What was your most physically painful experience?

Had some wisdom teeth removed under general anaesthetics. Post op I developed a buccal abscess and infection on the lower left 7th and wound site. My face swelled massively and I looked like Popeye. It was super painfull and I was persuaded to go to the ED for treatment.

So the Doctor examines me and tells me I've got a haematoma on the wound/abscess which he is going to need to apply direct pressure on to remove. He says it's gonna be painful but necessary. The catch is they can't find the keys for the Controled Drugs cupboard....

Doc says I can either wait untill they find the keys to give me some preemptive analgesic or we can just crack on and do it now. The implication being made that I'd be waiting hours for him to come back if I don't just do it now. I'm at the end of my teather now so consent and tell him to get on with it.

So I lie back on the treatment table while the Doc pops some gloves on. Open wide he says, and forces his entire hand to the back of my mouth. He pokes around abit then satisfied he has found my surgical wound/abscess starts squeezing squeezing squeezing trying to get every last remnant of this blood clot out.

White pain. Stars. Blackness around the edge of my vision. I start laughing. The pain is ridiculous. Am I going to pass out? All I can to is white knuckle the procedure table and cackle like a fucking lunatic. Hysterical maniacal laughter starts comming out only muffled by the doctors fist. All I can do is laugh. It's not funny though.

Probably a minute or so and its over. I sit up and take stock. The doctor and the other medics in attendance have this look of horror and shock on their face. I think they realised midway through that this treatment method probably wasn't based in best practice and actually leaning towards interrogation torture methods. Eventually they found the keys and gave me some Oramorph. Whoopie /s.

That being said, God bless the NHS.

/r/AskReddit Thread