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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think there are worse pains than labour?

345 replies

coraltoes · 07/02/2013 15:37

Having recently badly broken a bone WIBU to say actually, it hurt a fuckload more than giving birth? I honestly thought nothing could hurt more than labour, but lo and behold something did! (for less hours admittedly but nothing amazing to cuddle at the end). The bone had to be pulled back into place with gas and air and a local block, which made me nearly vomit.

Come and share with me your injury horrors and tell me whether they trumped your labour pains. please do not thik i am trying to undermine ladies with horrendous labours, i am sure some of you would put me to great shame :D

OP posts:
rhondajean · 10/02/2013 22:14

Yanbu.

I had peritonitis and septicaemia and I'd have a dozen labours before that again.

I even thought the csection with dd2 was not bad at all.

I am a fast healer though and have small babies.

florilegia · 10/02/2013 22:39

I had a 70+ hour back-to-back labour, and I can honestly say the afterpains were worse. I couldn't eat for days, vomited whenever I held my baby (it all got mixed up with the beginnings of pretty bad PND), and I just remember days of lying in bed, freezing cold, doubled up in pain and crying, while my mum, bless her, looked after DS downstairs. I'm honestly dreading this much more than the labour next time around.

Londonmrss · 10/02/2013 22:50

During my 72 hour back labour I begged a doctor to kill me. I meant it.

I can imagine nothing worse that this.

For reference, a doctor once removed one of my back teeth with no anesthetic. It hurt, but it was ok.

williaminajetfighter · 10/02/2013 23:13

I was lucky that my labour was pretty fast (4hrs), DD was small and it just took gas and air. The pain was pretty dreadful at the end but it was the kind of pain I felt I could mentally block out.

..but nothing compared to the 3 gallstone attacks (before the doctors ripped my gallbladder out, thankfully) nor the most painful experience of all, a root canal when the freezing never 'took' so the dentist was literally ripping live nerves from the centre if my tooth. Dear god. I still need Xanax whenever I have to go to the dentist, so traumatised am I.

thunksheadontable · 11/02/2013 00:33

I have something very weird going on with a wisdom tooth right now, it is partially impacted (? right term) and since I had ds2, it has started trying to grow again and a large part of it actually chipped from the pressure earlier this week. I need to get to my dentist but my God, the pain at times has been totally unbearable. I have actually been using my labour pain coping techniques to deal with it.

Ds1 was back to back induced with a drip after waters went and was a large enough baby (nearly 9lbs) and I got the epidural at about 4-5cms at which point I felt I was in a sea of pain... ds2 was born without analgesics after 3 days of latent labour with contractions coming every five minutes and lasting a minute for 2 of those days.

I would do the labour pain again ANY day. The induction was much harder than the natural birth as it didn't have the same nice breaks in between but God I would do anything to stop this tooth pain. I can see why people used to do mad things like take pliers to their teeth or attach ropes to horses/cars whatever. It is blindingly painful at times.

saladcreamwitheverything · 11/02/2013 00:50

Labour tops the bill for any pain experience I've had, and I would say i'm not mardy (for the record, "Mardy" means being a bit of a wingebag... until tonight, i thought mardy was a nationally recognised term, but apparently not)...Anyway my Bone Breakage experience consists of two lower leg bones, landed funny whilst trampolining. Labour hurt more.

AboutThyme · 11/02/2013 00:57

It is very much dependent on the person and the delivery. I have only had one live childbirth and for me it was very easy, I was in labour "officially" for about 24 hours but I can honestly say that only the last hour, which included delivery, was painful. The rest was uncomfortable but not painful. Even the last hour was not awful agony.

I broke my ankle some years ago and would rather have given birth ten times than go through the pain of that broken ankle again.

Other people would say they would rather break every bone than go through their deliveries. It is all subjective.

Titchyboomboom · 11/02/2013 07:12

I would rather do labour than a migraine!

3ismylot · 11/02/2013 07:23

I would definately say that a tooth abcess (have had a few due as have problem teeth Sad ) is much worse than labour and would give birth everyday rather than have another!
BUT I have also had 2 very easy labours ( 9lb 13oz ds1 was a 3hr labpur and my twins were a 47 minute labour!) so cant compare to some of the nightmares you ladies have had!

Me23 · 11/02/2013 07:37

I ha a severe gall bladder attack when ds was 3 months old I've never been in so much pain before on my life (and i've been in labour twice) it was so bad I thought I was going to die, I was passing out from the pain OH was so worried he called an ambulance I had to have IV morphine in a&e.

Coconutty · 11/02/2013 08:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

juule · 11/02/2013 08:41

Uveitis.

juule · 11/02/2013 08:42

Gallstone pain

binger · 11/02/2013 09:43

I've had 2 vag births, both times straight forward and easy as they go.

I once sprained my ankle very badly and was in tears with it and gallstone attacks which led to gallbladder removal. The sprain and attacks were much worse than my labour, plus I've forgotten about labour pains but not the severity of other pains.

Absoluteeightiesgirl · 11/02/2013 10:03

Cracked ribs
Oh my Sad

cory · 11/02/2013 10:08

Pleurisy was my worst.

But you can't really compare pain. When I had my wisdom tooth pulled dh offered to come home from work to look after me, because he'd had an absolutely ghastly experience. I wasn't in much pain at all.

AmberSocks · 11/02/2013 10:10

labour is one of those pains that is nice but hurts,like tattoos or ulcers on the end of your tongue.

especially the pushing stage,it feels like the best thing ever but hurts too.

lynniep · 11/02/2013 10:17

'labour is one of those pains that is nice but hurts,like tattoos or ulcers on the end of your tongue.'
sweet jesus no it isnt. I thought I was dying in labour the pain was so bad. DS1 was breech and stuck and I never want to feel pain like that again.

However I'm very fortunate not to have any other intense pain other than a tooth abcess (which was really awful, but I cannot compare it to my first labour)

yogababycheshire · 11/02/2013 10:19

Never broken any bones thank God, despite being a mad horserider in my teenage years, and was very lucky to have three relatively "easy" labours. Was being smug about having high pain tolerance etc etc but now keeping my head down in case I break anything :)

ShotgunNotDoingThePans · 11/02/2013 10:29

For me, DD (11lbs 10) crowning and creaking out if me was felt like intense, searing pain and made me scream, which was not like me at all - but then it was fleeting and immediately forgotten. And the actual labour pains were unpleasant but manageable.

The several gallbladder attacks I've had were much more distressing and hard to deal with as they lasted a good four hours and there was nothing you could do to relieve them. Breathing, writhing, relaxing, changing position - nothing works to relieve it or even make it slightly more bearable.

I've heard it described as like having a small woodland animal trying to gnaw its way out from your insides and that's a very apt description!

twilight3 · 11/02/2013 11:30

can't really tell as my pelvis fracture during labour, so to me giving birth was the most excruciating experience ever, in fact at some point I asked the midwife if she could just let me die (even more painful than my shin being shattered under the weight of a car when I was 16). I thought someone had cut me open and was burning my guts, a bit like medieval torture.

So, no, can't imagine anything more painful. Or at least I hope that I will never get to experience anything more painful...

gallifrey · 11/02/2013 11:44

I dislocated my elbow a few years ago, and when it was being manipulated back into place that was much worse than having a baby!
I had morphine and gas and air and I still screamed when the Dr was trying to straighten my arm out.
I had 2 babies with no pain relief at all.

luanmahi · 11/02/2013 12:16

Labour was definitely the worst pain I have ever experienced but my mum used to get horrific period pains when she was younger which would leave her in bed for a couple of days and she maintains that her worst period pains were worse or at least as bad as labour - and she did it twice.

I think everyone has a different perspective on pain anyway so you can't really quantify it.

Lifeisontheup · 11/02/2013 12:35

I think labour pain was easier to cope with because I knew it would end. When I had an ear infection and a trapped nerve I didn't know that it would end, just constant agonising pain.
I think it was the way I thought about the pain which changed it. There is a biological reason why the way you think can change the intensity of the pain although it obviously doesn't remove it and I wasn't able to think that way during the ear infection or the trapped nerve.

Jdub · 11/02/2013 12:35

Shingles - felt like I was being sawn in half with a red hot saw