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.

Headache after brain surgery I think the worst.
dislocated ankle on my bad side (cerebral palsy)
weirdly banging my foot on my good side felt more painful than breaking hip on the bad side. (I honestly thought my foot was broken but it was gone just a few minutes later). Then I understood the puzzled looks at the hospital when I’d been just a bit in pain and on a crutch with a broken hip.

I haven’t had cauda equine but I have had a badly prolapsed disc. My back had been iffy for a while and I had a huge sneeze and bam! my back just went. The next morning I literally couldn’t get out of bad at first and it’s the only time in my life I’ve seriously considered calling an ambulance. Even lifting my head off the pillow was agony. Went to the GP and he prescribed ibuprofen which was not surprisingly completely useless.

My other awful pain was kidney stones. Hideous.

Crohnes disease, the cramps are like giving birth but go on for months

I've had two births without pain relief and gallstones, but the worst pain by a thousand miles was trigeminal neuralgia.
The whole left side of my face was in absolute agony. I was literally running around the room trying to escape it. Copious amounts of morphine got it under control, and I'm just thankful I haven't had it since.

Stage 4 Endo including on bowel - saw stars
fell on stairs and fractured coccyx - awful
headbutted by toddler and broke nose!

Snapped my collarbone in half, it didn’t hurt at the time just heavy pressure, it hurt about a week later when it started to heal. I was on the floor crying in pain.

Raynauds of the nipple.....omg just the worst pain EVER.

Passing gallstones through an infected gallbladder. Hideous, awful pain. Passed out. Struggled to cope even after having been given all the available pain relief. It was absolutely horrendous.

Had two vaginal childbirths after that, one entirely without pain relief as G&A not working, and neither came close to a fraction of the pain that the gallstones with infected gallbladder were. TBH, that kind of makes sense - childbirth is a process that the body is designed to do, passing huge gallstones through an infected gallbladder is not!

Childbirth as my number 1. It was long and pitocin is a brute. (All hail the epidural)

Strong second is biliary colic - gallstones are also brutes.

Having verrucas treated with Swift treatment. Holy shit, I've never been in so much pain. I couldn't even let them finish, and I left feeling so shaken and almost violated, it was that awful.

(For context, my c section was a walk in the park so I don't have a low pain tolerance!)

Recovery from jaw surgery where I had a load of loose bone removed was horrific. I had stitches in my tongue as well which I do not recommend!

So was impaling my foot on a giant shard of plastic.

I’ve also broken my foot which was pretty bad. That took months to heal.

Oh and also I snapped a tendon in my hip and could barely walk unaided for months.

Like @DontGiveMeThatOldCrap my most painful experience was a hysteroscopy. I screamed the hospital down.

Had two children without pain relief (including an induction) dislocated shoulder, broken a few bones, but the hysteroscopy was definitely the worst.

Cluster headache (aka suicide headache/ worst pain known to man)

Pulmonary embolism

Years of anal fissures.
Labour and broken bones don't even come close.

My periods were so painful that when I gave birth I kept telling the midwife it felt like mild period pain so she had a bit of a surprise when she saw the head! So yeah I think period pain is up there!

Labour & birth but way up there is also:

dental abscess
gum infection
thunder-clap headache

Isn’t it fun how much our bodies/mouths can fuck us over!

Appendicitis has definitely been one of my worst but I have a twinging back tooth right now and I am just waiting for something horrific to kick in and reading some of these responses is giving me the fear!!

Cluster Headaches and Pleurisy - the Pleurisy terrified me it was so painful I really did think I might be dying . With cluster Headaches I know they're harmless ultimately but they are excruciating.

I’ve given birth twice which was painful, but it was nothing compared to tearing a disc in my spine. If the house was on fire I’d have just had to lie there and die, no way could I have made it downstairs

Thought of one more. The worst migraine of my life while stuck in Grenoble Airport during a snow delay. My flight finally took off and all I wanted was an Easyjet ham and cheese toastie (it’s how you know you’re really ill). They’d run out and the rude cow flight attendant scolded me for not pre ordering. I may have cried after that.

Tooth abscess. Given birth twice

@Siameasy I had similar, ending with forceps with no pain relief. I cannot really think about it 32 years later.

Migraine, cluster headache, kidney stones, slipped disc, broken shoulder, tooth abscess. Giving birth was a breeze in comparison.

Emergency c section forceps and ventouse delivery - Dry socket and frozen shoulder were also excruciating.