To ask What’s the worst pain you’ve ever been in and how you got through it. (Not childbirth)

[Bamechage]

I’ve turned to drink as the painkillers aren’t working but there must be something else I can do?

Compartment syndrome in my leg which necrosis set in and the dead muscle was removed and skin grafted over

Absolute agony

Bile duct leak after gallbladder removal. Made a difficult childbirth seem a breeze in comparison.

Impacted wisdom tooth, an operation sorted that.
Anal fissures, not eating and after 8 years an operation. I was basically in pain or hangry for years. Still have to be careful now.

Frozen shoulder, currently in freezing stage, the pain is utterly relentless, and worse at night. I'm awake probably every 30 minutes at night with the pain, despite (a combination of) co-codamol, naproxin, tramadol and liquid morphine. The worst thing is nobody can tell me how long it will be until the pain ends (and the loss of mobility becomes my worst symptom), which is destroying my mental health. I'm a zombie due to lack of sleep and ineffective drugs.

I'd rather have both my protracted, instrumental births again than be going through this, at least there's a point during labour where they can say enough is enough and go in for a C-section. It's truly breaking me.

Frozen shoulder - relentless and the tiniest movement can make you see stars. Nothing really helped with the pain but a sympathetic chiropractor helped me manage the condition.

Gosh I have been lucky.

But many years ago I went through a period where I got attacks of sciatica every six months or so that lasted about five weeks at a time. Awful. The only thing that made the pain go away was walking - as soon as I stopped, to stand still or even sit down, it came rushing back. One occasion I had been walking about non stop for something like five hours and was crying with exhaustion but the doctor won't give me anything stronger than naproxen (I think because I once took an overdose 25 years ago!!)

But then whatever caused the sciatic attacks just went away. Haven't had a murmer for six years or so.....?

I hope you've gone to A&E. Nobody should have to endure that pain. And your condition may be worse than they thought.
Don't let them fob you away. Women's pain and complaints tend to be dismissed, sometimes with serious consequences.

Blood gasses aren't much fun either

Agree! The only time I’ve fainted having bloods done, because the junior doctor in A&E spent 10 mins digging around in my wrist with the needle trying to find the artery. I begged him to let me do it myself (medic) and he wouldn’t, he just got more cross and embarrassed and seemed to blame me for his inability to find it. I know everyone has to practice but I think there should be a cut off! I told him 3x I was about the faint and he just snapped at me to keep still and hang on he’d almost got it 😬 He got the artery seconds before I passed out (on a chair 🪑) so he sort of held me against him while he took the blood, before shouting for help as his patient had suddenly fainted on him!

Always take blood gases with the patient lying down 😏
I guess there were no beds and he didn’t want to look incompetent. He was very sheepish when I came round, he probably knew I’d been semi conscious when he pinned me to the chair to get those bloods!

The most painful next to childbirth; a ruptured endometrioma cyst in my ovary, that bled into my pelvis and caused chemical peritonitis.

Closely followed by a dislocated ankle from a riding accident. They gave me ketamine to put it back, the ketamine stopped me feeling any pain. But it also made me hallucinate that I was still riding 😳😳 so while the doctors were trying to put my ankle back together I was jumping fly fences in my head, apparently shouting things like ‘gate please’, ‘loose horse’ ‘mind the ditch’ ‘headland please’ and kept grabbing the IV line thinking I’d dropped my reins! Of course I had no idea of any of this until it wore off and the staff were all smirking at me. They tried to reassure me lots of people act like this but I must have put on a performance as some couldn’t stop laughing when they told me what I’d been shouting! A kind nurse told me I was very happy while they re-set my ankle and reassured me I wasn’t the most vocal patient they’d had… apparently one elderly gentleman hallucinated he was in a brothel (so it could have been worse!)

I’ve been to a and e twice the only relief has been the morphine but the wait for an ENT has been six hours. I’m going back to get the wicks removed on Saturday but I don’t know how I will get through the next 28 hours. I know I could go back and get morphine but when it wears off it’s almost worse as the pain comes back.

I said not childbirth because I I consider that to be in a different category to other pain. I’ve been in worse pain for sure but it’s supposed to hurt if that makes sense.

I’ve just drank a massive bourbon and I’m thinking of having another, maybe I’ll do that all day to take the edge off..

@Bamechage

I’ve turned to drink as the painkillers aren’t working but there must be something else I can do?

@Bamechage - been there, done that. I know how you're feeling. PM me if you need a friendly ear x

Either the time I dislocated my kneecap so violently it ended up almost in the other side of my leg, the ear infection I had that perforated my eardrum (just before my eardrum popped. Felt much better once it went, all the puss came flooding out and the pressure was gone but everything sounded underwater for weeks afterwards) or rip roaring sciatica.

I think probably the sciatica. Actual white hot blinding pain. Couldn't move, not even slowly and didn't make it to the bathroom more than once because of it. That was pretty traumatic.

Definitely my hip when I was waiting for a replacement operation. In the end I couldn’t even walk round the house without support. I was dosed up on painkillers but still in severe pain. My GS told me I looked like an old lady!

Simultaneously having calcified shoulder tendonitis with bursitis and a partial dislocation. Holy shit the pain.

Probably whatever is happening with my shoulder right now. A couple of months ago I woke up and couldn't move my left arm as my shoulder wouldn't move at all, went to the gp who grabbed my arm and pulled it up, we both heard something crack in my shoulder and since then it has ached on and off. Since Tuesday the pain changed to a stabbing pain that goes from my neck right the way down to my waist. I've been seen by different doctors but because nothing is swollen, and the gp lied about what he did, I keep getting told it's a pulled muscle and to go take a hot bath

Shattering a bone in my arm when I fell. When it happened and during the healing process afterwards. Very very painful.

Acute glaucoma. Morphine didn't touch it. After twelve hours they put me on a drip which relieved it within thirty minutes (and then punched holes in my iris without anaesthetic to stop it happening again)

The two most painful things for me, other than child birth, was wisdom tooth extraction/dry socket and the Pleurisy.

The dry socket was unbearable, I couldn't actually sit still because I was in that much pain. I still have nerve damage and pain from my jaw to my temple and it was about 6 years ago now.

I had Pleurisy twice, once at 5 and the other at 15. You cannot take a deep breath because the pain is so bad and I ended up having to be admitted to hospital. Excruciating and terrifying.

When I was pregnant with my son, I had chronic UTI’s but at one point, I developed a kidney infection. It was agony, I genuinely couldn’t breathe from the pain. My dog jumped on my stomach and it hurt more than usual which is what really alerted me to the pain. He was only a small dog, too. A shih tzu

Fractured spine and broken 'tail bone' (can't spell and currently on naproxen and amitriptyline). That was from a horse who decided he didn't like me sitting on his back, threw me off then did a little tap dance on top of me whilst I was on the floor about 15yrs ago. However I'm currently immobile as surgery on my back couldn't take place a couple of weeks ago and now my knee and ankle are buggered because I'm all wonky! Difficult births were a breeze in comparison.

Terrible toothache. I took as many painkillers as I was allowed. Combination of cocodamol and ibuprofen. And then all the topical treatments from the chemist - bonjella type stuff. And then varying hot and cold compresses.

Gall bladder getting inflamed and an ovarian cyst the size of a grapefruit.

Both about equal pain.

Iritis before I got the correct drops as GP thought it was conjunctivitis. Went back tot he GP the next day, different Dr, she didn't even examine my eye before picking up the phone to the eye hospital.

Pancreatitis caused by a problem with the gallbladder. I was made to sit for four hours in the waiting room in A&E, no pain relief and no proper assessment, just bloods taken. I eventually took my own cannula out, went home and overdosed on whatever pain relief/sedative/sleeping meds I had in the house - had variety of strong ones left over from mil. Got a phone call from the GP the next day to report my pancreas was inflammed and I needed another blood test.

The pain was so bad I thought I was going to have a heart attack. My colleague helpfully told me afterwards that I should have told them I had chest pain then they'd have taken proper care of me and given me pain relief. I'm not accustomed to lying, so it never occurred to me to do that.

Toothache during lockdown. The dentist reluctantly saw me , agreed that tooth needed removing and then told me there were no appointments left for another week. I was in agony and crying in pain - they didn’t give a shit.
I got by on codiene and diazepam that already had for previous conditions.
Luckily I was able to call on a favour from a friend who is a dentist. She removed it a day later and was appalled by how I had been treated.

A dry socket and an ovarian cyst bursting. The dry socket was worse than the c-section I had where the epidural failed in the middle of surgery.

Trapped gallstone, felt like I was dying. Had a fair idea what it was but if I didn't, I would suspect I was having a heart attack. Getting my gallbladder removed was the only thing which stopped the attacks.