To ask what's the worst (physical) pain you've ever experienced?

[canwetalkaboutcake]

I've never broken a bone or given birth, but I have had some very painful periods that have made me feel like I'm going to pass out. Also terrible travel sickness / vomiting on a 20 hour trip that left me wishing for death due to how crap I felt.

I didn't actually find my recovery from my c section very painful. I did have back to back labour before hand very painful.

Pain is all very subjective though, stubbing your toe or trapping your finger in a door is very painful but doesn't last very long. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ectopic pregnancy - out of body experience the pain was so intense and I could only writhe as I tried to escape the pain.
Corneal abrasion - excruciating and takes days of keeping your eyes closed to be relieved
Pleurisy from pneumonia - not being able to breathe from pain is terrifying
Mastitis - had to express pus in scalding hot baths while I bit a flannel.
Perforated infected ear - the build up to it bursting had me pacing and moaning through the night.

All the above were far far worse than my 3 labours and births. I was lucky to feel that labour pain was purposeful and I found hot water and movement immensely relieving , so I managed to feel I was able to work with it. I think the above experiences all felt terrifying and out of control.

Kidney stones, and pancreatitis. Had I had access to firearm, I would have used it. On myself.

I have no idea how painful labour pains can be. I didn't contemplate it without an epidural. When I was induced, I refused to consent to the sytocynon before the epidural was in place.

After my first baby I had infective mastitis and then a breast abscess probably combined with thrush of the inner breast tissues. The pain subsided just a bit just before the next feed began. It was soul destroying and was the thief of my first 6-8 weeks with the baby. In my experience, childbirth is a simple rite of passage for the agony of breastfeeding.

For the pp who fractured all her lumbar vertebrae . I've only broken one at a time: the L1 and T12. Each time was very painful. Agree about the breathing, and the moving. I hope you are OK now.

Oh and also sciatica, due to spinal stenosis. Agony.

When I was younger I thought it’d be a good idea to jump off a wall to try and swing onto some scaffolding but I missed, fell on the ground on my wrist and snapped it in half🤢 Had to have pins in it!

My first birth involved an episiotomy, a high forceps delivery (where the chief resident missed the contraction so the forceps stayed inside me until the next one), a 4th degree tear and a pph. They did a bimanual massage on me. one doctor massaged my uterus from the inside, the other massaged from the outside. I have never felt pain like it. I thought I was jackknifing upright and shouting NO. DH (who spotted that I was crashing - everyone else had left the room) tells me I was lying flat and whimpering a bit. It was excruciating.

Air pain after I was sterilised. Omg. I couldn't move

And gallstone attack. I was curled up in a ball on the floor under my mother's kitchen table

Endometriosis.

Cured now thank god.

My god yes, I had this for months after a trapeziectomy due to osteoarthritis. Just a breeze whooshing across my hand and arm was excruciating.

Trigemic neuralgia

Endometriosis
Dry socket at the same time as recovering from a C-section

Infected wisdom tooth. I've had miscarriages and a c section but there's just something especially unbearable to me about dental pain.

Gallstones. In the bra aisle at TK Maxx.

Jacknifed over the till, reeled out to the bus stop with the sweet staff saying did I want an ambulance and got home before I called it.

It frightens you, pain that makes your legs give way. At the bus stop, fell flat, no one lifted a finger to help. One couple stared from their bench. I lay there thinking there should be weekly awards for ‘London’s Most Inadequate Human’ sponsored by TfL. Bus driver got out and hauled the body on, bless him.

Got the bra I wanted. Result. Better, I kept seeing the Starer Couple on the bus for months and giving them the evils.

Post wisdom tooth extraction when the local anaesthetic wore off, rang around the house screaming like a banshee! X

Sepsis. Though due to give birth for the first time this month so will see if that changes 😅

Dry socket after tooth extraction. Just cut my head off and be done.

Chronic cluster headaches. Would barely get a break from them for years, I’d even have them in my sleep. If I was very lucky I’d pass out at night when I had them but during the day I never did, despite wishing desperately that I would.

Ive had 2 vaginal births with no pain relief at all, one required stitches that again I didn’t have pain relief for, have snapping hip syndrome that causes every step I take to hurt and burn, wisdom tooth infections, sinus infections, over extended my elbows so much I couldn’t lift anything, tore a ligament in my knee as a teenager that hurts even now especially in the cold weather, long covid and once had a suspected egg with a cyst that hurt like electricity repeatedly shocking me as it was spat out of my ovary and nothing comes close to the cluster headaches, I had to cut my nails short just so I wouldn’t claw my eye out or scratch my face beyond recognition they are so horrendous

In order of the worst first:

1. Broken bone
2. C-section recovery pain
3. Appendicitis
4. Childbirth & the after pains & tear etc. from vaginal birth
5. Gallstones

Cluster headache. Just horrendous

Endometriosis
Gall bladder pain

Both worse than labour.

Hi to all the endo girls on here 👋

Spinal Headache after my 4th C-Section.
The pain was unbelievably bad. If they had told me the "cure" was to cut my head off I would have begged them to do it. Turns out the actual cure was pretty miserable too...a blood patch in the lower back with the biggest needle I've ever seen.

Endometriosis pain. I've had 2 children but the mostly pain from endo took its toll. Had a hysterectomy 5 months ago, best feeling ever!

They’re awful aren’t they? I was smashing my head off the bathroom tiles last time out of pain and frustration.