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?

@AnotherName456

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.

Pleurisy is horrific. I genuinely thought I'd broken ribs, was vomiting with pain. I had to sleep sitting up for over a month because I felt like I was drowning when I laid down, although that may have been the pneumonia.

Cannabis based medication. I've tried everything and this helps more than anything else. (Multiple chronic pain conditions)

Went back and they gave me more drugs and put another thing in it. Home now on morphine so have been sleeping and back tomorrow morning. Thank you so much for everyone’s comments it’s made me feel less alone. Keeping everything crossed I will regain some hearing

Incision of a massive, fully inflamed septic abscess without anesthesia. Thankfully, I fainted from sheer pain while on the table.

Tooth ache. I've screamed with it before now. Its so relentless and nagging.

Prolapsed disc causing sciatic pain all the way from my lower back to my foot. I couldn't sit, stand, lie down, move at all without pain so severe that I literally wanted to die. I was on a ridiculous cocktail of painkillers that barely touched the sides. Never imagined that sciatic pain could be so horrific. Unfortunately the only thing really that improved it was time, and it's still flaring up but not with the same severity.

Other causes of hideous pain included breastfeeding (gave up after two very miserable weeks but the pain was shocking - almost like someone wringing out the nerves inside my boobs, never got to the bottom of why it was so bad and it didn't appear to be latch-related - it was far far worse than the birth itself which was also a total shitshow) and tooth abscess (would rather have every tooth pulled out with a pair of rusty pliers than ever go through that again).

IBS
Dry socket
Covid headache...thought my skull would crack

Another vote for acute pancreatitis care of gallstone. V similar story to pp. Oral morphine just about took the edge off, needed it via iv drip to actually properly help.

Close runner up is the efforts made to remove a retained placenta after dd was born v prematurely.

Frozen shoulder, and no painkillers worked so I was in agony for about 4 months until I had a cortisone injection, then I was in moderate pain only for about a further 6 months before having a hydrodilatation procedure. I tried every painkiller I could - different strengths of co-codamol, co-dydramol, amitriptilene, none of them touched it.

Gall stones. I ended up passing out from the pain. That helped.

Came here to say an ear infection which burst my eardrum and sounds like you’ve got the same but the other way around?

Hope you’re feeling better now, I took cocodamol, heat helped a lot, I kept one of those microwaveable soft toys clamped on my ear. Also lay on my side to let all the endless fluid in it drain out. Grim!

Infection under a wisdom tooth...... Only time I've cried with pain and I've had three kids, two with no pain relief!

Shingles within my ear and a burst eardrum was up there. I mooched around the house crying and getting in and out of the bath for a week to try and ease the pain which was in my ear, my teeth, my head and my neck. It was grim. Apparently it’s quite rare to get it inside your ears.

Ulcerative colitis can be pretty awful as well depending on the severity of the flare up.

A few years ago when in peri menopause, my periods were horrific, the worst was waking up one morning needing the loo but being unable to urinate, the pain was worse than dry socket after an abcess that made the tooth explode!
Vomiting with the pain and with each retch, blood and a bit of urine spurting out of me onto the bathroom floor.

I also witnessed DH writhing on the floor of A+E with testicular pain that they thought at first was torsion but after ultrasound decided was chronic Orchitis. He still has to have nerve blocking injections some 10 years later. It seems likely that his earlier vasectomy was the root cause, he had extreme pain, swelling and haematoma afterwards.

Sciatica, caused by herniated discs in my lumbar spine. I've never felt anything so searing; it felt like my legs were being cut open all the way down. The GP sent me away, telling me to use Paracetamol. Now I have a dropped foot and permanent nerve damage in my leg. I blame that doctor and still put off GP visits for fear of being patronised and fobbed off.

Fibromyalgia pain is awful, too. It takes over my whole body, it's unrelenting and overwhelming.