Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
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:
nellyjelly · 07/02/2013 21:04

No no no. Labour was excrutiating. I thought I would die and G and A did sod all.

thegreylady · 07/02/2013 21:08

My worst pain ever was a tibial plateau fracture closely followed by the bone pain which was a side effect of chemotherapy for breast cancer.
For me childbirth was ok-I had worse period pains but I know I was lucky.

cathers · 07/02/2013 21:10

Had two labours without any medication/ assistance.
One attack of infected gallbladder and was calling 999. Horrific pain.

seeker · 07/02/2013 21:11

Not experienced by me there haven't been!

SelfconfessedSpoonyFucker · 07/02/2013 21:16

Probably depends on the kind of labour you have. I have a friend who had an easy labour and orgasmed with it. I'm guessing she would be able to pick many other pains that were worse than labour.

With my first I had back-back labour plus I threw up solidly for 27 hours no matter what they did. That made the pain much harder to deal with.

From seeing people die with cancer I think there are worse pains than labour.

There is a difference between a sharp quick pain and a long pain and a pain that you know is never going to stop, they aren't terribly comparable.

Blackpuddingbertha · 07/02/2013 21:32

I had two prolapsed discs late in my second pregnancy. While in full labour the pain disappeared and the labour pain in comparison was a relief. I was hoping for a long labour but she was out in two hours. The moment she was in the midwife's arms the pain came back. I have no way of describing the level of constant pain from the prolapsed discs and due to the pregnancy I could take nothing but paracetamol and codeine.

landofsoapandglory · 07/02/2013 21:35

Labour pain does vary so much. With DS1 I was crying for pain relief at 2cm, but by that time I had been contracting for over 24hours(although I thought I had severe IBS pains at first Hmm)he was back to back, and I was knackered. They gave me 2 Paracetomol and at that point I didn't know I had another 14 hours to go!

With DS2 it was painful, but it was done and dusted in 20 minutes without so much a sniff of gas and air!

I have had chronic pain for 17 years. It wears you down because it is relentless. They try to manage it, but it is always there. Somedays I feel like there are millions of red hot pins being stuck into my legs!

browneyedpixie · 07/02/2013 21:36

Agree on it varying! My pain was worse when I retained a placenta and a doctor had to retrieve with her hand yikes that got me screamingShock

Dualta · 07/02/2013 21:40

I've had broken bones/post operative pain (was on morphine) and all sorts but I was never completely deranged and screaming in pain as I was in labour

Sorry to hear that so many people have experienced worse pain than that.

IncognitoIsMyFavouriteWord · 07/02/2013 21:46

not at all.

I would rather go through labour again than the pain I was in with my tumor last year.

I had two puffs on gas and air for child birth.

I was on morphine at one point with the cancer.

Considering there's about the same risk for either of them happening again I'm. quite happy Smile

teacherandguideleader · 07/02/2013 22:08

I have never been in labour however I cannot imagine ever being in as much pain as the complications I had with meningitis - fluid leaking from my spinal column and from around my brain causing the pressure around my brain to drop.

I am willing to stand corrected if I'm ever lucky enough to have a child but I really hope it's not as painful!

Stinkyminkymoo · 07/02/2013 22:28

YANBU I broke my coccyx and this was the singularly most painful experience of my life, far more so than giving birth.

I have also broken my leg, and I got kicked in the groin by my young horse. These were also more painful than giving birth.

The best thing about giving birth is that as soon as my dd was out, the pain was over, not so in the above cases! and the bruising from the kick was just spectacular!

auntilin · 07/02/2013 22:36

YANBU Toothache is worse for me than my back to back birth.

DizzyZebra · 07/02/2013 22:37

Yanbu to say your broken arm hurt more than your labour.

Ywbvvvvu to say it in relation to anyone elses.

Personally I've had a few experiences worse than my labour.

curryeater · 07/02/2013 22:44

honeytea, I have no idea whether it is because of the babies but yes, my periods are much better now and I used to go green and be sick and faint and cry. haven't had one like that since having a baby and can manage fine with a couple of paracetemol, if that. so I hope you will find them better too

IrnBruChew · 07/02/2013 23:06

I've always thought toothache was the worst pain ever, pacing the floor at 2am in total agony but I've never screamed the way I've screamed in labour when I'm pacing the floor with toothache. So labour wins.

DrCoconut · 07/02/2013 23:34

Had a kidney stone. The pain was horrendous. I honestly thought I was going to die and there must be something awful wrong with me at one point. My mum took me to hospital and I just passed out on the floor of A+E with the pain. They believed me but still asked if I'd tried taking paracetamol apparently.

apostropheuse · 07/02/2013 23:47

The worst pain I've ever had was my first labour. Forceps with no pain relief. I actually didn't care if I lived or died at that point. I can still remember it all these years later.

Thankfully the others weren't nearly as bad.

That was definitely much worse than a broken bone - for me anyway.

DumSpiroSpero · 07/02/2013 23:53

Induced back to back labour with no gap between contractions is definitely the worse pain I've experienced.

Having said that I've never had kidney stones or broken a bone so (touch wood) don't have much to compare it to.

Generally I think anything mouth/teeth related is pretty miserable. I get horrendous ulcers if I'm stressed and whilst they don't compare I can see that an abcess or something might do.

TapirBackRider · 08/02/2013 02:58

Acute Pancreatitis - had a gallstone lodged in the common bile duct and it was agony beyond belief, and just goes on and on.

Morphine did nothing, and I passed out several times because of the pain.

I dread ever having another bout of it.

brighthair · 08/02/2013 03:09

It's weird how people cope with pain differently. Dry socket after tooth extraction didn't hurt much at all
Open displaced fracture of ankle with torn ligaments - ouch. And being driven to hospital over speed bumps with that and no pain relief hurt
Norovirus for 3 days followed immediately by flu was vile. The back cramps were so bad they offered me gas and air
But I haven't had children...

AngelNanny · 08/02/2013 04:11

I also had the acute pancreatitis caused by gallstones and I had inflamed gallbladder.
The Gallstones and the attacks were all through pregnancy aswell as HG and then the pancreatitis was 5weeks after I have birth. Followed by my gallbladder removal whilst I was there.

Ouchie!!!!

ThreeBeeOneGee · 08/02/2013 07:20

Teacherandguideleader: YY to the spinal headache being grim. Mine was a complication of a spinal anaesthetic hole rather than meningitis but both result in negative pressure around the brain, essentially pulling your brain outwards in all directions. A spinal headache is described in the medical literature as being incapacitating, and they're not joking.

MerryCouthyMows · 08/02/2013 07:41

And my tooth abscess was more painful than labours 1,3 & 4. Not more painful than labour two, but as minouminou pointed out earlier, having your cervix close over an arm as well as a head registers pretty highly on the pain scale.

So I guess for me it goes :

  1. Shattered kneecap
  2. Double hip dislocation
  3. Single hip dislocation
  4. Labour 2 where DS1 came out stargazing with his hand on his head like Rodin's 'the thinker'.
  5. Tooth abscess
  6. Labours 1, 3 & 4.
MerryCouthyMows · 08/02/2013 07:44

Having an abscess on my tonsil drained with a mahoosive needle with no pain relief rated quite highly on the pain scale actually. Maybe above a tooth abscess.