How much pain?

[Beestie]

I've heard that a man can experience this level of pain by passing a large kidney stone.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I drink cranberry juice a lot.

As for me, I fell off a ladder straight down on my palm which dislocated my hand and shattered the ends of my two wrist bones (imagine hitting two peices of chalk with a hammer). After flopping around and wailing for a bit, I looked at my hand and seeing it on top of my wrist (hard to describe where it was) and out of sheer panic, pulled it out and reset it:

Alltogether now: ooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccchhhhhhhhhh.

[Silent]

From Trauma: Life in the ER

A gentleman doing grounds keeping work. He is up a ladder trimming the top of a tree when he falls back wards on to the top of a recently trimmed evergreen. The tip of the evergreen strikes close enough to his rectum it tears and the trunk of the shrub/tree goes screaming up through his ass into the interior of his body breaking off branches as it goes. He comes to rest with his feet still off the ground. The EMT's who arrived had to use a chainsaw to cut off the tree at the base and he was transported avec shrub/tree trunk to the hospital.

When ever my roomate and I think we've had a bad day, we remind each other that it could be worse...

[SteveDallas]

May I ask, Telefunken, if there's a context for your question on this subject? Or is it just idle curiosity?

[wolf]

Nasty childbirth story ... not my own.

I have not reproduced.

So, this friend of mine, who is an EMT and paramedic is giving birth.

She had already had two vaginal births, and expected a third.

No such luck.

The umbilical cord was wrapped around her daughter's neck, the doc wasn't able to get it unlooped, and the pressure of every contraction on the cord was causing drastic drops in fetal heart rate. The baby was way in distress.

The anesthesiologist was brought in, and my friend was given an epidural.

All the while she is watching the fetal monitor, knowing exactly what each skip and blip on the thing means.

The anesthesiologist relies on the patient's report that the epidural has taken effect.

My friend watched the fetal monitor closely. The signs were getting worse.

The OB kept asking "can I cut? can I cut?"

My friend said "Yes, cut."

The only person, other than my friend, who knew that she was NOT anthesthetized was the gas-passer ... and he didn't know it until he saw the monitors go crazy.

As soon as the baby was out and declared healthy, he knocked her out with an IV sedative, though.

Yeah, women can take a lot more pain, if they have to.

[headsplice]

I propose a new method of pain measurement:
The number of Huertz (including Killohuertz) on the Ouchdamnitometer.
Blatantly ripped off from here.
More on topic: I once had a partial herniation of my esophagus over my diaphragm, which caused my diaphragm to spasm constantly. It felt like someone was stabbing me in the throat from the inside.
I've also seen some unpleasant things: in Whiskey 3 (Whiskey is a series of skate/snowboarding movies) one of the principles does a back flip off a movie marquee and breaks his thighbone. Superbly nasty. And in high school, one of our wrestlers got taken down onto his neck and snapped a couple of vertebrae. That's a sound I'll never forget. *shiver*

[Kitsune]

I've heard that a man can experience this level of pain by passing a large kidney stone.

When I was in college and drinking nothing but coffee and Coke, I got to experience this fun which started out as what I thought was a backache on waking up one morning. It soon escalated to pain so bad that I became nauseated and my blood pressure was something insanely high. The pain, I've read, comes mostly from the rear of the stone which is calcified and therefore has tiny sharp spines that cause tiny, painful cuts. I'll give my experience an "8" on a pain scale of 1-10 which turned to a -2 after they finally hooked me up to some magical juice in IV form.

I consider myself lucky -- my stone came and went without incident. One of my college friends once told me of her adventures in dehydration and kidney stones. Hers, she explained, didn't pass on its own and didn't break up when subjected to sonic waves. The result was a trip to surgery and the use of a catheter for nearly a month afterwards.

[tw]

Originally posted by Beestie
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I drink cranberry juice a lot.

So you did not watch the Peter Jennings report on food and nutrition. The man from Ocean Spray was all but laughing - he and his wife would aquaint all their 'stuff' with what you should call a scam. He made his fortune by replacing Cranbury juice with corn syrup - then additives to make it taste like Cranbury juice. And he said this quite honestly since he really was not disclosing any breaking news. This is now common among many foods. Where is the maple syrup in maple syrup? Its also called corn syrup.

Is it Cranbury juice or sugar? You don't know. They make ingredient labels difficult to read - which is why legallized bribery is so important to the food industry.

Beechnut has also a long tainted history of doing this stuff. They were caught intentionally selling a chalk powder as baby formula in Africa. They intentionally replaced Apple Juice with surge water - that being done in a Brooklyn factory and exposed by, among others, Consumer Reports in using testimony of a Beechnut scientist. BTW Gerber has a long history of being responsible - not doing this stuff.

Is it cranbury juice or have they scammed you - legally. By using corn syrup (which has massive government subsidies), then the container costs more than the so called 'juice'. Government subsidies are major on the most unhealthy foods - not on foods you really need such as cranburies. Something like 50% of the cost of sugar is covered by government handouts.

[Undertoad]

It's extremely easy to tell. Cranberry juice will be labeled "CRANBERRY JUICE". All others will be labeled "drink", "cocktail", or some other name such as "Sunny Delight".

Similarly, maple syrup will be labeled "MAPLE SYRUP". It's illegal to sell anything but 100% maple syrup otherwise.

The catch is that you wouldn't want to drink straight cranberry juice, unless I'm mistaken.

[russotto]

Skating 11 miles on a hip injury (including but possibly not limited to a labral tear and synovitis of the hip joint) is quite painful. Though I didn't realize quite how much pain I was in until I stopped to rest. Then had to skate 11 miles back. The return trip was no doubt a triumph of natural endorphins.

Not the most pain I've ever been in. That would have to be recovery from wisdom tooth extraction. The anaesthetic left me weak, cold, and nauseated, and the pain was incredible and had me screaming.

[Kitsune]

That would have to be recovery from wisdom tooth extraction. The anaesthetic left me weak, cold, and nauseated, and the pain was incredible and had me screaming.

Russotto, did they not put you out for this? I had all four of mine out (and they were impacted!) and the procedure isn't even in my memory.

[russotto]

Yeah, I was out for the actual procedure. The pain was during the recovery.

[hot_pastrami]

A couple years back I had a cavity drilled with no numbing agent whatsoever. The denist knew that I hate the numb feeling on my face, and since he said it would be pretty quick and may not even get to the nerve, I opted to try it without painkillers.

It hurt a little while he worked away in there, but was manageable. I felt when he hit the nerve, there was a twinge, and then a steady, dull pain. When he stopped drilling, and pulled the drill out, the air entered and made a nice, throbbing pain. Then, he sprayed the water/air in there to rinse the hole out.... that was a fascinating sensation, not unlike having a ten-penny nail tapped into the jawbone. I started laughing because I didn't know how else to react. Owie.

It was managable, but unpleasant. I think I'll just deal with the numb feeling in the future.

[Happy Monkey]

I had my wisdom teeth out, and a blocked gland removed from my inner lower lip on the same day. The anaesthetic ran out during the latter, and I toughed it out.
Afterwards, I had wounds in both the back and front of my mouth, and could only chew with my middle teeth. Plus, the packing they used in the tooth holes tasted so strongly of nutmeg that it flavored everything I ate for a week.

[BrianR]

I once had a 7mm kidney stone in my left hydroureter (the tube from the kidney to the bladder). It didn't pass on it's own. I tried to piss it out for FOUR HOURS first, before seeking professional help. The Doctor diagnosed a kidney stone (no shit Sherlock) and sent me to the ER.

The ER wanted to do another diagnosis. Tried to get me to provide a urine sample (yeah, right). Diddled around for two more hours until they finally got the message that I couldn't pass any more urine. Then they tried to TAKE the sample with a catheter. No soap, I had eliminated all but two measly drops. Then they tried a sonogram and saw the stone. Sonic waves didn't break it up either.

They sent me to a urologist. BTW, no pain meds YET!!!

HE diagnosed a kidney stone (nice that everyone agrees on MY initial diagnosis, now how about DOING SOMETHING!!!!!)

The urologist gave me a shot of Demerol (not enough, IMO) and went in after it with a flexible something or other. Folks, lemme tell ya, if you ever have a urologist tell you he's going to give you a "little something", he means it. If said urologist then tells you that this might hurt "a little", prepare to gouge your eyes out, to take your mind off the pain in your hydraulics.

He managed to break it up and let me pass it out myself.

I'm convinced that there was a conspiracy that day to make me suffer as much as (in)humanly possible.

Brian

[hot_pastrami]

Originally posted by BrianR
The urologist gave me a shot of Demerol (not enough, IMO) and went in after it with a flexible something or other. Folks, lemme tell ya, if you ever have a urologist tell you he's going to give you a "little something", he means it. If said urologist then tells you that this might hurt "a little", prepare to gouge your eyes out, to take your mind off the pain in your hydraulics.

Damn Brian, that made my skin crawl. Gah.