What is the most pain you have ever felt

[phillysailor]

Treatment of aortic dissection has undergone a paradigm shift during my career.

When I started out, operations took 5-10 hours, were bloody, huge and ran the risk of causing paralysis because the graft would seal off the artery of Ademkowitz which supplies the anterior portion of the spine.

Big belly incisions, students and assistants holding retractors for hours.

Many units of RBCs, platelets and weeks in the ICU, hospital, rehab. Emergencies were very often fatal.

Now, with endovascular techniques it’s practically an outpatient procedure, can be done under sedation in the right circumstances.

Kinda mind blowing.

 

[badlatitude]

Ruptured an Achilles tendon. At the time I told my wife that it was the most pain I had ever experienced, she told me I was just being dramatic and to shower and get changed so we could go out for dinner.

Me too. I was skiing with a group of friends in Park City, Utah, about thirty-five years ago. When a friend led me off a 35' cliff not a big deal most of the time, but I landed wrong and heard a pop. That was it, I had to be taken down the mountain by the ski patrol, and I felt no pain until I took my ski boots off. After that, I thought I could walk it off, but that was not in the cards. I forget what kind of pain meds were around then, but I do remember it wasn't nearly enough.

This happened on day two of a 5-day ski vacation, and I wasn't going to leave for any reason. I was stuck going to the ski lodge for the next three days. Did I tell you that the Playboy Bunnies were there at the same time? That made up for it; they thought my wound was so cute. The downside is that rupture took forever to heal.

 

[Gissie]

Lol … not such a thing as nerve pain
Simple test next the you have a root canal 🦷
You’d break bones trying to get out of the chair without nerve block

They do say -no brain, no pain.

So Random probably wouldn't notice...

 

[scribe]

Agony was breaking my Coccyx on a festival slippery dip, female companion was disgusted i didn't want to get hot and bothered with her right then. Healed up in a day . Next worse pain kidney stones. Went to the doctor for pain relief, he said are you drinking lots of liquids? I said yes Coke and Coffee.. I got the lecture lots of water only and also never shifted house by myself again as Dr said lifting heavy weights can set you off again.
Sedentary writing roles saw me exited work with low back pain with relentless pain spasms as hamstring, glutes, low, mid to upper back went out in protest often every five hours. Living on valium, brufen, panadol, codeine to try to get a decent nights sleep. Women love it when I say I get hot flushes as back tightens up. Surgeon said he'd fuse my spine but after finding most patients still had ongoing pain I went to a exercise physiologist who said new shoes, new bed, only do the set exercises focusing on core strength. walking, pigeon pose, lunges, gentle yoga stretches. exercise ball .. two years on mostly pain free and getting there and doing hamstring stretches thrice daily, pushups, planks, pullups, single leg squats, 5kg romanian deadlifts, one leg/eyes closed balancing and gradually increasing repetitions etc.

 

[ShortForBob]

Radioactive tracer injection into breast tissue.
Imagine a bee sting x10 into your tenderest bit.

 

[jerseyguy]

My lovely wife of 17 years came back to California from a six-week vacation in Hawaii to the house we'd just bought, and I'd been busting my buns for those six weeks to make habitable, new hardwood floors etc... After picking her up from the airport, I gave her flowers and the grand tour, which she liked.

Then she sat us down on the sofa and calmly said, "I don't want to be married any more." "What? Can we talk about it?" "No." "Can we go to counselling?" "No." "Well what do we do?" "Nothing. I already filed for the divorce."

Stunned shock, then pain that I'd never imagined possible.

Pain is not just physical.

When this started I was going to ask if he meant physical, emotional, financial, psychological, etc.

 

[Navig8tor]

Torsion testes, kidney stones. Both pretty much 10/10.

All of them plus a corneal abrasion-the abrasion was next level, walked into the tip of a Phoenix Palm in low light stabbing me in the eye.

 

[Navig8tor]

My lovely wife of 17 years came back to California from a six-week vacation in Hawaii to the house we'd just bought, and I'd been busting my buns for those six weeks to make habitable, new hardwood floors etc... After picking her up from the airport, I gave her flowers and the grand tour, which she liked.

Then she sat us down on the sofa and calmly said, "I don't want to be married any more." "What? Can we talk about it?" "No." "Can we go to counselling?" "No." "Well what do we do?" "Nothing. I already filed for the divorce."

Stunned shock, then pain that I'd never imagined possible.

Pain is not just physical.

Well shit Wop, I just can’t Like that, I do hope Karma came over to play.

 

[Captain Ketamine]

Treatment of aortic dissection has undergone a paradigm shift during my career.

When I started out, operations took 5-10 hours, were bloody, huge and ran the risk of causing paralysis because the graft would seal off the artery of Ademkowitz which supplies the anterior portion of the spine.

Big belly incisions, students and assistants holding retractors for hours.

Many units of RBCs, platelets and weeks in the ICU, hospital, rehab. Emergencies were very often fatal.

Now, with endovascular techniques it’s practically an outpatient procedure, can be done under sedation in the right circumstances.

Kinda mind blowing.

Yeah, I used to anaesthetise for a regular vascular list for open AAA’s fortunately fast, competent surgeons, so not 5 - 10hrs (usually). They were quite interesting, but all got a bit boring with endovascular.
Thoracic dissections are a different beast. My cardiothoracic colleagues are welcome to do.

Pain is obviously a pretty individual thing. Multi trauma with patients in poor condition to start with doesn’t help especially if significant psychosocial factors that may impact on their ability to get through. Big burns always a challenge. Both may require the patient to be intubated and ventilated to manage pain whilst negotiating cardio respiratory status.

I think an elective Total knee replacement is pretty stimulating, newer adjunctive nerve blocking approaches can help. A good working epidural is still gold standard but can be a fiddle. Pain management is an area of medicine that has active research . The goals for acute pain management and persistent or chronic are quite different.

 

[Captain Ketamine]

Or get shingles- by far my worst pain. On the top of my head- the only description I could give at the time is someone had a grinder with 40 grit working on the top of my head for about four hours. I was lying in my bed and every few minutes would look to see what I was sure was massive amounts of blood and tissue on the sheets. Would go to the mirror and see some red bumps. Complete disconnect between the pain and reality as the pain is right in the nerves. Now years later the top of my head feels like it had a grinder on it years ago.

Shingle got in my eye so I ended up with the sensation that a piece of grit was in my eye, and no way to get it out for about a month- that ws a different kind of pain.

Right before the new Shingrex vaccine came out- I convinced a lot of people to get that.

Post Herpetic Neuralgia or shingles can be a very difficult pain to manage. I totally agree with vaccination to reduce your potential for getting it.

It’s also really important to get antiviral treatment AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, if you do get the infection. It can sometimes be a challenge to diagnose but those that get antiviral early do much better in terms of long term neuropathic pain.

 

[Mid]

shingles .

 

[Ed Lada]

Per my EMT relative, not many people ever experience 10/10 pain outside of plane crashes, train wrecks or war zones.

On their triage scale, 10/10 is where you're incapacitated and either writhing and screaming continuously, in shock and can't move or make a sound, or just pass out.

8/10 Kidney stones. Apparently comparable to childbirth, from those who have experienced both.
7/10 Broken femur.

The numbers you are bandying about up there are just nonsense and so are your relative's statements. I worked in 2 level 1 trauma centers and on an ambulance as well as different medical clinics. I've never heard any medical staff say anything like what you wrote above. The doctor doesn't tell the patient how much pain they're in, the patient tells the doctor. If a patient walks into the ER showing moderate distress and when asked, the patient says the pain is a 10, you might not believe them but you can't tell them they're wrong. And you can't pull out the 'painometer' and prove them wrong.

Pain is subjective. One person's 8 is another person's 6. Some people have a very high tolerance for pain, others don't. In addition the source of the pain, say kidney stones can vary. I've had kidney stones and the level and duration of the pain were different each time. In addition to kidney stones, I've had gall stones, 2 heart attacks, a serious infection, both knees replaced, abscessed teeth and many other kinds of pain. They all hurt a lot, they all were a different kind of pain.

If you are in pain, and you think it's the worse pain you've ever had, than it is. Your partner, a nurse, your doctor can't tell you it isn't. There is no definitive way to measure pain. A person can can be sweating, pale, screaming, things like that are indicative of severe pain. When a doctor or other medical person asks you to describe your pain on a scale from one to ten, they are looking to get a relative idea of how much pain you have. No competent doctor will ever base their diagnosis and treatment to any great extent on the number the patient assigns to their pain. It's just another piece of information and they know it is subjective. There is no magical pain scale that tells you anything other than a subjective number based on that individuals tolerance to pain and prior experience with pain.

 

[Snaggletooth]

Agony was breaking my Coccyx on a festival slippery dip, female companion was disgusted i didn't want to get hot and bothered with her right then.

thet ressidualle paine coude laste much longuere

 

[BeSafe]

Arm got cut pretty badly while picking grapefruit when I was a wee lad. Cut it about half way off - but missed the bone and it was a straight, clean cut. Sewed it back together and 30 years later, no ill effects other than 3" of faded scar. Putting the novocaine into that injury was intense.

 

[00seven]

There was this one time I stubbed my toe. That really got my attention....

 

[Fat Point Jack]

I did a Steube a few years ago. As I fell I tried to remember everything I learned in Judo. The weather changed, I feel the screw.

The #2 pain.

I was back stroking with the girls at the beach. I put my foot down on a stingray. A 1" gash on the side of my foot.

 

[Pertinacious Tom]

Hit something with my shin while high speed inner tubing. It hurt a bit to let that leg drag in the water. I gave my friend in the boat the "slitting throat" signal that I was done. He kept looking at me, waiting for me to jump off the tube. I kept signaling. Finally, with the boat still cruising along at 30 knots, he got frustrated and just turned off the engine.

I looked at my leg and saw bone, but it didn't hurt. I was an idiot teen and of course not wearing a ski vest. I remember thinking, "this should hurt and Gene has the boat shut down over there and I might pass out."

We got home and I walked to the car, walked into the hospital, lay there while a surgeon picked out bone fragments under local, and none of it hurt.

The next day, it hurt worse than anything before or since.

A close second would be when I broke my hip a few years ago. Not the breaking part, the genius part where my wife and I decided to load me into the car. Also that night in the hospital. The next morning, a genius surgeon put in these screws through a tiny little hole that healed almost immediately. I needed almost no pain medication after he was done. I still feel them sometimes.

 

[Ed Lada]

The next morning, a genius surgeon put in these screws through a tiny little hole that healed almost immediately.

Small hole hell, it looks to me like he ingeniously closed the incision with the rarely used "pubic zipper suture".

 

[phillysailor]

@Captain Ketamine I’ve really enjoyed expanding to my m

Yeah, I used to anaesthetise for a regular vascular list for open AAA’s fortunately fast, competent surgeons, so not 5 - 10hrs (usually). They were quite interesting, but all got a bit boring with endovascular.
Thoracic dissections are a different beast. My cardiothoracic colleagues are welcome to do.

Pain is obviously a pretty individual thing. Multi trauma with patients in poor condition to start with doesn’t help especially if significant psychosocial factors that may impact on their ability to get through. Big burns always a challenge. Both may require the patient to be intubated and ventilated to manage pain whilst negotiating cardio respiratory status.

I think an elective Total knee replacement is pretty stimulating, newer adjunctive nerve blocking approaches can help. A good working epidural is still gold standard but can be a fiddle. Pain management is an area of medicine that has active research . The goals for acute pain management and persistent or chronic are quite different.

I've really enjoyed expanding my u/s nerve block skills set... went to Chicago for a cadaver lab course with ASRA and am now doing supra scapular and costobrachial nb's for AV grafts. PECs/serratus/ESP blocks for breast surgeries, TAP blocks and subcostal blocks for belly surgeries (with Exparel)... just did a TAH BSO with all the trimmings using only 1mg dilaudid for a 3.5hr case... She didn't need any opioid overnight, just felt "sore all over" in the morning. Just incredibly satisfying.

A colleague's umbilical hernia surgery pt woke up in extreme pain (h/o opioid abuse), and within five minutes both were smiling after a rectus sheath block. Easy peasy.

 

[PurpleOnion]

@Captain Ketamine I’ve really enjoyed expanding to my m

I've really enjoyed expanding my u/s nerve block skills set... went to Chicago for a cadaver lab course with ASRA and am now doing supra scapular and costobrachial nb's for AV grafts. PECs/serratus/ESP blocks for breast surgeries, TAP blocks and subcostal blocks for belly surgeries (with Exparel)... just did a TAH BSO with all the trimmings using only 1mg dilaudid for a 3.5hr case... She didn't need any opioid overnight, just felt "sore all over" in the morning. Just incredibly satisfying.

A colleague's umbilical hernia surgery pt woke up in extreme pain (h/o opioid abuse), and within five minutes both were smiling after a rectus sheath block. Easy peasy.

Not me, but a friend mouthed off to the gentleman administering the anesthesia prior to his hernia operation and woke up strapped down on the table to hear "let's begin" and was essentially awake for the whole operation.