Physical pain? I’ve had a spinal tap, countless perforated eardrums, dental nerve pain, broken bones and dislocated joints. You might consider me quite unfortunate and each of these is a story in itself. (The burst eardrum is definitely the worst of these, in severity and relentlessness) So anyway, I’m no stranger to physical pain.
BUT, I’m even more unlucky in that I suffered from a pretty rare condition called recurrent corneal erosion syndrome for three years after somebody poked me in the eye accidentally whilst he was trying to do the Saturday Night Fever move.
It’s hard to describe the pain, but I’m told it’s a contender for the most painful condition known to medical science. A woman once popped her own eye out with a spoon rather than continue to live with the condition. The cornea (layer of transparent tissue covering the pupil/iris) is pretty bad at repairing itself. Like the other tissues in your body, it attempts to bond with nearby tissue when it’s ruptured. (Think on how a cut on your hand heals). Except with RCE, the cornea preferentially adheres to the eyelid instead of itself. So, when you sleep, the front of your eye “heals” onto the eyelid, and then it tears open when you next open your eyes. Each time you sleep, the wound gets worse, until you can no longer open or close your eyes without agonising pain. So you are utterly sleep deprived, unable to blink for fear of the worst pain you’ve ever experienced every single time you do, and it hurts a good amount constantly anyway. It’s as good an example of your own body torturing you as you could ask for. And it goes on and on and on. There’s only one treatment which works, which is a type of laser eye therapy, for which the expense is very high. So I had to wait 3 years. The only way I managed to continue functioning was when I was allowed anaesthetic eye drops, which became like the air in my lungs. I would have to beg for them regularly, and I never had enough. Every night and morning I had to remember to squirt gel into my eye before closing/opening it, which would stop the healing effect IF I was lucky. Had the laser therapy not worked I don’t know what I would’ve done. It’s been eight years now, but it’s “recurrent”, so there’s no guarantee it’s gone for good. I wear glasses that I don’t strictly need now, to make sure my eye is at least partially protected at all times. Sometimes, especially if I’ve drunk alcohol and I’m dehydrated, I get a little reminder that it’s there. I live in fear.Fucking kidney stone.
Top 3:
- Shingles in my eye / face / scalp.
- Appendix ruptured while I was on the toilet.
- Kidney stones (multiple times)
I haven’t had shingles, and my appendix lasted until I could get it out, but I am with you on the kidney stones.
I’ve had 5 or 6 kidney stones and “the big one” has been harmlessly hiding in my kidneys for a few years. Every time, I think I’m going to power through the pain because the ER only gives you like one or two doses of Toradol and sends you on your way with FlowMax and useless NSAIDs which I can just get off the shelf. I’ve never powered through the pain. Every time I wind up paying like $250 for 4-6 hours of relief.
To this, I’ll add I’ve had migraines that made me want to drill holes in my skull. They’ve been bad enough that if I’d had a gun, I’d have used it. I’m not saying they hurt more or less than kidney stones, but I can’t tolerate headache pain like that. It’s the difference between “my back is in agony” and “existing is agony.”
I am picturing this all happening simultaneously
Got kicked in the balls when I was younger. It’s not pain, it’s something else. Of a different nature. You’re transported outside of everything, outside of reality. It was transcendental.
Like the Avatar Life Cycle was severed in that moment. Truly the most unique type of pain to experience.
It’s a throw up between dislocating my arm while kiting and wearing both wrist straps for the brake lines. So my arm dislocated in mid air, fell to the ground, kite inflates but doesn’t take off and dragged me along the ground by my dislocated shoulder until I hit a rock.
Falling while climbing solo breaking my ankle and having to crawl out to find help.
And finally crashing while skiing and landing my hip on a rock, the ski patrol didn’t know if I had a spinal injury and couldn’t give me painkillers to get me off the hill, so they took me down a slushy bumpy spring slope on a sledge. Turns out I’d just fractured my hip so after the xray my friends dad the doctor got me loaded up with painkillers to make up for it.
Edit: that’s just some of the worst I can think of, I am very grateful that the human mind cannot remember pain.And people wonder why I don’t do dangerous shit.
Personally I prefer not having life long medical problems.
A lot of people have said that I’m really unlucky, but I’m still skiing, climbing and biking. A disturbing number of my friends have broken their spines at one point or another or have a ridiculous amount of metal holding them up, so I consider myself very lucky indeed.
Also very grateful for the NHS.I hope that realization changes your perspective enough to reconsider how you go about enjoying your hobbies.
As far as I am concerned you’re lucky and because you have yet to experience the injury that changes your life.
It’s not a matter of if, but when, and how. If you keep doing it for long enough you’ll live to experience it and the regrets that come along with it.
With that said I’ve met a lot of people that have a death wish and will continue doing reckless things until it kills them.
I have had life changing injuries. I broke my shoulder in 6 places and needed surgery to put it back together. This meant I lost my job as a carer at a nursing home because I could no longer move patients (out of bed, picking them off the floor, washing them etc) and it took almost three years for me to get full use of my arm again.
I have all the strength back now after all the physio but will never have the full range of movement because they had to shave the socket deeper when rebuilding it, this means that when climbing overhangs that traverse to the right I struggle a bit, but it’s a challenge to overcome not a reason to give up.
I don’t look forward to how much all these injuries might hurt when I’m older but in my opinion it is all the more reason to enjoy life while I can, being old and sore is going to happen whether I like it or not, might as well have some good memories.
Iritis/uveitis - My cornea detached due to the heavy pressure inside my eye. The most painful thing EVER.
Kidney stones - Close second
Motorcycle accident at highway speed that jammed gravel into my cranial cavity and left me looking like watermelon-head for 3 months - I’d still rather have this than kidney stones or iritis…
Some time ago I shitted a fucking big shit it almost broke my shit hole.
Not good.
