(Serious) What is the most painful thing you have ever experienced?

1. I developed a sudden and rather severe inner ear infection one day at work. It started with my ear losing it's hearing, and within 3 or 4 hours, it had progressed to a dull aching pain. By the time I got home from work, I could barely focus or concentrate on anything as the pain was so bad. After another hour or so, It was bad enough that I went to the emergency room. Of course, that meant another hour or so of waiting and during this time, the pain became so intense that I couldn't sit still and had to pace while holding my ear. When I was finally examined by a doctor, I was told the pressure inside my inner ear was great enough that it had caused my eardrum to form something similar to a pimple on it's surface. He gave me two options. 1 - get antibiotics and wait for it to go down on it's own, or 2 - puncture the eardrum to relieve the pressure. At first I chose antibiotics because even at that point, someone shoving a needle down my ear sounded like something I wanted to avoid. But in the time it took for him to go write the script, the pain seemingly increased 10 fold and I could no longer bear it. When he returned with the script, I begged him to puncture it. There was no numbing agent, there was no anesthetic. They got a couple large nurses to come in and hold me down while the doc slid a several inch long needle into my ear canal. He said "Ok... here we go" and the next thing I remember was a flash of white light from the pain that blurred my vision. When it cleared, the nurses had sat me up and they were all telling me loudly to plug my nose, close my mouth and blow as hard as I could. The torrent of stuff that came out of my ear was not of this world. But the pain was instantly gone. tl:dr = Had an ear infection bad enough that intentionally puncturing my ear drum was appealing.
   — Gromit1710


2. Some people here posting really horrific stuff but I just gotta say, toothache is nothing to fuck with. That tingling pain that spreads to your entire skull, can't even think straight, taking every painkiller in your arsenal to no avail. I swear I was considering taking a pair of pliers and pulling out the painful tooth myself.
   — jacyb0y


3. Tore the ligaments in my left ankle. I was running after a bus and my foot turned 90° when I was bringing my full weight to bear down on it. I went down like a sack of bricks and the bus driver just sat there staring at me dumbly while I was obviously in agonizing pain. I told him to just leave if he wasn't going to help, so he did. I took a few minutes to collect myself, thinking I'd just sprained it really badly, and then *got back up* and *got on the next bus* to go home. I seriously walked into my basement apartment on that ankle, took two tylenol 3's, and then didn't call the EMTs for an hour with my ex-fiancee arguing with me until I relented. The guys didn't believe me at first when I told them what I'd done, and I spent the near year or so in a wheelchair.
   — Xinago






4. Cluster headaches. I've had kidney stones and have broken my femur, but nothing comes close to the pain I get from a cluster headache.
   — Sviodo


5. I once got so constipated that i had to put on a latex glove and dig the dry, brick-like shit from my ass, all while it scratched it up. Gross, I know. EDIT: To clarify, I had no power, transport or form of enema to use. I was 15 at the time and my parents had gone out camping, but I had school the next day so I decided to stay home. I didn't have my license so I couldn't drive to get help, and our power had gone out as a pretty heavy thunderstorm had passed over. I tried using a watering can in the shower but it didn't work. Our shower at the time had no hose attachment or anything. Prospecting my anus was the best option I had.
   — IThrowBarrels


6. Migraines. And giving birth as my daughter was back to back and in a weird way. But, I'd go through giving birth again. I never want to endure another migraine in my life. My speech goes slurred, my face and hands go numb, I get a blind spot in my eye, I jumble words up and the pain is excruciating and I throw up. It's got pretty much the same symptoms as a stroke so whenever I feel those signs coming on, I have to have an ambulance out. Last time I had one was when I was pregnant with my daughter.. And that one was the worst I had experienced so far. Was throwing up from 9am until 7pm. Wasn't good for me or the baby. Ugh I just hate them so much. :(
   — FilthyBetch






7. I spilled boiling hot soup all over my lap while at work one evening. By the time I got to the bathroom to run cold water on it, my trousers were already sticking to my melting skin. I made it home and my housemate kindly went to the shop to get burn gel but the damage was already done. It resulted in second degree burns across both upper thighs that took MONTHS to heal. One of them got infected also meaning I had a giant rash all over my left leg. It was nearly three years ago and I still get stingy feelings if I put my leg under the shower. Thankfully only minimal scarring remains. I'm still terrified of soup though. Also, it was thick butternut squash soup, and it went all over the floor and my chair. All my co-workers heard was a splash, then me screaming OH GOD OH FUCK OH GOD while running out of the room. When they looked over at the desk and saw the gloopy yellowey brown stuff all over the floor, they thought it was diarrhea. Took about 2 months for the slagging to die down.
   — lehuric


8. Its a toss up. I got shot in my youth by a .40 caliber handgun. The bullet hit my right shin and basically shattered my leg bone. More recently I had an inguinal hernia surgery. And that was fucking brutal. My wife was 7 months pregnant and I was basically reduced to 90 year old man status, would need help getting in and out of bed.
   — dirtyrango


9. I slid into third and my foot stopped but i didnt and i heard a snap and then just a world of pain. I saw my foot dangling it was gross and hurt so bad. I hate hospitals.
   — gRYsn04






10. I just posted this in another thread before I saw this one...same story. Quick copy/paste. When I was a younger lad, somewhere in my teen years, I didn't know why men's swim trunks had that annoying whitey-tighty layer in them. I used to cut them out and free-ball it while swimming. As I became an older young lad, I began to enjoy jumping off of higher and higher objects into the water. One day I decided I would take the highest jump I could at the park I was at. It was a glorious free fall! I had never felt so alive in my life! That's when I noticed that my twig and berries were starting to catch some air as well, lifting away from my body. What happened next was...well...have you ever done a belly flop? Concentrate all that pain onto your balls. I remember crying, underwater. I remember being curled into the fetal position cradling my fruits as I used one arm to limply paddle towards shore. I remember making it out of the water and vomiting, and then passing out.
    — KhaosElement


11. 8.8mm kidney stone while 6 months pregnant.
    — fazmataz


12. I gave birth with no pain medication. I progressed too quickly for it. And that was only the SECOND worst pain, because seven months later I had a gallbladder attack. Ended up having to have it removed. It started out in my back and quickly spread to pretty much my entire upper body. I literally thought I was dying.
    — krisfunk27






13. When I was about 4, I went to a garage sale with my dad, and decided that I ABSOLUTELY HAD to have this horrendous stuffed cat. Later, I'm on a swingset with my brother. It's one of those setups where you're on a bench seat, facing the other person. And I drop my cat. So, in all my 4-year-old logic, I figure it would be absolutely no problem for me to jump off, grab my toy, and jump back on.He sees me thinking about it, and tells me DO NOT DO THAT. But I ignore him, because obviously I am cool and can TOTALLY make that jump. The first half of my plan worked perfectly. I ran underneath, grabbed my toy, and looked up just in time to see the swingset headed straight for my head, as if in slow motion. I still sometimes giggle at the memory of my brother's horrified face as he rode the swing directly into my forehead. Roughly an hour later, I woke up to my dad holding a tissue to my forehead. And I got to hold a rabbit. Still have the scar.
    — Adaku