeastern Air Force region MAC. I played center, so blocking out was a mind over matter thing. Couldn't walk straight for a week.

Tooth needing pulling with pain that brought tears to my eyes. Started late Friday night and couldn't get taken out until Monday. Drank profusely for two days to kill the pain.

The two worst pains I've ever felt in my life was a horrific earache I had as a kid and the high ankle sprains I've suffered playing basketball.

Both brought me to my knees and took my breath away.

Broke my leg once playing softball. Felt fine for a minute. Then I saw the bloody sock. I drove home using that leg to clutch my car (and it had a tight clutch). I was in shock within an hour and in the hospital. I thought that was the "10" on the pain scale. Realized later it was closer to a 7.

Then I had a neck fusion at C4-C5. Woke up from surgery, and thought that was a "10" on the pain scale. It was really an 8.

Had a lumbar fusion at L4-S1 with a cage, a cadaver bone, multiple bone grafts, and 6 LARGE titanium bolts inserted in, along with a 14 inch incision closed by 50 staples. I finally knew what a 10 was on the pain scale.

Had all hardware taken out. It was an 8.5 on the pain scale.

I talked to a lady who had 1/4 of her brain removed the day I had my lumbar fusion. I was screaming the pain was so bad. She was all mellow. She said that she had cancer and she also had been through back surgery. She said her brain surgery was a piece of cake because your brain is made up of motor nerves, not sensory nerves, so you don't feel much pain. She said that the lumbar fusion was WORSE than cancer pain.

I thought she was making it up. I talked to several surgeons and all agreed. They said that the lumbar fusion surgery is the gold standard for pain. I was in the hospital for 7 days while they attempted to get my pain under control. When they gave me the "bone cancer dose" I was able to get up and move enough to go home. I have a really high pain tolerance, and there is no way in hell I'd wish that surgery on my worst enemy. I am not exaggerating. I've had something like 15 surgeries, and I'd do 14 of them again 100 times over each before I'd have the lumbar fusion done again.

To me the pain scale is like the Richter Scale. The pain level of 10 is 10 orders of magnitude larger than a 9 on the pain scale. I never understood a 10 in pain until that lumbar fusion. And yes, it was 30 times worse than a broken leg that popped through my sock and sent me into shock with a bloody leg.

Avoid back surgery at all costs. It is the most hellacious pain I can imagine. It felt as if somebody was stabbing me with 10 daggers and twisting them, while another guy was shooting me through my entire midsection with a machine gun. I've been stabbed before, so I'm not making it up on the 10 guys stabbing part. That's literally what it felt like, but WORSE, so I had to throw in the shooting feeling. I'll die before I ever undergo a fusion of my spine again.

Now I live with arachnoiditis of the spine, which is said to be pretty comparable to leukemia type pain. I'd agree with that. It is "intractable pain" and neither sitting, standing, heat, ice, massage, or rest help. Most pain meds don't even help. It just feels like my nerves in my spine are getting twisted up and scraped by dull knives 24/7. Muscle relaxants help a little. But nobody knows what arachnoiditis is, so getting treatment is hard, and getting disability is impossible because nobody knows what it is. If I said "I have bone cancer" I'd get disability. But I have something equally painful and I'm told to quit being such a nancy. BS man. B to the S.

I tried anal in college once. It was just a phase.

Worst long time was smashed two fingers and had to have them surgically sewn into my chest for three weeks. More nerve endings in your fingertips than anywhere but your tongue. It hurt my hand to breathe.

Short term catching one of the above finger's nails on something. It actually feels like same sick pain you get when you get kicked between the legs.

Worst was a fractured scapula combined with nerve damage to LH brachial plexus from high siding a motor cycle. I classify this as the worst because the pain raged on for weeks. Most intense pain was when a dentist touched a flame heated probe to an irritated nerve ending on a molar. The DT smiled when I arched my back in pain. I was ready eff him up right there. Sadists!

I feel you on that brachial plexus. I had a fractured clavicle that I didn't get fixed. My shoulder got dislocated at the same time (diving for a fly ball in center field in high school). It was my last game, as we were eliminated in the state semis. It hurt like a mother for months, but I never got it fixed.

It ended up compressing my brachial plexus, and I developed "thoracic outlet syndrome", which is what ended Sandy Koufax career (it wasn't diagnosed then... they just called it "dead arm", but that's exactly what I got). My left arm went completely dead. I suffered muscle wasting, and couldn't even grasp a glass. My head wouldn't even turn. This dragged on for 2.5 years in college. Doctors didn't know what was up. My arm was just numb, and the pain was shooting up into my neck and down my chest and through my shoulder. One doctor said I was faking a neck disc herniation and looking for drugs. I asked him how many pills I'd taken for it. He said, "Well, according to your chart... none. So why are you looking for pills?" I said, "I'm not looking for pills. I'm looking for a cure. I can't use my left arm dude." He goes, "I think it's all in your head." I said, "Then fix my head smart guy." He got super pissed and walked out of the office. Then he stormed back in like five minutes later and had me do "Adson's sign" and it verified TOS because my hand went completely numb. He still thought I was looking for pills. I said I didn't want any. He was baffled.

I went to a neurosurgeon. He had me get a angiogram to see if blood flow was compromised and if I had formed any clots below or above my clavicle. I had... so he sent me to surgery right away. He said all of my nerve endings were damaged, so he scraped them, and he left my clavicle alone as it had healed strong. Instead he just removed my first rib in small sections (first rib resection) all the way from my sternum around to my spine in the back.

I woke up and I was in a mother load of pain. It was horrendous, but my arm was WARM and I could feel it for the first time in 2.5 years. The nerve pain persisted, and he said, "Give it a year for those nerves to heal." A year to the day I felt this loud POP and my arm felt fine. I started playing softball again the next day and regained 95% of the muscle that had wasted. It was a miracle. They thought my arm would stay skinny forever, but I worked like a crazy man.

That brachial plexus pain is horrendous, because it feels like this gnawing, burning, aching, awful pain. You can't do ANYTHING about it. Like when my leg was broken I'd elevate it and ice it and it would feel better. When I had a tooth ache I could put some of that lidocaine stuff on. When I busted up my neck they put it in a brace and locked my head down and the pain stopped and then they fused it and no more pain. But the brachial plexus was like a tooth ache times ten and just constant right down where you're trying to get breath down. I ended up getting pneumonia a few times too because I wasn't breathing deeply enough.

I had totally forgotten about that one with everything else that happened.

Let this be a cautionary tale... don't let your kids play sports when they are young unless they have a sit-down talk with me and I explain to them that they'll feel like death warmed over when they are 39 unless they take it a bit easy. Don't play every inning, every down, or every quarter like you're Lenny Dykstra or Ken Easley. It catches up to you, especially if you aren't some physical specimen and are just some 190 lb. 6'1" white dude from Federal Way. Haha.

It's good to vent this stuff out. I feel better already just knowing all of you guys have suffered too. Keep the stories coming. Luckily I've told my worst ones briefly. Well, except for the broken spine on a waterslide accident on my ninth birthday, and the blown out knee when I was 13 on a crackback block. Other than that... things have been ok. Oh, and all of the broken fingers. But those are lightweight stuff.

Short term, needed a root canal on Monday and Endodontist wasn't available 'til Friday. Fortunately after one day of 1000mg of ibuprofen only killing it for about an hour and a half and plenty of suffering, my then GF and now wife remebered she had some leftover Percosets she had been prescribed after a surgery. Oh my, the rest of the week was so much better. I'd take ibuprofen in the morning to just barely get by, and then right before leaving for work, take a half of one of those (they were 20 mg. dose) and that got me through work without having to drive on them. I took the other half right before leaving work so it would kick in and I could sleep when I got home. I realized very quickly how people can get addicted to that type of drug.

Long term, my back and knees ache at least half the time and it's getting worse and it's from 30 years of playing basketball nearly year around. Those outdoor asphalt and cement courts we played on as kids certainly didn't help either.

In 2001 I had a gallstone get stuck in my bile duct, which caused a pancreas infection. I was in an extraordinary amount of pain, kept going to different doctors and they kept prescribing me ulcer medication! I had a appt to see a gastroenterologist but it was a 3 month wait. I was fading fast and was getting very very sick. So I called the GE's office and told them I was going to camp out in their waiting room until someone missed an appointment because I was not going to allow myself to die over a patient scheduling issue. With that they quickly did an about face and got me in the next day. The doctor knew wjhat was wrong with me practically the moment he walked into the exam room. A week later they got in there and cleaned me up and I went on with my life.

Most recently I have developed a problem at C5/C6 and have severe nerve pain in the right shoulder blade area when I move my arms away from my body or am upright for any length of time. It started when I was surfing about a month ago. I was unable to work for two weeks. I can sit at a computer again and am working my rehab with discipline and it is making a difference So we'll see what happens. I'm cancelling the MRI because I may not have insurance soon and I don't want a pre-existing condition on my records. Let me tell you, when that nerve fires, it's like being electrocuted, and sometimes it touches off a series of muscle spasms which cause multiple additional shocks. I lack the vocabulary to adequately describe how much it hurts. Maybe the best way to describe it is the world becomes very small, and the only thing that exists is pain, anger, then remembering to breathe.

Nothing even remotely close to what's listed in this thread. Maybe when I slipped on some wet concrete steps and took the corner to my back?

m0ng0 wrote:kidney stone

I've heard this is pain on a level most of us never experience. Hope I never find out if that is true.

Testicular torsion. I can't decide if the first or second time was worse.

So far the worst was getting t-boned on my motorcycle. Foot crushed so hard my boot split open. Tore my foot open at the heel. Crushed heelbone shards ended up in my sock. All bones in my lower leg crushed. Watched my foot face first forwards, then backwards, then forwards again as my bike bounced on it 3 times before finally sliding away. Stayed awake the whole time, all the way to the hospital, and for 2 hours until they finally got me into 'emergency' surgery because they failed to notice it was anything worse than a broken leg (since it didn't start seriously bleeding until they shoved me into a side room at the emergency room). When they realized I'd lost half my blood, they decided I was too far gone for a LifeFlight to Harborview from Tacoma. After surgery, the deal to give myself pain meds malfunctioned and I didn't get anything at all for about 12 hours. That was bad pain.

Geekhawk when it comes to short term acute pain I think you're the winner so far. Damn!

Shark gets the nod for day in day out FML pain.

Daily pain sucks. At least the leftover daily pain in my leg/foot is only a dull throb, not like Shark's... It's been going on 9 years now, so I suppose it's permanent. I'd hate for it to be permanent, and also excruciating! It was pretty bad for a few months after each of the four operations to restore function (and take stuff out, put other stuff in, etc.), but went back to the dull pain each time.

When I was 14, I hit a chunk of ice skiing. Did a complete forward flip and fractured my shin, about a 1/2 above my foot. Hurt a lot. And after I laid there in pain and realized no one was stopping for me (including ski patrol). I popped my ski back on, which also hurt a lot, and then I skied back down the rest of the way on my other leg and crawled in to the lodge. Good times.

A shot to kidney.

I think a broke a nail once.

Another re-heated topic... Man, doesn't the off-season just suck?

Medial Collateral ligament tear with a patellar dislocation along with a femoral condyle trauma, left knee.

Initial moments following the injury were filled with the most intense pain I have ever had to endure. Hot flash, cold flash, hot flash, cold flash... Once my body released its internal pain killers it became bearable, but the shock was a trip to deal with, as I almost passed out. I actually was doing pretty good on the ride to the ER, but in triage when the knee was being examined, a second even more-traumatic pain episode occurred as the joint was manipulated. That poor nurse got an earful of the most profane language she had ever heard on that afternoon.

I'd like to go on record at this time, and state clearly, that the drug they call Morphine is not only worth every penny it costs to make it, but I'll gladly share my future lottery winnings with all those involved with administering that substance to me on that fateful day.

I'm told that the battle of wounded knee was named that by the Indians because at that time, they could not attach a more deserving measure of the pain they felt. That has to be worth something.

That is all.

Dietrich wrote:Testicular torsion. I can't decide if the first or second time was worse.

I had this (and epididymitis) last month and up until that point in time I had thought bacterial meningitis (infection in your spinal fluid) was the worst pain I had ever endured. Migraine on steroids it was. Could have taken a drill to my skull to relieve the pressure and I wouldn't have flinched.

Broken bones and hyper-extended joints were sure fun, but take a back seat to testicle torsion & epididymitis (infection in the testy tubes, gawddamnit) had me damn near signing doctor's papers to have one or both of the boys removed entirely, just to get me up off the floor (in tears).

Wonderful topic I must say...

Well, getting hit by a van when I was only 9 months sucked. But I didn't even know about it until my mother later told me about it. As far as the pain I actually remember it has to be getting hit on a head with a rock by opposite team's goalie after scoring a goal when I was 7 years old. It was only a pick up game I may add.

Getting hit by a van at 9 months?!! That's insane. I've heard that one thing that helps little kids in those situations is that their bones have so many air spaces that they are very elastic and almost move like rubber (they are still basically just cartilage). That is why when you get older your bones snap like twigs. They've hardened up and the air spaces are now not carrying liquid and fats and other cartilaginous type material, but are just dried holes. We're like walking saltine crackers!

I actually fell out of a van going about 45 mph around a corner when I was 6. I was in first grade. I landed right on my head. I was goofing around in the step well below the seat and pushed on the door handle and out I went.

I was telling some kids at school the next day, and the teacher sent me home and yelled at my parents. I wasn't hurt. She said my eyes looked dilated. But I know from the teacher side now that there was no way she was going to risk having a kid with a possible concussion or worse in her classroom in case I had a delayed seizure or worse. She wanted me out of the classroom. That day was a Friday, so I didn't go back until Monday, but even then she was angry my parents hadn't taken me to the hospital.

Funny that my worst event led to no damage (well... it led to some, because obviously I'm not quite all there upstairs), but I didn't feel much pain. Just a goose egg on my noggin.

Short term, flesh eating bacterial infection in my lower right leg, almost lost it.

Long term, chronic migraines.

grizbob wrote:Short term, flesh eating bacterial infection in my lower right leg, almost lost it.

You are such a sissy. :grin:

tomahawk wrote:

m0ng0 wrote:kidney stone

Twice now for me. At least the second time around I knew what it was.

kidney stones by far the worst pain because it is constant and you can not get comfortable no matter what. Getting the kidney stone caught in your urethra is no picnic neither.

A broken heart from an unfaithful partner. I wish that pain could go away as easily as a turned ankle or kidney stone, but that type of pain runs just too deep. I would be encouraged by, if not to hear from personally, any female 'Hawk fans on how I can adjust or just be able to move on...please feel free to PM me, or better yet, call me. It's (509) 555-lost (5678).

Tough call. I'm in the double digits for broken bones... top three in pain had to be ribs, hand, and surprisingly, toe. I'm prone to ear infections, so there are a couple of those that have qualified. I think the nastiest was after I had a toe amputated -- The stitches grew into the toe stub and got infected... Pulling those things out was insane.

For chronic stuff? Pft. Old back and knee injuries are probably the worst, but pick a joint and it's probably hurting -- Autoimmune polyarthritis. Feeling like ass is pretty standard.

I walked under a garage door that was just a bit too low and the little button on top of my baseball cap made solid contact with the garage door. Holy shit that hurt. Dropped to my knees, my eyes crossed, and I couldn't even think of any bad words, just sounds.

Having a severe nosebleed cauterized by the doctor shoving what looked like a large matchstick up into my sinus and having it sear the tissue to stop the bleeding. I've had kidney stones and a severe compound fracture of my left arm in football and the pain doesn't even come close to that.

I punched myself in the balls once while masturbating very enthusiastically. Needless to say, I lost my Boner.

It's really interesting to read how we all perceive pains differently and how they feel to us. Like Rockhawk dealing with a broken arm no sweat and having the cauterizing pain be the worst. I understand it totally... I've just never met somebody who had compared those two. They are SO different, and both are very painful (I've had both and know EXACTLY what he's saying).

I had a needle put into my spinal canal a few times for injections (very very LONG needles) and I can say the pain wasn't so horrible, but only because I knew once they got in there and turned on the radiofrequency ablation machine that would use heat and radio waves to "burn off the nerve" that within 90 seconds they'd shoot it full of lidocaine and another pain killer and I'd feel nothing, so the pain was manageable and I was like "meh, whatever". However, they have patients that swear and scream and think they are going to die from it. I think a lot of it has to do with our brain and where we are at as far as certainty and such go. Like with my back surgery, I wasn't sure that it would ever feel better again. For all I knew, they had cut every muscle clean through, and drilled through multiple vertebrae (Oh wait... they did) and that pain was going to be with me forever. That was the worst part. The constant burning, contracting, gunshot feeling pain that just hit in harder and harder waves for 7 straight days. It literally drove me insane. They had to really med me up brain wise to get my thoughts back together.

But when I broke my leg, it hurt like a mother, and sent me into shock, but I knew from past experience that they'd get it set, get it into a cast, and I'd feel a lot better in a day or so. Pain is a very difficult thing. That is why I think the DEA and FDA and everybody else that wants to get into the doctor's brains and try to mandate how they treat EVERY patient are really idiotic. Each person is different. To me it is just like "No Child Left Behind". Determining that every kid had to be at the same point by the same grade level (without taking into account disability, differentiation in age at a certain grade level by up to 11 months and 364 days), kids who were premature and have slower development (but do eventually catch up, just not always by 3rd grade day 1), etc. You just need to take things on a case-by-case basis.

Take for example the treatment of my back pain.... would you treat it the same as somebody who weighed 500 pounds? No, obviously not, because I don't weigh 500 pounds. That person has a different set of issues that are compounding their pain. But on the flipside, I have a condition called myotonia congenita which causes constant nerve firing (and constant muscle cramping). This creates a different level that must be addressed when treating my pain. Different strokes for different folks... and no... that has nothing to do with the post directly above mine.

i had stitches under my left eye and the worst pain ive ever felt was getting a numbing injection directly into the wound. the pain felt like something was squeezing behind my eyeball and sinuses. that was ridiculous.

fractured my collarbone in 8th grade football practice and coach made me finish practice. it was a fracture not a break so i guess it wasnt that noticeable, except for the fact i could hardly move my arm. the recovery for that is stupid.

as for long term, no real lingering pains from anything. i do have to be careful throwing a baseball/football/skipping rocks in the summer from a painful elbow. its fine in normal everyday use but once i get to throwing it just noodles. too many years of pitching and either not warming up properly, or not icing properly after games. or a combination of the 2. damn youth sports.

I've been pretty lucky to never have anything as bad as a lot of what you guys have described. Geesh!

I think plantar fasciitis takes the cake for me. That SUCKED. Or perhaps being in the dental chair so long during a bone graft that the drugs wore off right when the doc was drilling my sinus lift... I'm pretty sure my foot twitching got his attention, if not my whimper. "Oh geesh its been 90 mins, no wonder you are feeling that"...

Lol, Navy docs!

I'll take my tooth aches any day over the ear aches.
But having gangrene in my appendix tops everything, and damned near cost me my life (no blood pressure, and blacking out from the pain), but, draining it out for ten days in the hospital, getting fed through the veins, and getting over the pneumonia from the operation, just as ornery as ever....now.