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[Max Rockatansky]

This topic came up in conversation in another road chat.  What is the worst level of physical pain you’ve experienced during your life time? 

Conventional wisdom would suggest that the damage from getting hit by a car in 2010 would be my worst.  Said accident hurt for sure, but concussion symptoms seemed to mitigate the pain I probably have experienced normally from broken ribs, a broken distal radius and road rash on my face.  Interestingly I recall barrel rolling an ATV in 2001 also mitigated the pain of injury due to concussion.

For whatever reason the worst pain I’ve experienced probably would be associated with stomach issues I had related to a flu during 2016.  I seem to recall pondering several times during the first 36 hours of symptoms how I could possibly be in that level of pain from stomach problems and what the line was for actually going to the ER might be (I never went)?  I don’t know what being disemboweled feels like, but I suspect that I had a good analog that year. 

[Rothman]

Probably when I scraped a strip of skin from my chin to my forehead off when I got into a bike accident when I was a kid.

Then again, there was that time I broke my wrist playing basketball, didn't know it, and then went into shock that night...

And I just went through some medium-ish surgery this past September, but the pain hasn't been that bad.

[74/171FAN]

Then again, there was that time I broke my wrist playing basketball, didn't know it, and then went into shock that night...

I broke my left wrist playing football once when I was tackled with my left wrist hitting a tree.  I tried to deny that I was hurt that bad, and did not think it as broke until I was taken for X-Rays which made it obvious.

[tchafe1978]

In order of severity, I've felt horrible pain three times.
1. I was playing intramural basketball in high school. I had just scored a basket, and was running back up the court backwards to get on defense. I ended up tripping over the half court line, did a sommersault of some sort, and landed awkwardly on my wrist. I felt the pain right away. When I got home my mom made me ice it and tried to make me sleep with it for the night before taking me in to get it checked out. I thought for sure it was broken, it ended up being just a bad sprain.

2. I've had two hernias, both in my groin, one on each side. The hernias themselves weren't that bad, just a little tender and uncomfortble. It was after the surgery to repair each one where I felt terrible pain for 4-5 days until it started to fade away.

3. Since about mid-June I've had pain in my left hip. Went to the doctor to get it checked out. They did x-rays and found I have osteoarthrits, bone spurs, and impingement. Ive been going to physical therapy since August. I've also since developed bursitis on the outside of my hip. There are definitely times where I wonder if it would be better to just take the leg off, lol. Other times it's not so bad. It kind of ebbs and flows. Since the therapy started the pain from the bursitis has subsided somewhat, but the joint pain is still there. I'm probably eventually headed for a hip replacement. So my hip hasn't necessarily been the worst pain I've ever felt, but it is the most prolonged.

[hbelkins]

Gout attacks in both knees. One leg in the summer of 2017, the other in the winter of 2018. Excruciating. i was unable to bend my knee without being in agony.

Also, the sciatica I experienced in the spring of 2017 that resulted in my being overprescribed ibuprofen that landed me in the hospital with acute kidney injury. That was the episode that forced me to cancel the New River Gorge meet.

[TheHighwayMan394]

Getting a spinal tap to check for bacterial meningitis. Second place was slipping and having my side smash into the corner of a bench.

[dlsterner]

Kidney stones.

Have had then (fortunately relatively infrequently) over the past 30 years of so.  Maybe every few years.  But yeah, no fun trying to pee out a small rock.

I've also had some very painful gout attacks, mostly in the big toe joint.  When it swells and is painful to the touch, even trying to put on a shoe can be excruciating.  And even just walking.

[BlueOutback7]

Broke a leg once when I was a kid, that hurt.

[jp the roadgeek]

Definitely gallstones.  Thought it was chronic lactose intolerance and ate a piece of cheese on a sandwich.  3 or 4 hours later I’m in the waiting room at the ER screaming so badly that a cop had to tell me to keep it down.  I eventually passed out before they finally took me.

[US 89]

This is going to sound weird, but most excruciating pain I've ever experienced has happened a few times and lasted about 15 seconds each time. It involves waking up in the middle of the night to either of my calf muscles contracting as hard as it can for no particular reason. Hurts like absolute hell...and then it's sore for the next several hours of trying to walk on it the next morning. A similar thing sometimes happens in my feet that I can best describe as feeling like my tendons are getting crossed over.

I broke my arm in middle school falling down the stairs. That hurt, yeah, but this is like twice as bad.

[NWI_Irish96]

Have been very fortunate (so far) to not have kidney stones. When I was 24 I got hit by a car while riding a bike and fractured my Tibia right down by my ankle.

Had gastric bypass surgery this past February.

The two events were far apart so it's hard to judge which was more painful.

[Max Rockatansky]

This is going to sound weird, but most excruciating pain I've ever experienced has happened a few times and lasted about 15 seconds each time. It involves waking up in the middle of the night to either of my calf muscles contracting as hard as it can for no particular reason. Hurts like absolute hell...and then it's sore for the next several hours of trying to walk on it the next morning. A similar thing sometimes happens in my feet that I can best describe as feeling like my tendons are getting crossed over.

I had that happen my entire life on random occasion with my left leg.  I can stop the muscle spasms once I become coherent enough to realize what is actually happening.  That’s a little easier said than done when they wake me up from a deep sleep.

[Rothman]

This is going to sound weird, but most excruciating pain I've ever experienced has happened a few times and lasted about 15 seconds each time. It involves waking up in the middle of the night to either of my calf muscles contracting as hard as it can for no particular reason. Hurts like absolute hell...and then it's sore for the next several hours of trying to walk on it the next morning. A similar thing sometimes happens in my feet that I can best describe as feeling like my tendons are getting crossed over.

I had that happen my entire life on random occasion with my left leg.  I can stop the muscle spasms once I become coherent enough to realize what is actually happening.  That’s a little easier said than done when they wake me up from a deep sleep.

Don't point your toes.  I used to get cramps in my calves from stretching my legs out in bed.  Ever since I've kept myself from pointing my toes while stretching, the cramps have been much fewer in number -- almost all gone.

[texaskdog]

I've been in 5 car accidents where my car got totaled but got lucky every time.  Had to be where I had to take a really bad dump and couldn't find an open toilet.

[TheHighwayMan394]

This is going to sound weird, but most excruciating pain I've ever experienced has happened a few times and lasted about 15 seconds each time. It involves waking up in the middle of the night to either of my calf muscles contracting as hard as it can for no particular reason. Hurts like absolute hell...and then it's sore for the next several hours of trying to walk on it the next morning. A similar thing sometimes happens in my feet that I can best describe as feeling like my tendons are getting crossed over.

I had that happen my entire life on random occasion with my left leg.  I can stop the muscle spasms once I become coherent enough to realize what is actually happening.  That’s a little easier said than done when they wake me up from a deep sleep.

Don't point your toes.  I used to get cramps in my calves from stretching my legs out in bed.  Ever since I've kept myself from pointing my toes while stretching, the cramps have been much fewer in number -- almost all gone.

This has happened to me as well, though for my issues I suspected poor hydration may have factored.

[webny99]

This is going to sound weird, but most excruciating pain I've ever experienced has happened a few times and lasted about 15 seconds each time. It involves waking up in the middle of the night to either of my calf muscles contracting as hard as it can for no particular reason. Hurts like absolute hell...and then it's sore for the next several hours of trying to walk on it the next morning. A similar thing sometimes happens in my feet that I can best describe as feeling like my tendons are getting crossed over.

I had that happen my entire life on random occasion with my left leg.  I can stop the muscle spasms once I become coherent enough to realize what is actually happening.  That’s a little easier said than done when they wake me up from a deep sleep.

Don't point your toes.  I used to get cramps in my calves from stretching my legs out in bed.  Ever since I've kept myself from pointing my toes while stretching, the cramps have been much fewer in number -- almost all gone.

This has happened to me as well, though for my issues I suspected poor hydration may have factored.

These cramps actually have a name, which I'm surprised no one has mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_horse

I've had a charley horse only once that I can recall.. don't remember anything specific that might have caused it other than being more active than usual the day prior and falling asleep in an uncomfortable position.

[webny99]

I've had three broken bones: upper arm, lower arm, and lower leg (although the latter was so long ago I don't remember it).

The upper arm (humerus) break was the most painful due to the throbbing affecting my neck and head movement. Taking my shirt off became an excruciating task so I tried to do it as little as possible, or wear button up shirts to avoid having to pull over my head. I learned to manage the pain by moving that arm as little as possible, but the first few weeks were pretty rough.

That's the worst pain I can recall experiencing other than maybe hell's itch which I experienced after a trip to the beach several years ago. It was pretty much exactly as described in the article, with intense darts of pain that I could seemingly do nothing to stop or calm down. Fortunately, it was short-lived and had started to subside within a few hours, but it was not a fun experience. I've had several mild sunburns since, but have tried to avoid more than an hour or two of sun exposure at a time, and that's prevented recurrence so far.

[hbelkins]

I've had gout in the big toe before, and it is painful, but I'd trade it for gout in a weight-bearing joint (the knee) in a heartbeat.

I distinctly remember the first time I ever had a leg cramp (Charley horse). I had no idea what was going on, other than knowing it woke me up and hurt like the dickens. I'm prone to cramps in the legs and feet.

[vdeane]

This is going to sound weird, but most excruciating pain I've ever experienced has happened a few times and lasted about 15 seconds each time. It involves waking up in the middle of the night to either of my calf muscles contracting as hard as it can for no particular reason. Hurts like absolute hell...and then it's sore for the next several hours of trying to walk on it the next morning. A similar thing sometimes happens in my feet that I can best describe as feeling like my tendons are getting crossed over.

I had that happen my entire life on random occasion with my left leg.  I can stop the muscle spasms once I become coherent enough to realize what is actually happening.  That’s a little easier said than done when they wake me up from a deep sleep.

Don't point your toes.  I used to get cramps in my calves from stretching my legs out in bed.  Ever since I've kept myself from pointing my toes while stretching, the cramps have been much fewer in number -- almost all gone.

I get that periodically too, always from stretching too far, always subsiding about a minute after relaxing.  The first few times, I thought I pulled a muscle or something.  At least it's gone down now that I've made sure not to stretch that far.

[JayhawkCO]

I once sliced part of the tip of my thumb off while using a mandoline. That wasn't the worst pain. The worst pain is when it was still bleeding the following morning so I went to urgent care. They told me they were going to put silver nitrate on it to stop the bleeding and that I should lay down on the table when they did it. I told them that I had a pretty high pain tolerance and I could remain sitting and the nurse's quote was, "We catch 8-year-olds. At your age, we let you fall." So I took his advice and as soon as they put it on, I immediately sweated through my shirt and it was pretty excruciating. I was quite glad I was laying down.

I once had something that the doctor diagnosed as "gout? maybe?" in my big toe when I was 17 that hurt like hell too, but the silver nitrate was worse.

[J N Winkler]

Potassium deficiency is cited as one of the most common causes of charley horses.  I suspect it is actually more a question of balance of minerals, since I used to have them frequently when I ate bananas (which are rich in potassium) as a late-night fiber snack, only for them to all but stop after I switched to gala apples.  I now take magnesium tablets (partly to control fasciculation) and have gone for months and months without having one.

I have also suffered from proctalgia fugax.  Although researchers have tried some interesting treatments, such as inserting high-voltage probes into the rectum, I've found episodes become much less frequent if one takes care not to pull on the hairs around the anus when wiping or showering.

[Rothman]

Bananas didn't make a difference to me.  All about not pointing toes.

[Max Rockatansky]

Problem for me is that I become violently ill every time I try to eat a banana.  I suspect that I have a latex allergy.  I don’t think potassium is at the root cause given the somewhat random nature of when I get Charley Horses (is that even capitalized?).

[index]

Probably breaking one of my toes by slamming it into the corner of my bed, then tripping on that foot, (no legs or openings, just standing on 5 pieces of wood), then my mother forcing me to run on it for weeks during practice for the sports she forced me to play, because she thought I was lying to get out of practice.

The worst physical discomfort I've ever had that wasn't pain was when I took way too many edibles while in a bad mood and ended up uncontrollably vomiting for a few hours. I then had to go to the ER because I nearly got vomit aspiration, was severely dehydrated, and almost choked to death. It was not the worst experience of my life pain-wise, but it was the worst experience of my life physical comfort-wise and probably the dumbest thing I've ever done.

[J N Winkler]

Problem for me is that I become violently ill every time I try to eat a banana.  I suspect that I have a latex allergy.  I don’t think potassium is at the root cause given the somewhat random nature of when I get Charley Horses (is that even capitalized?).

Re. capitalization of charley horse, it seems neither word is (I've edited my previous post accordingly).

One way to get more potassium in the diet may be to switch to No Salt (potassium chloride salt substitute), which we now use in lieu of actual salt.

Bananas didn't make a difference to me.  All about not pointing toes.

I've always been able to tell when they are about to begin and letting my toes curl has often been all it takes to head them off.  But not eating bananas has pretty much kept them from even starting.