Physical Pain

[Andrew]

Sprained my ankle at the 1 mile marker for a marathon when I stepped in a pothole.  I continued.  More than 25 miles running against a steady grinding pain that eventually became so bad that I could barely walk as I got close to the finish.  In the end I was pushing myself a step at a time.  A Navy corpsman at the mobile aid station repeatedly asked me to please stop and let them treat me.  I finished the race.  They had to cut the bottom of my foot open to drain the blood and fluids, and told me that I probably caused permanent injury to myself.

That's my pain story.  5 hours of pain, pushing myself to take each new step and to be rewarded with another flash of increasing agony when I did.  Pain is an animal, and chronic pain will chew on you and chew on you until you scream for it to stop/

[Jack]

Another fun one I thought of - I must have  about 50 fillings total, and probably three of them were in a molar way in the back of my mouth.  One day, don't remember exactly how or why, but that whole tooth broke off.  Oh yeah, that was fun.  The constant, dull pain, I took so many aspirin (which didn't help a bit) that the stomach ache was almost as miserable as the tooth.  And try to drink something, oh...nice.  I'd think I was okay, but then a couple seconds later - yowza!  The dentist just pulled what little was left of the tooth out.  Ah...heavenly 

[trekgeezer]

When I dislocated my left knee back in 1993. I had dislocated the other one 30 years before, but  the second hurt a whole lot more.  I was burning some pine limbs and tried to break one with my foot while bending the other end against the ground and it snapped back on me. When the paramedics tried to pick me up I was almost crying it hurt so bad.

Of course seeing your leg turned at 90 degrees is enough to make you cry on it's own.

[Psycho Circus]

I got stabbed about 3 years ago.

[BoyScoutKevin]

I got stabbed about 3 years ago.

I'm so sorry to hear that, Circus Circus. Would you like to tell us about it?

[meQal]

I got stabbed about 3 years ago.

Ouch! I had someone try to do that to me once but was too drunk to actually make contact. Granted I am not sure how drunk you have to be to fail at stabbing someone but this guy obviously was that drunk. He totally missed me and stabbed the bar next to me.

[WilliamWeird1313]

Less than 2 years ago, I had a medical problem that I didn't even know I had... and it culminated with my entrails basically going "pop." Unbeknownst to me, a big nasty pus-filled abscess had formed on the wall of my lower intenstine. One day it popped, causing a hole in the intestine that promptly began filling up with the now-released pus. The pain was INSANE, and I had no idea what was wrong with me. I was hanging out with friends when it happened, and I ended up spending almost an entire day in his bathroom groaning in pain. Finally, when the pain subsided, I went home, and spend the next 3 days or so laying on the couch, with the pain randomly spiking up and going down every three seconds. My mother came to me and tried to convince me to go to the hospital, but I foolishly brushed that idea off. I was convinced that whatever was wrong with me would just go away if I waited it out. Finally, on a Friday morning, she came to me again and tried to talk me into going to the hospital. I told her that I wanted to wait. I told her I'd wait out the weekend, and if I wasn't feeling better by Monday, THEN I'd go to the hospital. She wouldn't hear of it, and promptly dragged me to the ER right then and there. After a loooong day of testing and other B.S., I found out that if I had decided to "wait until Monday," I would've been dead before Sunday. I was starting to go septic apparently. They pumped me full of antibiotics and then rushed me into surgery first thing in the morning. It is STILL the single most agonizing pain I ever recall feeling in my entire life.

Owie.

[Saucerman]

Wow.  I can't compare to a lot of these stories. 

I have a knee condition where the tendons that hold my kneecaps in place aren't as taut as they should be.  Jolting my leg wrong causes my kneecap to slide out of place.  They pop back into place easily enough, and I've gotten to the point where I can almost overlook the pain of the pop-out (it's more shock and surprise than anything) and pop it back in and keep going.  Once it goes back in, though, the leg is stiff and nearly useless for the rest of the day. 

I've been strengthening my legs so I haven't had a pop-out in close to five years.  I am, however, apparently developing arthritis in both knees already and I've hit premature codgerhood because when I can predict storms with how my knees feel. 

Notable pop-outs...

The first one.  It was the first day after winter break, 11th grade.  Mom knocked on my door to wake me up, I stood up and immediately collapsed as my knee went out.  Mom called an ambulance and by the time they got here my knee was back in place. 

Hawaii, 2004.  Chest deep in the Pacific ocean, an undertow caught me going one way and the regular tide the other.  It popped right back in and Dad helped me to the shore.  I'm sometimes a little surprised that I didn't cancel my parasailign appointment later that day. 

May 2005.  I was at my girlfriend's house but had to leave to get ready for work.  She grabbed my leg and did her cutesy act, saying, "Nooooo, don't go!" and popped my knee out of place. 

[schmendrik]

I told her that I wanted to wait. I told her I'd wait out the weekend, and if I wasn't feeling better by Monday, THEN I'd go to the hospital. She wouldn't hear of it, and promptly dragged me to the ER right then and there. After a loooong day of testing and other B.S., I found out that if I had decided to "wait until Monday," I would've been dead before Sunday.

As I was reading your story I was thinking that you were lucky to be alive to tell it. You gotta take the intestinal tract seriously. People die of blockages.

TMI warning... TMI warning... TMI warning.

I had a minor blockage a few months ago, what they call an "impaction". I knew of deaths from obstruction so I did call into my doctor's office and get a diagnosis and prescription over the phone. Not before trying over the counter remedies of various sorts, including laxatives, with no effect. My bowels basically shut down for several days and I spent most of a miserable weekend in bed.

We don't think much about this part of our body but when it goes wrong you can have some serious problems.

The bowels: the unsung hero of our body.

[SkullBat308]

*Embarrassed Uhhhhh I sprained my ankle once.......

[Paquita]

We don't think much about this part of our body but when it goes wrong you can have some serious problems.

The bowels: the unsung hero of our body.

Personally, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that.  I am always aware of, and appreciative of my bowels and all their power.  I occasionally sing of them as well.

[AndyC]

Broken ankle, what they call a tib-fib. Both lower leg bones, the tibia and fibula, were broken. This happened while walking home with a buddy at 2am on New Year's Day around about 1992. People don't believe I was stone sober at the time. I'd actually missed getting a ticket to the big bash everybody else went to, so I called up a friend from out of town, and we went out to one of the local taverns for a relatively quiet New Year's Eve.

We had a few beers, left at closing time, walked across town to get some pizza, and I slipped on a patch of ice as we were walking back to my place. We were on the side of the road, a car was coming, so I went to hop over the low snowbank onto the sidewalk. Next thing I knew, my feet were out from under me. My left foot flew up in front of my face, while my right leg buckled under me and SNAP! I let out a scream that must have woke up a few people. Then I tried to get back on my feet, and fount that my right foot just flopped loosely. I don't know which was worse, the pain or the weirdness of it.

Wasn't too long before the paramedics showed up and put a pillow splint on it. I got to the hospital and was into surgery a few hours later. Still have a metal plate and a whole bunch of screws in that leg. Oddly enough, I was one of three people brought in on the same night with virtually the same injury under similar circumstances. I shared a room with one of them. Same thing, other leg.

The most painful part of the recovery was that I kept having this dream that I was driving toward a wall and trying to brake. I'd wake up pressing my right toe hard against the inside of the cast. Ow. Never had that dream before or since. I think my subconscious was deliberately messing with me.

[Psycho Circus]

I got stabbed about 3 years ago.

I'm so sorry to hear that, Circus Circus. Would you like to tell us about it?

Don't really want to go into detail about that incident, but there have been 2 other equally painful experiences in my life so far.

-November 2005, I attempted suicide (long story). I ran out of the house, saw a car was coming quite fast down the street and in a moment of madness threw myself into the road. I hit the windscreen, apparently cracking it completely, tumbled off the hood falling onto my head right on the edge of the sidewalk. I felt absolutely everything. From my back smashing the windshield, to my spine jolting when I landed on my head (thought I'd broke my neck), to my feet feeling like they had come off. The ambulance came pretty quick as some kids saw me do it and pretty soon the whole street was out to see. I was bleeding very badly from a head wound that required 29 stitches, but other that I got off easy with a fractured foot, 2 broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and bruising. Yes I know, I was an idiot.

-September 2006, I was homeless, living on the street when 2 guys tried to assault me at about 3am. I gave them a good fight and knocked one guy's teeth out, but as I dealt with him, the other man had broken a bottle and came at me with a large shard of glass. I tried to move away, but ended up getting caught on my right forearm, tearing the flesh to the bone. Luckily, when they saw what had happened, they both ran off. I managed to flag down a police car, which took me to the local hospital and they sewed me back up. It was really gross tho', with my arm on a steel operating trolley, looking at flaps of skin either side of my arm and the bone staring up at me! I only had about 18 stitches for that and the scar looks really small now, but is still visible.

I can safely say though, that getting stabbed in the back was far more painful than both of those incidents.

[WilliamWeird1313]

I told her that I wanted to wait. I told her I'd wait out the weekend, and if I wasn't feeling better by Monday, THEN I'd go to the hospital. She wouldn't hear of it, and promptly dragged me to the ER right then and there. After a loooong day of testing and other B.S., I found out that if I had decided to "wait until Monday," I would've been dead before Sunday.

As I was reading your story I was thinking that you were lucky to be alive to tell it. You gotta take the intestinal tract seriously. People die of blockages.

TMI warning... TMI warning... TMI warning.

I had a minor blockage a few months ago, what they call an "impaction". I knew of deaths from obstruction so I did call into my doctor's office and get a diagnosis and prescription over the phone. Not before trying over the counter remedies of various sorts, including laxatives, with no effect. My bowels basically shut down for several days and I spent most of a miserable weekend in bed.

We don't think much about this part of our body but when it goes wrong you can have some serious problems.

The bowels: the unsung hero of our body.

Actually, it wasn't the result of blockage/obstruction, but rather diverticulitis, a condition I wasn't even aware I suffered from.

According to wikipedia: "Diverticulitis is a common digestive disease particularly found in the large intestine. Diverticulitis develops from diverticulosis, which involves the formation of pouches (diverticula) on the outside of the colon. Diverticulitis results if one of these diverticula becomes inflamed."

That caused an abscess. Abscess went kablooey. Next thing I know I have a man-made hole in my stomach and I'm crapped into a colostomy bag. I don't have it anymore (thankfully, they were able to reverse it after the internal infection had been wiped out and my intestines were healed, and BONUS: the surgeons were able to remove the other diverticula I had so now I don't have any, ANTI-BONUS: as a result, I now have to eat a freakish amount of fiber, even more than you're normally supposed to, which is a lot the way it is, and, so far, I've found precious few foods that are both high in fiber and pleasant to the taste buds... also, I crap a lot more, TMI- enjoy).

Also, I forgot to mention... while diverticulitus is apparently very common, but usually people don't get it until way, wayyyy later in their life. I got when I was 20. The doctors kept telling me they were totally baffled as to why I'd already developed it. I just blame it on having an unhealthy rectum.  I blame it on all the talking out of my a** I do.