To think there are worse pains than labour?

[coraltoes]

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

Pancreatitis. Was banging head on wall to try and knock myself out while waiting for the ambulance. Genuinely would have welcomed death with open arms. I come out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.

Followed by gallstones.

Followed by labour.

Lifeisontheu, you're so right - I do think that because I didn't know what it was and thought I was dying it was much worse.

Toothache is the worst pain in the world

I had a elcs last week and the spinal started to wear off before the baby was even out. Gas and air helped a little but it was worse than both my vb, even though the first was 70 odd hours and he weighed 11lb 2

Hmmm. It's subjective I think. In the throes of labour I remember thinking "this is nothing like bad period pain " as is often bandied about as a close second. I've never been disembowelled with a red hot spade whilst simulataneously being repeatedly stabbed by swords, but I would guess that my labour felt a bit like that. It was off the clock. However, I've also had the incision of a caesarean section without pain relief (the epidural and spinal failed and no one believed me when I said I could still feel stuff - enough said) and that was pretty painful.

However, hands-down winner for awful pain is after aforementioned 'failed epidural' EMCS when I came round from the anaesthetic. I had no pain relief in place and was dry retching/vomiting and I honestly thought I was going to tear in half. I remember telling my husband in haze of tearing agony that if he had a gun I would pull the trigger.

I have no doubt that you can experience a worse pain than that of labour, especially if you've had a 'kind' and straightforward labour or caesarean delivery. Broken bones, kidney stones, ruptured ovarian cysts are all known to bloody hurt.

Depends on the labour surely? DD's labour hurt but was comparatively a toddle compared to labour with DS which was around 30 hours of horrendous back-to-back pain followed by me hemorrhaging and seizing.

This merely serves to confirm that epidural was a good decision

Julia if it works

Labour with DD lasted 60 hours, involved lots of internals, digging bits of wire about in my barley dilated cervix trying to get contact with her distressed head, pessaries and eventually an ec.

I would much rather do that again than put up with the current pain of ulcerated corneas from an allergic reaction to contact lens solution. Its been 3 days of agony and mn'ing in sunglasses!

I think it depends on the person.

I actually broke my foot while pregnant and for me it was like being tickled with a feather in comparison to labour!

I have 3 DC, with my first I was led to believe that the more pain you expect, the worse it will be and that your fear will make the pain worse.... I was shocked by how much it hurt, the pain scared me, I hadn't been expecting it.

DS2 I was more prepared as I knew what was coming, but it was still agony.

DS3 was also agony.

My labours all lasted for around 12 hours & the pain was just so intense, that said it wouldn't put me off having another one.

• Barely, not barley!

i dont think that theres worse pain but there are many different types of pain.
I coped quite well with labour in comparison to the wisdom tooth that snapped in half, exposing the nerve, getting massively infected into an abscess and emergency extraction...i felt no urge to cuddle the tooth that was dragged out of my mouth... i didnt particularly enjoy the labour pain but at least i came out of that with more than a bloody gaping hole...i got a baby too

Julia, unless you read the stories of post-epidural headache...

(I didn't get the headache, but attempting epidural was the worst bit of my first labour, so much so that my birth plan for the next two consisted solely of "I am not having another bloody epidural or a routine cannula")

I have given birth to two sets of twins vaginally. It hurt a bit. I had a mouth ulcer last month the size of a twenty pence piece. That hurt more.

I've had 2 abscesses in my teeth, 4 impacted wisdom teeth, a slipped disc, broken wrist & a broken foot and they were nothing compared to labour, the pain I felt was just off the scale!

A tooth abscess and a Uterine Fibroid Embolisation complete with really bad reaction to morphine which went on for days were pretty miserable. It depends on your labour and what other kind of illnesses you've experienced really.

Getting an abcess on my leg lanced was agony.Have to say though student doctor trying to break my waters with ds1 was awful.Did not feel a thing when a midwife did it with ds2

The worst pain I have felt is from an anal fissure, but I haven't been through labour yet ...

Didn't have a natural birth but I am another gall stones suffer. The attacks were so much worse that having my c section & the recovery. I would choose being sliced in half and two babies pulled out of me than one single gall stone attack. I had my gall bladder removed when my twins were 6 weeks old. During pregnancy, the pain killers they gave me made no difference and the pain was horrific. I was sick during the pain and on morphine drips 4 weeks after having my babies.

Gall stones are pure evil!

Stage 2 labour with no more than 30 seconds between contractions for 2.5 hours of pushing, no pain relief. If someone had said chopping off my arm would stop the pain I'd gladly have consented. I've never felt anything like it. Lucky I don't want DC3 because I NEVER want to go through that again.

I think the pain from my Endometriosis was worse because it was so relentless. It would last for the whole of my period and then I'd get ovulation pain 2 weeks later and two weeks after that period pain again and so on.

2 good labours - one waterbirth, one speedy second arrival (half hour in hospital before DS was born)
However for me it was still the most painful experience I've had, apart from perhaps moments at the dentist, but they've thankfully been very fleeting.
Generally I think I've been pretty fortunate all round so far - long may it continue !

I've never been in labour. I would've wanted to but it was too risky with my medical condition and pre-eclampsia put paid to that.
But I did have a cerebal abcess where the abcess grows on your brain, causing it to swell, pushing it against the inside of your skull. I was in too much pain to breath, blink or moan let alone make any complaint of pain by way of noise. They couldn't knock me out as they did not diagnose it for 3 days and needed me awake to watch for symptoms. Two operations later (one under local !) I have been left with chronic epilepsy. But I am here to tell the tale.

toe curling after pains.

throat infection so bad I was in agony just swallowing my own saliva - after 4 days I thought I was dying.

Not sure if its been mentioned yet but the old Farmer Giles comes a close second to labour, usually occurring not long after labour in my experience