I want to tell you something…pain don’t hurt.

Actually, it does hurt, but I wanted to quote Patrick Swayze in Road House because it’s the greatest movie of all time…

What do you think is the worst pain you’ve ever felt in your life?

Let’s feel the pain with folks on AskReddit!

1. Yowza!

“IUD insertion.

It was brief, but the worse pain I ever experienced. The nurses said I handled it well, then I proceeded to throw up at a stoplight while driving home.

Apparently some women only feel mild discomfort during the process.”

2. Those things are nasty.

“Got bit by a brown recluse when I was eight, which caused a staph infection on my back.

I had it for a week before noticing it, and when I got to the doctor they told me that if it wasn’t for the infection digging into my muscle I’d be dead already. He then told me I was in for some serious pain and told me to bite down on this leather strip. He had to push everything out of it and cauterize it. I have never experienced pain like that since.

And I’ve broken quite a few of bones, one of which came out of my skin. It was NOTHING compared to this. I passed out 3 separate times from the pain, and the police were called by the neighboring business because they heard “a child being brutally tortured”.

And this was with morphine and local anesthetic. My mom was crying her eyes out because she felt so bad about what was happening, and the doctor told me it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. The newest harry potter book had just come out, and was expensive, but my mom bought it for me and cooked my favorite meal of or THREE days in a row.

I’m not gonna lie, I was f*cking BAWLING when I had to go back for the check up on it because the doctor warned me that he might have to do it again if the infection returned. Which it didn’t. The doctor gave me the $50 my mom had paid for the appointment and said that he couldn’t accept money for what he did to me (still charged my insurance though).

Which I gave to my mom for the book (I usually had to work for the money for the harry potter books). Which my mom used to take our family out to dinner as a celebration for the infection not returning.”

3. Water!

“Dehydration.

I was in college and I got mono terribly. I had a high fever and my throat was mostly closed and I couldn’t swallow at all. Eventually everything just felt like a dull pain, until I’d move and it would become a very sharp pain.

I remember somehow getting to the campus medical ward, and the nurse telling me I was at a 10 pain level. In any case 2 IVs later and I was feeling a lot better.

Later on I broke two vertebrae in a car crash and the dehydration was considerably worse.”

4. Intense pain.

“Being burned alive on 30% of my body and surviving in critical condition and then having to rehab in an ICU.

The searing neurological pain of repeated debriding to promote healthy tissue growth was so much worse than the initial burning.

This was 10 years ago and I literally started crying as I am writing this, just from how vividly I can remember the pain.”

5. Jesus!

“In my early 20’s I had 6 operations for a pilonidal sinus, for which there wasn’t ONE procedure that was 100% effective.

One surgery left the wound open and packed with gauze. A full bottle of gauze. The idea was to remove the gauze and the wound heals from the bottom up.

By the time the initial change of dressing happened over 6 hours had passed and the blood on the gauze had dried and adhered to the walls of the wound. It took 3 big orderlies to hold my legs still and I gripped the handrails of the bed so hard the IV popped out of my arm.

My dad said it was like watching a clown pull the endless rainbow handkerchief out of it’s mouth.”

6. Scooter accident.

“Was going about 50 mph on my Vespa when the car to the right of me decided to make a U-turn in the middle of the intersection.

I was luckily thrown clear, did a couple of flips and smacked into the pavement. No serious injuries except for some road rash and… a compound dislocation on my big toe.

Get to the ER and the doctor says, “if we can’t get this back in you are going to need surgery.” He then spends the next 10 minutes trying to force my bone back into the body manually with small breaks while he examines and tries to figure out why it isn’t working.

Turns out the bones in the tip of my toe were basically shattered so while he is squeezing my toe trying to shove the bit of bone back in the shards in the tip were just grinding together.

He eventually got frustrated and gave up. A young orthopedic surgeon came in later wanting to take a crack at it, first question he asked was, “has he gotten any morphine yet?” followed by, “why the f*ck not?”

Dr. Kim, I will be forever grateful to you.”

7. Not numb enough.

“Did surgery to remove my two wisdom tooth but the dentist just used 1/4 of the anesthesia dosage.

I felt everything and even nearly passed out when she got to broke my tooth in 4 pieces .”It’s gonna hurt a little bit”, she said. And I didn’t complain cause thought I was overreacting.

She also touch the nerve while removing the tooth pieces and again almost fainted. Got back to my house like I’ve had been violated, remaining in the fetal position for hours.

All this cause I had dental insurance and didn’t actually pay for the surgery.”

8.  And it happened in public.

“Sneezed while holding my nose and blew out my eardrum. Guys, you know how your parents told you not to do that? There is a really good reason.

I was traveling on the subway when it happened and ended up rolling on the ground almost screaming in pain. I may have been screaming, I don’t know as I couldn’t hear it. Massive ringing in the ear, stabbing pain right into the brain.

Felt like my head exploded and it doesn’t go away. Pain was there for days, hearing loss was a heck of a lot longer although it does fade.”

9. That hurts.

“Tore an abdominal muscle once because I had a respiratory infection and wouldn’t stop coughing.

Because it was a core muscle, I could do almost nothing without experiencing excruciating pain.”

10. Awful.

“When I was 12, I was hit by a car at 45 mph. The impact snapped my left humerus and shattered my left tibia/fibula. I was thrown 20 feet into a busy intersection.

In the ER, the attending decided to lift my broken leg without support in order to get a board under it. Everyone told him not to, from the EMTs to the trauma nurse to my mother (who had been an RN for years).

He did it anyway. The pain sent me into a grand mal seizure; every muscle in my body contracted – including my left tricep, deltoid, and trapezius*, which caused the jagged edge of my broken arm to slip its setting and move toward my neck.

I never once lost consciousness.”

11. Shot at and hit.

“I was shot in an attempted carjacking.

Took a .45 hollow point point blank in my back. Bullet entered my back, collapsed my lung, paralyzed me and broke 2 ribs. To top that all off my foot was stuck on the gas and I hit a brick wall going 70 mph. Was in the hospital for 7.5 months, numerous surgeries and stage 4 bed sores.

After the swelling went down I was able to rehab and get back on my feet but still can’t run but not complaining. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, if you are lucky.”

12. Ugh!

“Cornea transplantation.

Imagine 100 spiders itching all over your eye after the operation and for the following 4/5 days.”

13. Sounds bad.

“I’ve broken several bones.

But when I dislocated my left knee, that was by far the worst pain. My knee cap spun around the backside of my knee.

And took all the nerves and tendons with it.”

14. Not pleasant.

“A d**nk girl decided to start cooking during a house party at my place while I was in university…

She filled a pan with oil, turned it on max then went outside to have a smoke. (I was not in the kitchen). Few minutes later, the smoke alarm goes off as the oil had started to burn.

I didn’t realize how full it was, and when I grabbed the handle, the boiling oil spilled back onto my hand and I got severe burns all over it.

The pain just kept getting progressively worse the for hours and hours. Ended up getting a skin graft.

…. I’ve also had MASSIVE kidney stones and have been stabbed twice. Oil burn > Kidney stones > Stabbings.”

15. Sounds terrible.

“I once had an infection inside my wisdom tooth, that was the worst pain I’ve experienced.

Painkillers didn’t touch it, and just breathing was agony.

I spent 2 days awake before I could get it removed.”

16. Well, that’s weird.

“One time I woke up to terrible pain in my lower stomach, it was so bad that I kept on fainting and throwing up.

I was taken to the hospital and they couldn’t find anything, then the pain just magically went away.”

17. It was ugly.

“Appendix rupturing.

Thought I was just having a stomach ache, waited in bed for hours, got so bad I couldn’t walk.

Ambulance came and had to wheel me out in the fetal position. Emergency surgery, almost died, hospitalized for 2 1/2 weeks.

It was ugly.”

18. Broken arm.

“When I was in third grade I broke my arm jumping off a swing.

It was Labor Day weekend, so I guess all the good doctors at the hospital were on vacation, and the resident who was treating me set my arm wrong. They didn’t notice until I went back for follow up x-rays a couple weeks later, to check how I was healing.

My bones had already partially healed, but the angle was wrong, so what they did was saw open a bit of my cast and insert a wedge device, and crank it until my forearm was straight (they needed to bend it a good 30 degrees). I didn’t get any sort of pain killer.

Hurt like hell.”

19. Not big enough!

“Gallstones trying to move through a tiny space that wasn’t big enough for them.”

20. Scary.

“Had an ovarian cyst that burst. First it felt like normal pediod pain. Fast forward an hour later, I am throwing up in the bathroom and crying.

Of course I had no painkillers in the house and it was around 6 am so no store was open. The only thing I could think of doing, was drive to work because I knew there was medical kit with painkillers.

So I drove there in complete agony (very safe). I took few painkillers and went to lie on the conference room floor. Nice suprise to my colleagues when they arrived.

After that episode I got endometriosis diagnosis.”

21. Intense.

“I had to get a physical for the Navy. They found minute amounts of blood in my urine. You couldn’t see it when I peed, only using their testing process.

They had to figure out what was wrong with my bladder. First was a ultrasound of my full bladder. Annoying, but not painful. Then, apparently, the prostate can cause that type of issue. Got a finger up the b*tt. Again, uncomfortable, but not really painful. The last thing was to shove a camera up my urethra.

They gave me Vicodin and Valium, the same thing that gave me for my vasectomy. Nothing else pain wise was given. We’ll, as soon as they shoved the camera up my d*ck, I sobered up and felt the most intense pain ever.

They proceeded to wiggle it around in my bladder and trip my bladder is full switch. Got done and tried to pee. Visible blood this time and I felt violated for the rest of the day.

Found the same blood about 4 years later. Made them knock me out because I wasn’t doing that awake again.

Nothing conclusive was found. Doc said that some people have microscopic amounts of blood in their urine. I happen to be one of the unlucky ones.”

22. Whoa.

“I had a student stab me once.

16 stitches across my right ribs. It sucked, a lot, but when I got to the hospital and they started stitching it up, the adrenaline had worn off and the local anesthetic they gave me was not working.

The doctor (who I’m pretty sure studied medicine under Dr. Mengele) was not gentle or polite about it. Feeling him pierce my skin as he stitched me up made me throw up and black out.”

23. Agony.

“I once had to re-inflate my own lung after a 500cc pleural effusion was drained from one side.

Every breath was agony. I had to keep taking deep breaths over several hours to fully expand my lung to full size. Dr’s gave me Dilaudid every two hours that didn’t even touch the pain.

Only time I’ve ever gotten close to hitting a 10/10 pain.”

24. OMG.

“Got my foot cut off, but that wasn’t the worst pain.

When they removed the dressing from where they took the skin graft from my leg to replace the skin on my foot, it felt like they were peeling my skin off.”

25. Infected.

“I got a parasitic infection in my eye from using contacts in the shower, transmitted by my roommate’s ferret.

The months of light sensitivity sucked, as my eyes were effectively open sores.

Even a breeze on my face was rather painful.

But then came the surgery & treatment, where they anesthetized my eye and proceeded to scrape at it with a needle while I had to look on in horror and feel my eyeball pushed up against my skull.

Then for the next month I had to put literal bleach on my eye every 3 hours to sterilize it.

Imagine setting an alarm, putting bleach in your eyes, trying to fall asleep amid the burning, finally falling back asleep just before the alarm goes off again for another drop.

That definitely broke me.

Don’t f*ck around with contacts, kids.”

26. That sounds painful.

“I had a wart on the inside of my nose removed without any type of numbing.

It took two hours.”

27. Thanks for helping.

“I was getting in my car with my dog and my breakfast. I must’ve gotten in at a weird angle because my knee slipped out of place and I went crashing to the ground in pain.

As I got my bearings and tried to fix my leg, my dog just looked at me and ate my breakfast burritos.”

28. Bad timing.

“One time my Irritable Bowel Syndrome got so bad at a party that I had to call my wife to the bathroom to hold my hand because I couldn’t take it any more.

If it had gone on much longer I honestly think I would have passed out.”

Now it’s your turn!

In the comments, tell us about the worst pain you’ve ever felt.

We can’t wait to hear from you!