When this comes up, my answer is usually when the first disc herniated in my back and landed square on my sciatic nerve. It made an audible pop sound, and then it was like electricity pulsing up and down my leg for the next few weeks. That was in 2005, and there’s still days it feels like that. I couldn’t even breathe without the pain increasing. Couldn’t sit, couldn’t lay still. It was hell.
However, when it comes to the most concentrated pain, it’s a toss up. I once dropped a bead of solder on my finger, and it went down to bone. Until it killed off the nerves and just felt throbby, that was fucking horrifying pain.
The other that’s a close second or outright tie was having a needle scraped across a phalange that was broken. It’s kinda hard to tell which was more intense. Metal scraping bone was pretty fucking brutal, but it was almost immediately numb because that’s why the needle was going in. The burn pain lasted longer, and continued to throb after it went numb-ish.
I still point to the herniation as worst because while the initial intensity was maybe a tad lower (not by fucking much though), the fact that it not only didn’t stop, but that pain meds barely touched it, made it traumatic in a way the others didn’t.
Mind you, I’ve been stabbed, cut, shot (just a flesh would though), burned in other ways, been hit with bats and rocks, and a passle of other minor events. So my perception of pain is weird.
When this comes up, my answer is usually when the first disc herniated in my back and landed square on my sciatic nerve. It made an audible pop sound, and then it was like electricity pulsing up and down my leg for the next few weeks. That was in 2005, and there’s still days it feels like that. I couldn’t even breathe without the pain increasing. Couldn’t sit, couldn’t lay still. It was hell.
However, when it comes to the most concentrated pain, it’s a toss up. I once dropped a bead of solder on my finger, and it went down to bone. Until it killed off the nerves and just felt throbby, that was fucking horrifying pain.
The other that’s a close second or outright tie was having a needle scraped across a phalange that was broken. It’s kinda hard to tell which was more intense. Metal scraping bone was pretty fucking brutal, but it was almost immediately numb because that’s why the needle was going in. The burn pain lasted longer, and continued to throb after it went numb-ish.
I still point to the herniation as worst because while the initial intensity was maybe a tad lower (not by fucking much though), the fact that it not only didn’t stop, but that pain meds barely touched it, made it traumatic in a way the others didn’t.
Mind you, I’ve been stabbed, cut, shot (just a flesh would though), burned in other ways, been hit with bats and rocks, and a passle of other minor events. So my perception of pain is weird.