Treatment for head and neck cancer. Surgery (not so bad), Chemo and Daily radiation. The chemo was rough, and the anti nausea pill did nothing. Radiation starts out fine, but half way through the sunburn inside your throat is horrible, and the combo of chemo and radiation kills your salivary glands and so instead of thin saliva you just have a thick mucous like hot mozzarella cheese strings on a pizza that you can't seem to spit out and it chokes you to swallow.
Your body is so tired that 10cc of water into the Gtube feeder makes you vomit.
You lose all taste, so everything is like chewing soggy cardboard.
The only positive is I no longer have to shave my neck, the beard hair there just never grew back.
Lumbar puncture, hands down. They insert a needle into your lower spine to extract fluid for analysis. It was horribly painful and took them several tries to get right.
They gave me incorrect instructions. At least for my case they were incorrect. It is done sitting up. And they told me specifically not to round my back but to slump down. And they poked and prodded and just couldn't get the needle in. Finally I rounded my back and oh wonderous thing it was suddenly much easier to get the needle in.
That was painful enough but sucking the fluid out is downright sickening. You can really feel it along your spine and in your head. Absolutely awful. I felt like passing out.
In my case, the fluid shot out because it was under insane pressure and since I lost too much, I got the most horrible headache in the entire world. I was physically unable to be upright. I had to be hospitalized for a week and I wasn't able to go home until they gave me a blood patch.
I'd rather have 3 more appendectomies and break my arm a few more times than go through that again. If anyone ever asks for a spinal tap again, I am going to tell them to suck my D.
Hey, we're in the same boat. While the procedure itself went fine for me, the headache afterwards was hell and I had a leakage. Though there are options to close it, they decided to wait. After a while I had to be hospitalized but still no blood patch...
The toll this shit takes on your body was understated in the info brochures. Haven't been the same since then.
A doctor once gave me a month's supply of a drug only approved for use for 10 days due to liver toxicity. I learned about the limit from a news article and stopped taking it.
I experienced no ill effects that I know of, but his malpractice put me at risk of death or lifelong complications. I learned to double-check everything myself after that.
Not the worst medical treatment perhaps, but horrible when I found out how many women this happens to. Both the insertion and removal of my iud were done with no painkillers except the ibuprofen I decided to take an hour before my appointment. Going in, I nearly fainted from the pain. The gyno casually laid me down for a while and told me it happens every other day that someone faints. I was in bed for a day afterwards from terrible pain and cramps. Then, for the removal, the wire has disappeared so she had to go "find it". I was crying and could barely hold my legs still. Why the hell this procedure is still done without warning and options for better pain relief I have no idea.
Wife had a similarly terrible experience, and not that it holds a candle to yours and hers, but it was awful for me, too: Sexual intercourse was a guaranteed needle-stabbing-into-the-tip-of-my-dick situation, every time, and when it was brought up with the OBGYN, she dismissively said I was just "bragging about my size." I was not. No action was ever taken, right up until I got a vasectomy and she had the IUD removed.
I'm sorry that you, and she, and so many others have had to endure what you have endured. I think these IUD's need to go back to the drawing board, and on a larger scale, that there needs to be some major cultural shift to how male contraception is approached. This could be so much easier for everyone, if religion and money would get out of the way of science.
Oh man and I had that problem too. Obgyn was also just as bararic with inserting and removing the IUD, and they didnt believe that we had this problem during sex. I can't make sense of it.
Dude - if this happens again - I always tucked the string around my cervix. Like so the pointy end was pointing back up inside me. I never felt it once it was settled and it didn't stab my partner. The doctors will say "I can cut it shorter" but that's a bad answer, what happens then when they go to remove it? And it's still stabby but then you can't tuck it around.
IUD is great when it works - safer than tying tubes or vasectomy AND it's reversible.
And WTF? Aren't most women like 4-5 inches long inside? I'm tall and presumably have a little more length in there but have gotten cervix punch by average guys just a bad angle.
I appreciate the pro-tip! I'm fixed now and she's had the IUD removed, so hopefully someone else in our position finds this info, because I think it would have really helped us.
Birth control is such a mess, and it seems like there are better ways that are kept from us, as if those in control would prefer we all be breeding for some reason...
If you ever need to get your uterus inflated for specific ultrasounds..
Buckle up. They do that without anesthetic, too! Even when you ask for it! (Same with iud insertion. I asked for stuff for both and they said no it’s fine - not fine, trust me - you insist, or you walk, don’t fuck with this one)
It puts the iud insertion to shame, its so insanely painful. They use saline, just small amounts through a syringe (like 5cc tops) to separate the walls of the uterus for the sake of imaging, and lemme tell you, the uterus doesn't like volume changes, no ma’am, aveacreans about being moved. So it seizes up hardcore and gives you shooting pain from deep in your abdomen that goes into your limbs, very much feels like being stabbed repeatedly. And they do this multiple times over the course of entirely too long . It took almost an hour for mine, and i did my best not to move it squirm and make it take longer.
Absolutely horrific what is done to women under the guise of healthcare. Sadistic fucks.
Ouch.. I was lucky enough to get a hysteroscopie (camera in uterus) under full anesthetics. Read in an article that most women undergo that without pain relief too. Absolutely ridiculous.
I've had more painful and seen more incompetence on the medical professionals' side, but my methacholine challenge as part of asthma diagnosis always stands out for the blatant malpractice.
I was a kid, probably range of 9-12 years old. They exposed me to something that eventually triggers an asthma reaction in anyone, just a matter of how much it takes to be considered "asthmatic". Then they left me in the room alone while the test ran. I posted about it once as a sanity check. It's a legitimate test, from what I've been able to find, just not the part when they leave an underage patient unattended to deal with the inevitable asthma attack alone.
My insurance demanded that I switch one of my medications because they had cut a deal with the other brand or something. After the first dose, I had crazy heart palpations for the better part of a week and thought I was going to die. It still took several rounds of appeals before my insurance relented and allowed me to get back on the original medication.
Of course, they dropped my coverage for it again 2 months later, so I gave up, which I guess was what my fucking for-profit scum insurance wanted anyway.
Kidney stone removal. Peeing afterwards also having the stent removed. Imagine a thorny vine being yanked out and the thorns are pointed towards the exit. This was easily #1
I've had a spinal fusion where I was laid up for 3 months. And I'll take the fusion again
My grandfather had a bad case of flu. Went to the hospital and they put him on IV fluids but found out he was allergic to something. Fucked him up good and wouldn’t accept he was having issues until it was too late.
Had to traych him up so he could breathe.
Blew out his kidneys.
Basically significant organ failure. He walked into the hospital for the flu and they mistreated him, and he never walked out. Came home in a walker and a dialysis schedule and breathing out of his neck.
Took him 8 years to die after that. He was basically a corpse. Grandmother sold her business, sold their lake house, sold their classic car, all to try and pay all of the medical bills and be his full time caretaker. Just an awful situation.
I'm so sorry for what you and your family had to go through. I can empathize with the notion of being completely let down by supposed modern medical practitioners. I've lost someone close to me because a doctor (and her staff and associates) did not catch an error in proscribed/administered medication. At the end of the day, these vitally important systems are susceptible to human error, and it costs some people everything. I see and hear you -- perhaps only because it happened to me as well; it feels like no one else could ever really know -- but I do know what it's like to feel like the only system available has utterly failed you.
We are all we have, each of us individually. I hope the best for you and those you hold dear.
Antidepressants. They don't help and cause tons of additional issues like brain zaps, constipation and sedation. The real awful part is the pin prick of hope that this one will work...
I've quit mine once before 2 weeks of terrible brain zaps. You feel very uncomfortable living in your own brain.
Although I should probably consider getting off of mine again. What actually worked for me was getting diagnosed with ADHD so I could get my hands on Adderall. That was the drug that finally worked for me.
This was my thing too. Turns out I wasn't necessarily depressed. I had executive functioning issues so I couldn't start anything. Things weren't fun because I knew I'd have to bully myself into getting started. I laid in bed all day on my days off not because I was depressed but, because of task paralysis. And turns out when life is just too hard to do anything other than the bare minimum, it can make you depressed. Who knew?!
Being diagnosed with ADHD and starting adderall. All of a sudden I could think things AND do them. My days no longer consist of me DREADING tasks. I wouldn't go so far as to say I enjoy doing chores or, that they're easy to do now. But they're possible to do now. That made a huge difference in my life.
Question is inspired by me restarting esketamine for depression. I cannot handle it, I vomit every time, copiously. Today I went through three emesis bags and I'm not back to the full dose yet. It helped with my mood in the past, but while I'm doing it it's just two hours of nonstop vomiting a couple times a week.
I previously underwent a total dickectomy for reference here.
I’m so sorry your day was so rough, that sounds absolutely horrible. Sending you a lot of warm thoughts and I hope you’re a little more comfy at the moment <3
Treatment for the nerve damage in my left arm which involved a lot of getting shocked. Getting shocked to see the specific damage and then dry needling which is acupuncture plus electricity.
Not sure if the same one, but did it involve (if I remember correctly) sensors on your fingers and the needles went up kind of closer to your shoulder for them to send the pulses through? I had my right side done because of nerve damage to my wrist.
I had to get that electrified acupuncture to induce labor with one of my kids (the water broke and I was 'on the clock' but labor did not start) - the needles just felt weird but getting acupuncture to INDUCE pain was a mindfuck. It did work. Baby 2 hours later.
Not me, but in the span of a couple weeks I had some really awful experiences with pediatricians. My middle kid was almost three when they had a horrific fever and was complaining about a stiff neck, which is a huge red flag... But the ER sent us home with the diagnosis of "neck torsion." A few hours later we went to a different ER because they had a lump the size of a grapefruit in their neck from an infected lymph node. Required several days in the hospital to get IV antibiotics.
A couple weeks after that I gave birth to our youngest, and at her 3 day check up her doctor claimed to see sores in her mouth and was worried about herpes (despite the fact that neither me nor my spouse have any STDs) so she sent us to the ER... No one there bothered looking in her mouth until after a lumbar puncture. Then someone realized there were no sores at all, but harmless gum cysts that are extremely common in infants. They kept her overnight for monitoring and that morning a med student presented the case to her peers as a cautionary tale to verify symptoms before jumping into an LP.
My urologist didn't believe me when I told him I have an incredibly high tolerance to local anesthesia.
He also didn't believe me that I could feel him make the initial incision.
So that's how I had my vasectomy without anesthesia. At least the recovery was completely pain and swelling free, so I kinda speed ran the pain. I was also able to confirm my suspicion that my pain tolerance is extremely high. I'd give it a 9.5/10 because I didn't lose consciousness.
Second worst is regaining the ability to form memories during a colonoscopy as a child. Again, that pesky anesthesia metabolism. When they had to surgically set my arm in 6th grade, they put the anesthesia mask on me and told me to count down from 100.
I got to 46 before they just went ahead with the IV.
I've had a few laser lithotripsies for kidney stones, nothing too bad except for one of them the anesthesiologist decided for some reason that he was going to put in the breathing tube while I was still awake. That was fucking horrible.
I have a chiari malformation, which is essentially my brain falling down the back of my neck. During the period if time where we were still figuring out what was going on I was asked to get a CT mylegram. Now no one explained to me what this was, but i thought it was a CT scan. So i show up to the hospital, having driven myself, and sort of kick around until my appointment.
Then the doctor has me lay on a table face down. There is a man there, big muscles, standing next to the table. The table has a hole in the head pillow. The doctor says hell be right back hes just grabbing the needle. I say wait what needle?
Hes like oh its the needle for the contrast dye for the CT scan. I'm like oh ok and settle down. The doctor comes back and asks me to lift the bottom of my shirt so he can access my back. I stop again and go what are you talking about.
He let's me know at this point, for some fucking reason, that the dye is going inside the spinal column. This is a god damn spinal tap and i learn 2 seconds into it about to happen.
I'm nervous but i lay back down and the big guy puts all his weight on my shoulders to hold me still and they start the procedure. The actual needle doesn't hurt that much, no more than any other needle. But then they inject the dye.
There is this...hot pressure feeling. My chest starts feeling tight, like an elephant is stepping on it. The muscular guy has to really push to hold me down because involuntarily I jerk. My head is swimming, I feel hot, and i feel like my chest is being crushed to dust.
They transfer me to a movable table and quickly wheel me to the CT room. I don't remember much of this because i was hyperventilating and cursing. I didn't have much control over what i was doing and I'm shocked I was able to stay still enough for the CT scans.
When the burning and crushing sensation started to pass I was laying on a bed with the muscular guy who was watching over me. He asked if i was ok and then asked if i wanted a sandwich from the cafeteria? He ordered me one, never got charged for it. We talked about videogames for a couple hours, and then they released me to drive home. I almost passed out on the way home and ended up later developing a CSF leak.
Worst experience of my life 0/10 do not recommend.
Hilariously I was having trouble getting it scheduled because the doctor wanted images of my entire spine, and the scheduling lady couldn't find a way to book me for 3 scans back to back. And i, thinking this was a normal ass CT scan said "its ok, if i need to do it 3 times, then I have to do it 3 times. I just need this scheduled asap because currently I'm bedridden".
She went quiet then came back after some time and said "I have an appointment set up for you for all 3 back to back this week"
I now wonder if she was like Jesus Christ this guy is willing to do 3 spinal taps? He must be on deaths door 😂
had a chest tube for a collapsed lung. it was not so bad after awhile but was a bitch when it was fresh. sorta different but im not sure how much was effect of the prep or how much was the colonoscopy but it irritates a hemroid to the point to prolapsed into a litteral skin flap covering over my asshole. doctor was very um. glib about the whole thing. like no big deal. it was a fucking big deal.
Man I went into the ER after bleeding out of my asshole for weeks, eventually bad enough that I was bleeding through my pants and underwear during the work day and staining my chair. The attending made me feel like I was absolutely wasting his time, then squeezed a blood clot the size of a lemon out of my asshole and sent me home.
I thought I was fucking dying when I went in. Then I thought I was dying when he was squeezing that fucker out. Then I thought I was dying from his withering disdain.
I think if I ever wind up with those symptoms again I'll just wait for death instead of going in.
Long story short as I can make it and make sense, had a falling accident at work. I got hit in the head by flying piece of iron and gotten knocked off a scaffold, falling down 7ish? feet and belly flopped onto a concrete floor with my right arm under me. They x-rayed my arm, stitched the wound on my head, and said I was good to go. My arm.. not sure how to word it.. just felt wrong. I'm used to a lot of pain and have a high threshold, but something just was off about it. I asked the doc and they reassured me two doctors had looked at the x-ray and it was fine, but if it still hurt in a month to go to my family doctor.
K great. Go home, and for the next few weeks I do my thing, trying to use my right hand fairly often to help "walk it off" so to speak. After nearly a month of it not getting any better made an appointment to see my doc. (one month to the day of the accident.) Got another x-ray. I had barely got home when I got a call from my doctor, he saw the problem immediately when he got the pics. Turned out that when I fell, one of the bones in my wrist got dislodged and the tendon that attaches to it pulled it back into my carpal tunnel, pinching off the nerves to my thumb and two fingers. (Apparently our other two smallest fingers nerves run separate and to the side.) Sorry to any med ppl if I skewered that explanation. Perilunate dislocation is what they called it.
So basically, two different doctors didn't notice the bone on the wrong side of my wrist. Me being the idiot I am, kept using it for a month like it was fine. I don't like taking painkillers so I smoked a shitton of weed that month lol all because two doctors didn't look close enough at an x-ray.
My sister in law broke her arm in 3 places. They put her in a cast and put her in a sling. She kept telling them her shoulder hurt. Doctor ended up getting pissed off, calling her av drug seeker and kicking her out of the hospital.
After a month she went to a specialist and was like "yeah my arm feels fine but my shoulder hurts really bad." Doctor did xrays, immediately requested the xrays from the hospital and had her come back in.
He showed her on the most recent xrays how her arm was very clearly outside of it's socket. He showed her the previous xrays from the hospital where it was the same. Then he read her the notes where one doctor commented on it that it was out of the socket and dislocated and needed to be fixed. But the doctor she had wrote notes ONLY about the broken arm and specifically said everything else looked normal. Clearly not reading the other doctors notes.
Unfortunately due to some other health circumstances and how long it had been, they could not do anything to get her arm back in the shoulder. She permanently lost all ability to use that arm for the rest of her life. The specialist said "I never tell people this but, if I were you, I would absolutely get a lawyer."
She did. She won. That was also a fiasco. Their lawyer wasn't very good. Followed me around for months. Presented evidence that she was totally fine with picture and videos of me. The judge was not amused. My SIL was 30 years older than me, a foot shorter and about 70 pounds less. Zero chance you could confuse us.
Her and my brother bought a house, a car, and a truck with that money. Which got them out of poverty.
The doctor who circumcised me did a total hack job at it: cut way too much off, stitched it back together asymmetrically, and, as I've just learned in the last few years, probably severed the dorsal nerve, too. So that's been a lifetime of basically no sensation in my glans, never enjoying sex that much, which has contributed to a few failed relationships.
When I was a teenager i was experiencing extreme mental health issues from a double whammy of depression, ptsd, and issues with home life, leading to self harm and suicidal ideation/attempts. I ended up being committed to an inpatient psychiatric facility. It ended up being psychological torture more than anything, and really only made me better at masking. One of the worst things that stands out still is them putting everyone in a room to watch a video that was 911 recordings of siblings and parents finding their sibling/child after they'd committed suicide and calling 911 distraught and breaking down, interspersed with people talking about how other people are impacted and hurt by those actions. It boiled down to guilting us for what we were going through. Which, when part of your issue is already self-hate and guilt, just caused more pain than anything resembling help.
But the one that stands out is my original POTS diagnostic test. They did something called a "tilt table test". They strap you on a table like a torture film, literally head straps and everything, and then raise the table vertically. The idea is to see how well your body adapts to gravity.
Normally I have pretty good compensations for my condition. I've learnt specific ways to stand, lean, and hold my body so that my circulation works… not well, but decently. I can get up to make toast every now and then, stuff like that.
The table bypasses all that. Immediately I suffered extremely bad effects. I could feel all the blood draining from my brain and my body and pooling into my legs. Couldn't breathe properly, vision going white, feeling absolutely horrible. I can't accurately describe the feeling of all your blood leaving your vital organs. It felt extremely bad, I felt like I was dying. Like a cold shower on the inside, hollowness, pain.
Worst part was, I was too weak to even ask them to cancel the test, or move to remove the bindings myself. Turns out you need blood to do stuff like that. I was completely paralyzed.
The doctors were like "wow this is the worst POTS I've ever seen! Usually when people say they have POTS it turns out they don't, but man… hey let's show Larry" and they leave the room to go find Larry and show them the interesting POTS patient. I could barely see on the monitor my heart rate was 180bpm and my blood pressure was 80/40mmol, which is very bad. I eventually lost consciousness completely. As I passed out I accepted that I was going to die right there on the stupid table because nobody noticed the problem.
I didn't die (obviously). I came to when I was horizontal on the table again and they were unstrapping me. No idea how long I was out for, but fuck that. Nobody told me it would be that bad. "A bit uncomfortable" my ass.
After all that, I got my diagnosis for severe POTS after 10 years of confusing symptoms. Now I have some medicine that helps it not be so severe, so I guess it was worth it in the end?
The recovery after an hemorrhoidectomy, pooping was almost traumatic. I say almost only because when everything ended, it was worth it, but I dreaded going to the toilet for ten days.
I'm only calling this the worst because I was young enough for my other procedures that I don't fully remember the pain.
I developed a cyst on my labia. Not a bartholyn for those with experience, higher up. I was doing the warm compress thing but it wasn't helping. Within a matter of hours it went from the size of a pea to the size of a golf ball. Obviously I had to go get that dealt with.
You'd think the cutting me open and draining it part would be pretty bad. Or even the healing. Nope. Local anesthetic to the labia was absolutely the worst pain I can remember feeling. And I got my finger stuck between two gears one time.
The 3 minutes or so of agonizing, burning pain lasted longer than the time it took them to cut me, drain it, and pack it. My husband had bruises from me gripping him so hard and was bleeding from involuntary nails digging in.
Shockingly I didn't even take any of the pain killers they gave me for recovery. By the time the numbness wore off there was no pain left. Trying to pee after was another story. Thank god for the invention of a Peri bottle.
But yeah, felt like someone set my labia on fire while also stabbing me with a knife. 0/10
I had local anasthetic injected between fingers in the web area. While I’m not trying to compare that to what you had to deal with which is far worse, I just want to offer that sometimes the injected anesthetic, which we would think would make things better quickly, hurts a LOT when injected and does so for longer than one would think before it starts having an effect. An unfortunately surprising relevation.
Being stitched for a tear after childbirth was bad. As someone else mentioned - IUD insertion is done with no pain medicine, that was bad. I think the worst pain related to literal medical procedures are those women's ones, for whatever reason they are done without anesthesia and really do hurt.
Worst PAIN I have ever felt, though, is migraine. Hands down. Worse than childbirth.
Stepped on a wine glass, the stem embeded deep. Get taken to the hospital, doctor asks to talk to my mom then comes back in with four nurses and my mom holding me down. Doctor sticks his finger in the hole to check for any loose glass left in there, he rotates his finger a full 360° three times. Worst pain ive ever felt, to this day its my 10 on the pain scale.
Apparently he offered my mom to either knock me out and check, or just skip all that and have people hold me down.
Ear syringe when I was a kid. Nurse must've thought jabbing this metal tube into my already-inflamed eardrum once wasn't good enough, because she did it again.
Worst pain in general, though, was cluster headache. And if I'd been near a tall building at the time, I'd have gone to the roof and jumped off to stop it. Literally. Like five migraines at different points in my head at the same time. Nausea. Flashing lights. Dizziness. Sweating. Chills. Fun stuff.
I had viral meningitis, and I had to endure a lumbar puncture. after falling down literally four flights of stairs to get to an ambulance, I had to endure that shit.
Oh my fucking God
And this shit happened during Covid, goddamnit.
Edit: but it didn’t hold a candle to the pain I had to endure during the first round of Covid in February/March 2020. 12 days of the most unimaginable pain…
My cat even got it, and I had to deal with my cat crying in pain for almost 2 weeks while I felt so much pain I wanted to kill myself, but couldn’t.
I just peed in my bed, cause I couldn’t move
Edit; I was happy to pay for a new mattress rather than deal with the eye-stabbing pain of moving to the toilet
Either you don’t remember, or you never got the first version of Covid. Either way, consider yourself lucky. It was a magnificent horror show.
We got the flu once really bad, my whole family. Before that, I never understood how a flu epidemic could kill people, it's just a flu, right? We were all in bed for 2 weeks, just lay together on the pull out bed in the living room to be next to the kitchen and bathroom, I nursed the baby and we drank water, salt water, lemon water when we could get up, but I could so easily imagine just starving or dehydrating and dying, we were so so sick.
As an american, it's about every time I've sought medical help in the last two decades, only a handful of times.
E-rooms will misdiagnose you with something that isn't even close to fitting your symptoms just to get you out of there, then send you a 2000 dollar bill for it.
I remember getting wisdom teeth yanked out, this might not have been the dentists fault, I was doing some prescription opiates, and they gave me fentanyl and whatever, I of course didn't tell them of the big 200 mg morphine tabs we were getting. So I wasn't fully anesthasized as I should have been. I was half awake with mouth full of gauze as the dentist is yanking them out, why, won't, this, tooth, come, out, type of memory.
having a endoscope-thing shoved up my nose into my sinuses.. and the doctor kept crashing it into bone. Which resulted in unfathomable pain, and not insignificant bleeding because at least one of the crashes tore/cut delicate tissues in my head.
I've done 2 kinds, the one you hear about (hemo) and the slightly better peritoneal kind. DeWalt with it for a year and a half (which is nothing compared to what a lot of people have to do).
It wasn't the most painful thing in these comments, but it is one of the most soul-draining things I can imagine. In the same kind of way that chemo probably is. But that's even more miserable.
And a lot of the treatments surrounding it are where the real pain was (I could go on a whole big comment/post about the pain, discomfort, suffering, other things that just sucked that I've had to deal with since 2020, both directly and indirectly related to this-it's a pretty wild trip) but that's not the question here.
The single worst part overall was the dialysis, because it hit the sweet (/s) spot between how uncomfortable it was, how much constant attention to it I was required to deal with, and how long it lasted.
I mean the longest thing I've dealt with is diabetes, but the dialysis beats that by far.
I had a couple of chest tubes removed that had been in for around ten days without any sedation or numbing. They had to give them a twist to break them free. I didn't care, two weeks in the hospital and all I wanted was to get out of there.
The treatment wasn't even mine. When I was a kid, we had an indoor-outdoor cat that ended up with a bunch of giant, oozing, odorous, pulsating sores on its neck. Turns out there's a fly that lays its eggs in animals' wounds and once the maggots hatch they burrow into the skin. Really gross. It was traumatic watching the vet pry and pull the maggots out of their flesh burrows.
I hate anything that requires a local anesthetic because of how often that stuff fails to work for me. Typically after several shots of local anesthetic, the doctor will say "it's not safe to give you anymore", either we stop here or we keep going but it's going to hurt and there's nothing they can do about it.
I've had my whole arm numbed up except the spot that needed to be stitched, granted the needles they used to inject the anesthetic were more painful than the needle they used to do the stitching. Another time I had to endure the pain of getting a wound cut open and the doctor digging around inside it with a scalpel trying to fish out debris or something.
Wisdom teeth. Sure I was knocked out but after the sedatives and stuff wore off I had nothing for the pain. They said I could return to work the next day, is that supposed to be a joke?
It's unpleasant even if it goes smoothly. But he couldn't get through the lower opening of the stomach so he rammed at it for 20 min. The chest pain, stomach and retching/vomiting was pretty horrible. Someone shoving and twisting a scope inside your guts is pretty unpleasant.
Oh and I've also had a wisdom tooth removed by a dentist who used a hand saw (rather than electric instruments) to cut the tooth into 3 pieces and cut into the gum to extract the fragments. My face was swollen for a week after and I was eating liquid food for ages.
An ear infection that either was staph or turned into it, requiring an ear to be reconstructed, a new ear drum, ear canal reconstruction, and the mastoid bone removed. There was a very real concern from the doctors that it was going to get into my brain. They cut my ear off of the side of my head, did the work, then sewed it back on. 10/10 for the doctors that did the treatment and fixed it all. -1000/10 for the different unrelated doctor that let the infection get that bad.
A 4mm kidney stone making its way out.
An ear infection (same ear as above) where the ear canal swelled shut, and the ENT and his staff held me down in his office on a table to force a wick into it to make the meds able to get into it.
Even though it was 30 years ago, the ear infection (prior to the reconstruction) is what I remember most vividly.
89 Comments
BCsven@lemmy.ca · 32 pts · 2d
Treatment for head and neck cancer. Surgery (not so bad), Chemo and Daily radiation. The chemo was rough, and the anti nausea pill did nothing. Radiation starts out fine, but half way through the sunburn inside your throat is horrible, and the combo of chemo and radiation kills your salivary glands and so instead of thin saliva you just have a thick mucous like hot mozzarella cheese strings on a pizza that you can't seem to spit out and it chokes you to swallow. Your body is so tired that 10cc of water into the Gtube feeder makes you vomit. You lose all taste, so everything is like chewing soggy cardboard.
The only positive is I no longer have to shave my neck, the beard hair there just never grew back.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 9 pts · 2d
I'm sorry. My nephew and his granddad have had this. Both are currently in remission. My nephew could only eat thin yogurt.
BCsven@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 2d
Yeah, it's ahitty. I hope your family members stay in remission. 🙏
Maeve@kbin.earth · 6 pts · 2d
Thank you. I return your good wishes, with love and gratitude. 🙏❤️
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de · 29 pts · 2d
Lumbar puncture, hands down. They insert a needle into your lower spine to extract fluid for analysis. It was horribly painful and took them several tries to get right.
They gave me incorrect instructions. At least for my case they were incorrect. It is done sitting up. And they told me specifically not to round my back but to slump down. And they poked and prodded and just couldn't get the needle in. Finally I rounded my back and oh wonderous thing it was suddenly much easier to get the needle in.
That was painful enough but sucking the fluid out is downright sickening. You can really feel it along your spine and in your head. Absolutely awful. I felt like passing out.
And of course they found absolutely nothing.
chunes@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2d
Yes.
In my case, the fluid shot out because it was under insane pressure and since I lost too much, I got the most horrible headache in the entire world. I was physically unable to be upright. I had to be hospitalized for a week and I wasn't able to go home until they gave me a blood patch.
I'd rather have 3 more appendectomies and break my arm a few more times than go through that again. If anyone ever asks for a spinal tap again, I am going to tell them to suck my D.
ComfortableRaspberry@feddit.org · 4 pts · 2d
Hey, we're in the same boat. While the procedure itself went fine for me, the headache afterwards was hell and I had a leakage. Though there are options to close it, they decided to wait. After a while I had to be hospitalized but still no blood patch...
The toll this shit takes on your body was understated in the info brochures. Haven't been the same since then.
They also found absolutely nothing.
Strider@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d
Was going to say this. One of the most stressful procedures.
Six fucking tries too, sitting and lying. And then it didn't flow all that well.
I envy you though that they found nothing. No such luck for me.
DrBanjo@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 2d
This is my answer too - worst experience of my life
Zak@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 2d
A doctor once gave me a month's supply of a drug only approved for use for 10 days due to liver toxicity. I learned about the limit from a news article and stopped taking it.
I experienced no ill effects that I know of, but his malpractice put me at risk of death or lifelong complications. I learned to double-check everything myself after that.
snoons@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 2d
Damn, that's also on the pharmacist for not noticing... multiple failures there.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 4 pts · 2d
Dangerous. Liver and kidneys can get severly damaged by such drugs.
Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 2d
Not the worst medical treatment perhaps, but horrible when I found out how many women this happens to. Both the insertion and removal of my iud were done with no painkillers except the ibuprofen I decided to take an hour before my appointment. Going in, I nearly fainted from the pain. The gyno casually laid me down for a while and told me it happens every other day that someone faints. I was in bed for a day afterwards from terrible pain and cramps. Then, for the removal, the wire has disappeared so she had to go "find it". I was crying and could barely hold my legs still. Why the hell this procedure is still done without warning and options for better pain relief I have no idea.
bcgm3@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Wife had a similarly terrible experience, and not that it holds a candle to yours and hers, but it was awful for me, too: Sexual intercourse was a guaranteed needle-stabbing-into-the-tip-of-my-dick situation, every time, and when it was brought up with the OBGYN, she dismissively said I was just "bragging about my size." I was not. No action was ever taken, right up until I got a vasectomy and she had the IUD removed.
I'm sorry that you, and she, and so many others have had to endure what you have endured. I think these IUD's need to go back to the drawing board, and on a larger scale, that there needs to be some major cultural shift to how male contraception is approached. This could be so much easier for everyone, if religion and money would get out of the way of science.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 17h
Oh man and I had that problem too. Obgyn was also just as bararic with inserting and removing the IUD, and they didnt believe that we had this problem during sex. I can't make sense of it.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 19h
Dude - if this happens again - I always tucked the string around my cervix. Like so the pointy end was pointing back up inside me. I never felt it once it was settled and it didn't stab my partner. The doctors will say "I can cut it shorter" but that's a bad answer, what happens then when they go to remove it? And it's still stabby but then you can't tuck it around.
IUD is great when it works - safer than tying tubes or vasectomy AND it's reversible.
And WTF? Aren't most women like 4-5 inches long inside? I'm tall and presumably have a little more length in there but have gotten cervix punch by average guys just a bad angle.
bcgm3@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 18h
I appreciate the pro-tip! I'm fixed now and she's had the IUD removed, so hopefully someone else in our position finds this info, because I think it would have really helped us.
Birth control is such a mess, and it seems like there are better ways that are kept from us, as if those in control would prefer we all be breeding for some reason...
BevsDad@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 2d
Not me but my ex had her iud puncture her uterus and it took repeated doctor visits before her pain was taken seriously...
JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 2d
It blows my mind that they don't do any kind of anesthesia for that.
ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 3h
If you ever need to get your uterus inflated for specific ultrasounds..
Buckle up. They do that without anesthetic, too! Even when you ask for it! (Same with iud insertion. I asked for stuff for both and they said no it’s fine - not fine, trust me - you insist, or you walk, don’t fuck with this one)
It puts the iud insertion to shame, its so insanely painful. They use saline, just small amounts through a syringe (like 5cc tops) to separate the walls of the uterus for the sake of imaging, and lemme tell you, the uterus doesn't like volume changes, no ma’am, aveacreans about being moved. So it seizes up hardcore and gives you shooting pain from deep in your abdomen that goes into your limbs, very much feels like being stabbed repeatedly. And they do this multiple times over the course of entirely too long . It took almost an hour for mine, and i did my best not to move it squirm and make it take longer.
Absolutely horrific what is done to women under the guise of healthcare. Sadistic fucks.
Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1h
Ouch.. I was lucky enough to get a hysteroscopie (camera in uterus) under full anesthetics. Read in an article that most women undergo that without pain relief too. Absolutely ridiculous.
Vanth@reddthat.com · 18 pts · 2d
I've had more painful and seen more incompetence on the medical professionals' side, but my methacholine challenge as part of asthma diagnosis always stands out for the blatant malpractice.
I was a kid, probably range of 9-12 years old. They exposed me to something that eventually triggers an asthma reaction in anyone, just a matter of how much it takes to be considered "asthmatic". Then they left me in the room alone while the test ran. I posted about it once as a sanity check. It's a legitimate test, from what I've been able to find, just not the part when they leave an underage patient unattended to deal with the inevitable asthma attack alone.
https://reddthat.com/post/48901213
finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 2d
My insurance demanded that I switch one of my medications because they had cut a deal with the other brand or something. After the first dose, I had crazy heart palpations for the better part of a week and thought I was going to die. It still took several rounds of appeals before my insurance relented and allowed me to get back on the original medication.
Of course, they dropped my coverage for it again 2 months later, so I gave up, which I guess was what my fucking for-profit scum insurance wanted anyway.
Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 2d
That drug wouldn't have been called Vioxx by any chance?
finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 2d
No, it was a GLP-1
Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1d
Ah ok, was wondering because I know that one got yanked off the shelves for causing heart issues.
finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
Oh, interesting. It was ozempic that gave me the palpitations, which from what I understand is a somewhat uncommon reaction
KC_Royalz@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 2d
Kidney stone removal. Peeing afterwards also having the stent removed. Imagine a thorny vine being yanked out and the thorns are pointed towards the exit. This was easily #1
I've had a spinal fusion where I was laid up for 3 months. And I'll take the fusion again
Brkdncr@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 2d
My grandfather had a bad case of flu. Went to the hospital and they put him on IV fluids but found out he was allergic to something. Fucked him up good and wouldn’t accept he was having issues until it was too late.
Had to traych him up so he could breathe.
Blew out his kidneys.
Basically significant organ failure. He walked into the hospital for the flu and they mistreated him, and he never walked out. Came home in a walker and a dialysis schedule and breathing out of his neck.
Took him 8 years to die after that. He was basically a corpse. Grandmother sold her business, sold their lake house, sold their classic car, all to try and pay all of the medical bills and be his full time caretaker. Just an awful situation.
bcgm3@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
I'm so sorry for what you and your family had to go through. I can empathize with the notion of being completely let down by supposed modern medical practitioners. I've lost someone close to me because a doctor (and her staff and associates) did not catch an error in proscribed/administered medication. At the end of the day, these vitally important systems are susceptible to human error, and it costs some people everything. I see and hear you -- perhaps only because it happened to me as well; it feels like no one else could ever really know -- but I do know what it's like to feel like the only system available has utterly failed you.
We are all we have, each of us individually. I hope the best for you and those you hold dear.
the_q@piefed.social · 16 pts · 2d
Antidepressants. They don't help and cause tons of additional issues like brain zaps, constipation and sedation. The real awful part is the pin prick of hope that this one will work...
eurodyne@piefed.world · 2 pts · 2d
Antidepressant withdrawal is serious and severe. Only recently is anyone taking that seriously
areakode@riskeratspizza.com · 2 pts · 2d
I've quit mine once before 2 weeks of terrible brain zaps. You feel very uncomfortable living in your own brain.
Although I should probably consider getting off of mine again. What actually worked for me was getting diagnosed with ADHD so I could get my hands on Adderall. That was the drug that finally worked for me.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 2d
This was my thing too. Turns out I wasn't necessarily depressed. I had executive functioning issues so I couldn't start anything. Things weren't fun because I knew I'd have to bully myself into getting started. I laid in bed all day on my days off not because I was depressed but, because of task paralysis. And turns out when life is just too hard to do anything other than the bare minimum, it can make you depressed. Who knew?!
Luxyr@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 2d
What was the solution for you?
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1d
Being diagnosed with ADHD and starting adderall. All of a sudden I could think things AND do them. My days no longer consist of me DREADING tasks. I wouldn't go so far as to say I enjoy doing chores or, that they're easy to do now. But they're possible to do now. That made a huge difference in my life.
toomanypancakes@crazypeople.online · 15 pts · 2d
Question is inspired by me restarting esketamine for depression. I cannot handle it, I vomit every time, copiously. Today I went through three emesis bags and I'm not back to the full dose yet. It helped with my mood in the past, but while I'm doing it it's just two hours of nonstop vomiting a couple times a week.
I previously underwent a total dickectomy for reference here.
velma@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 2d
I’m so sorry your day was so rough, that sounds absolutely horrible. Sending you a lot of warm thoughts and I hope you’re a little more comfy at the moment <3
LeftReddit2@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 2d
Treatment for the nerve damage in my left arm which involved a lot of getting shocked. Getting shocked to see the specific damage and then dry needling which is acupuncture plus electricity.
Sucks hard, dude.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 4 pts · 2d
I stopped counting at 13 needles. Told my neighbor I feel like a human poppet.
Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 2d
Not sure if the same one, but did it involve (if I remember correctly) sensors on your fingers and the needles went up kind of closer to your shoulder for them to send the pulses through? I had my right side done because of nerve damage to my wrist.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
I had to get that electrified acupuncture to induce labor with one of my kids (the water broke and I was 'on the clock' but labor did not start) - the needles just felt weird but getting acupuncture to INDUCE pain was a mindfuck. It did work. Baby 2 hours later.
ater@piefed.world · 14 pts · 2d
Not me, but in the span of a couple weeks I had some really awful experiences with pediatricians. My middle kid was almost three when they had a horrific fever and was complaining about a stiff neck, which is a huge red flag... But the ER sent us home with the diagnosis of "neck torsion." A few hours later we went to a different ER because they had a lump the size of a grapefruit in their neck from an infected lymph node. Required several days in the hospital to get IV antibiotics.
A couple weeks after that I gave birth to our youngest, and at her 3 day check up her doctor claimed to see sores in her mouth and was worried about herpes (despite the fact that neither me nor my spouse have any STDs) so she sent us to the ER... No one there bothered looking in her mouth until after a lumbar puncture. Then someone realized there were no sores at all, but harmless gum cysts that are extremely common in infants. They kept her overnight for monitoring and that morning a med student presented the case to her peers as a cautionary tale to verify symptoms before jumping into an LP.
village604@adultswim.fan · 14 pts · 2d
My urologist didn't believe me when I told him I have an incredibly high tolerance to local anesthesia.
He also didn't believe me that I could feel him make the initial incision.
So that's how I had my vasectomy without anesthesia. At least the recovery was completely pain and swelling free, so I kinda speed ran the pain. I was also able to confirm my suspicion that my pain tolerance is extremely high. I'd give it a 9.5/10 because I didn't lose consciousness.
Second worst is regaining the ability to form memories during a colonoscopy as a child. Again, that pesky anesthesia metabolism. When they had to surgically set my arm in 6th grade, they put the anesthesia mask on me and told me to count down from 100.
I got to 46 before they just went ahead with the IV.
TheDoozer@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
By any chance are you a redhead?
village604@adultswim.fan · 8 pts · 2d
No, but my mom was, so I assume I inherited it.
Luckily, actual anesthesiologists know what I'm talking about when I tell them and adjust accordingly.
Davel23@fedia.io · 14 pts · 2d
I've had a few laser lithotripsies for kidney stones, nothing too bad except for one of them the anesthesiologist decided for some reason that he was going to put in the breathing tube while I was still awake. That was fucking horrible.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 2d
I can't stress this enough when I say it but, WHAT. THE. FUCK?!
dragonlover@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 2d
I have a chiari malformation, which is essentially my brain falling down the back of my neck. During the period if time where we were still figuring out what was going on I was asked to get a CT mylegram. Now no one explained to me what this was, but i thought it was a CT scan. So i show up to the hospital, having driven myself, and sort of kick around until my appointment.
Then the doctor has me lay on a table face down. There is a man there, big muscles, standing next to the table. The table has a hole in the head pillow. The doctor says hell be right back hes just grabbing the needle. I say wait what needle?
Hes like oh its the needle for the contrast dye for the CT scan. I'm like oh ok and settle down. The doctor comes back and asks me to lift the bottom of my shirt so he can access my back. I stop again and go what are you talking about.
He let's me know at this point, for some fucking reason, that the dye is going inside the spinal column. This is a god damn spinal tap and i learn 2 seconds into it about to happen.
I'm nervous but i lay back down and the big guy puts all his weight on my shoulders to hold me still and they start the procedure. The actual needle doesn't hurt that much, no more than any other needle. But then they inject the dye.
There is this...hot pressure feeling. My chest starts feeling tight, like an elephant is stepping on it. The muscular guy has to really push to hold me down because involuntarily I jerk. My head is swimming, I feel hot, and i feel like my chest is being crushed to dust.
They transfer me to a movable table and quickly wheel me to the CT room. I don't remember much of this because i was hyperventilating and cursing. I didn't have much control over what i was doing and I'm shocked I was able to stay still enough for the CT scans.
When the burning and crushing sensation started to pass I was laying on a bed with the muscular guy who was watching over me. He asked if i was ok and then asked if i wanted a sandwich from the cafeteria? He ordered me one, never got charged for it. We talked about videogames for a couple hours, and then they released me to drive home. I almost passed out on the way home and ended up later developing a CSF leak.
Worst experience of my life 0/10 do not recommend.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 2d
Wow that's absolutely insane that they didn't explain that to you! And a CSF leak?! Yikes.
dragonlover@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d
Hilariously I was having trouble getting it scheduled because the doctor wanted images of my entire spine, and the scheduling lady couldn't find a way to book me for 3 scans back to back. And i, thinking this was a normal ass CT scan said "its ok, if i need to do it 3 times, then I have to do it 3 times. I just need this scheduled asap because currently I'm bedridden".
She went quiet then came back after some time and said "I have an appointment set up for you for all 3 back to back this week"
I now wonder if she was like Jesus Christ this guy is willing to do 3 spinal taps? He must be on deaths door 😂
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1d
Omg 😂😂
HubertManne@piefed.social · 11 pts · 2d
had a chest tube for a collapsed lung. it was not so bad after awhile but was a bitch when it was fresh. sorta different but im not sure how much was effect of the prep or how much was the colonoscopy but it irritates a hemroid to the point to prolapsed into a litteral skin flap covering over my asshole. doctor was very um. glib about the whole thing. like no big deal. it was a fucking big deal.
MagicShel@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 2d
Man I went into the ER after bleeding out of my asshole for weeks, eventually bad enough that I was bleeding through my pants and underwear during the work day and staining my chair. The attending made me feel like I was absolutely wasting his time, then squeezed a blood clot the size of a lemon out of my asshole and sent me home.
I thought I was fucking dying when I went in. Then I thought I was dying when he was squeezing that fucker out. Then I thought I was dying from his withering disdain.
I think if I ever wind up with those symptoms again I'll just wait for death instead of going in.
Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 2d
In the poor treatment category...
Long story short as I can make it and make sense, had a falling accident at work. I got hit in the head by flying piece of iron and gotten knocked off a scaffold, falling down 7ish? feet and belly flopped onto a concrete floor with my right arm under me. They x-rayed my arm, stitched the wound on my head, and said I was good to go. My arm.. not sure how to word it.. just felt wrong. I'm used to a lot of pain and have a high threshold, but something just was off about it. I asked the doc and they reassured me two doctors had looked at the x-ray and it was fine, but if it still hurt in a month to go to my family doctor.
K great. Go home, and for the next few weeks I do my thing, trying to use my right hand fairly often to help "walk it off" so to speak. After nearly a month of it not getting any better made an appointment to see my doc. (one month to the day of the accident.) Got another x-ray. I had barely got home when I got a call from my doctor, he saw the problem immediately when he got the pics. Turned out that when I fell, one of the bones in my wrist got dislodged and the tendon that attaches to it pulled it back into my carpal tunnel, pinching off the nerves to my thumb and two fingers. (Apparently our other two smallest fingers nerves run separate and to the side.) Sorry to any med ppl if I skewered that explanation. Perilunate dislocation is what they called it.
So basically, two different doctors didn't notice the bone on the wrong side of my wrist. Me being the idiot I am, kept using it for a month like it was fine. I don't like taking painkillers so I smoked a shitton of weed that month lol all because two doctors didn't look close enough at an x-ray.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 2d
My sister in law broke her arm in 3 places. They put her in a cast and put her in a sling. She kept telling them her shoulder hurt. Doctor ended up getting pissed off, calling her av drug seeker and kicking her out of the hospital.
After a month she went to a specialist and was like "yeah my arm feels fine but my shoulder hurts really bad." Doctor did xrays, immediately requested the xrays from the hospital and had her come back in.
He showed her on the most recent xrays how her arm was very clearly outside of it's socket. He showed her the previous xrays from the hospital where it was the same. Then he read her the notes where one doctor commented on it that it was out of the socket and dislocated and needed to be fixed. But the doctor she had wrote notes ONLY about the broken arm and specifically said everything else looked normal. Clearly not reading the other doctors notes.
Unfortunately due to some other health circumstances and how long it had been, they could not do anything to get her arm back in the shoulder. She permanently lost all ability to use that arm for the rest of her life. The specialist said "I never tell people this but, if I were you, I would absolutely get a lawyer."
She did. She won. That was also a fiasco. Their lawyer wasn't very good. Followed me around for months. Presented evidence that she was totally fine with picture and videos of me. The judge was not amused. My SIL was 30 years older than me, a foot shorter and about 70 pounds less. Zero chance you could confuse us.
Her and my brother bought a house, a car, and a truck with that money. Which got them out of poverty.
SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip · 8 pts · 2d
The doctor who circumcised me did a total hack job at it: cut way too much off, stitched it back together asymmetrically, and, as I've just learned in the last few years, probably severed the dorsal nerve, too. So that's been a lifetime of basically no sensation in my glans, never enjoying sex that much, which has contributed to a few failed relationships.
Moredekai@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 2d
CW: self harm, suicide
When I was a teenager i was experiencing extreme mental health issues from a double whammy of depression, ptsd, and issues with home life, leading to self harm and suicidal ideation/attempts. I ended up being committed to an inpatient psychiatric facility. It ended up being psychological torture more than anything, and really only made me better at masking. One of the worst things that stands out still is them putting everyone in a room to watch a video that was 911 recordings of siblings and parents finding their sibling/child after they'd committed suicide and calling 911 distraught and breaking down, interspersed with people talking about how other people are impacted and hurt by those actions. It boiled down to guilting us for what we were going through. Which, when part of your issue is already self-hate and guilt, just caused more pain than anything resembling help.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 7 pts · 2d
As a zebra patient… too many to list lol
But the one that stands out is my original POTS diagnostic test. They did something called a "tilt table test". They strap you on a table like a torture film, literally head straps and everything, and then raise the table vertically. The idea is to see how well your body adapts to gravity.
Normally I have pretty good compensations for my condition. I've learnt specific ways to stand, lean, and hold my body so that my circulation works… not well, but decently. I can get up to make toast every now and then, stuff like that.
The table bypasses all that. Immediately I suffered extremely bad effects. I could feel all the blood draining from my brain and my body and pooling into my legs. Couldn't breathe properly, vision going white, feeling absolutely horrible. I can't accurately describe the feeling of all your blood leaving your vital organs. It felt extremely bad, I felt like I was dying. Like a cold shower on the inside, hollowness, pain.
Worst part was, I was too weak to even ask them to cancel the test, or move to remove the bindings myself. Turns out you need blood to do stuff like that. I was completely paralyzed.
The doctors were like "wow this is the worst POTS I've ever seen! Usually when people say they have POTS it turns out they don't, but man… hey let's show Larry" and they leave the room to go find Larry and show them the interesting POTS patient. I could barely see on the monitor my heart rate was 180bpm and my blood pressure was 80/40mmol, which is very bad. I eventually lost consciousness completely. As I passed out I accepted that I was going to die right there on the stupid table because nobody noticed the problem.
I didn't die (obviously). I came to when I was horizontal on the table again and they were unstrapping me. No idea how long I was out for, but fuck that. Nobody told me it would be that bad. "A bit uncomfortable" my ass.
After all that, I got my diagnosis for severe POTS after 10 years of confusing symptoms. Now I have some medicine that helps it not be so severe, so I guess it was worth it in the end?
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 2d
Holy shit they couldn't even tip you back while going to get Larry?! Dicks!
quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 2d
The recovery after an hemorrhoidectomy, pooping was almost traumatic. I say almost only because when everything ended, it was worth it, but I dreaded going to the toilet for ten days.
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 2d
I'm only calling this the worst because I was young enough for my other procedures that I don't fully remember the pain.
I developed a cyst on my labia. Not a bartholyn for those with experience, higher up. I was doing the warm compress thing but it wasn't helping. Within a matter of hours it went from the size of a pea to the size of a golf ball. Obviously I had to go get that dealt with.
You'd think the cutting me open and draining it part would be pretty bad. Or even the healing. Nope. Local anesthetic to the labia was absolutely the worst pain I can remember feeling. And I got my finger stuck between two gears one time.
The 3 minutes or so of agonizing, burning pain lasted longer than the time it took them to cut me, drain it, and pack it. My husband had bruises from me gripping him so hard and was bleeding from involuntary nails digging in.
Shockingly I didn't even take any of the pain killers they gave me for recovery. By the time the numbness wore off there was no pain left. Trying to pee after was another story. Thank god for the invention of a Peri bottle.
But yeah, felt like someone set my labia on fire while also stabbing me with a knife. 0/10
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14h
I had local anasthetic injected between fingers in the web area. While I’m not trying to compare that to what you had to deal with which is far worse, I just want to offer that sometimes the injected anesthetic, which we would think would make things better quickly, hurts a LOT when injected and does so for longer than one would think before it starts having an effect. An unfortunately surprising relevation.
zxqwas@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2d
I called to book a time. The answering machine told me they did not have time to pick up the phone today and call again tomorrow.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2d
Being stitched for a tear after childbirth was bad. As someone else mentioned - IUD insertion is done with no pain medicine, that was bad. I think the worst pain related to literal medical procedures are those women's ones, for whatever reason they are done without anesthesia and really do hurt.
Worst PAIN I have ever felt, though, is migraine. Hands down. Worse than childbirth.
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
People who say the cervix has no nerve endings should be shot.
Redacted@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 2d
Stepped on a wine glass, the stem embeded deep. Get taken to the hospital, doctor asks to talk to my mom then comes back in with four nurses and my mom holding me down. Doctor sticks his finger in the hole to check for any loose glass left in there, he rotates his finger a full 360° three times. Worst pain ive ever felt, to this day its my 10 on the pain scale.
Apparently he offered my mom to either knock me out and check, or just skip all that and have people hold me down.
finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2d
Ear syringe when I was a kid. Nurse must've thought jabbing this metal tube into my already-inflamed eardrum once wasn't good enough, because she did it again.
Worst pain in general, though, was cluster headache. And if I'd been near a tall building at the time, I'd have gone to the roof and jumped off to stop it. Literally. Like five migraines at different points in my head at the same time. Nausea. Flashing lights. Dizziness. Sweating. Chills. Fun stuff.
Nemo@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 2d
orthodontics, never again
eurodyne@piefed.world · 4 pts · 2d
I had viral meningitis, and I had to endure a lumbar puncture. after falling down literally four flights of stairs to get to an ambulance, I had to endure that shit.Oh my fucking GodAnd this shit happened during Covid, goddamnit.Edit: but it didn’t hold a candle to the pain I had to endure during the first round of Covid in February/March 2020. 12 days of the most unimaginable pain…
My cat even got it, and I had to deal with my cat crying in pain for almost 2 weeks while I felt so much pain I wanted to kill myself, but couldn’t.
I just peed in my bed, cause I couldn’t move
Edit; I was happy to pay for a new mattress rather than deal with the eye-stabbing pain of moving to the toilet
Either you don’t remember, or you never got the first version of Covid. Either way, consider yourself lucky. It was a magnificent horror show.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 19h
We got the flu once really bad, my whole family. Before that, I never understood how a flu epidemic could kill people, it's just a flu, right? We were all in bed for 2 weeks, just lay together on the pull out bed in the living room to be next to the kitchen and bathroom, I nursed the baby and we drank water, salt water, lemon water when we could get up, but I could so easily imagine just starving or dehydrating and dying, we were so so sick.
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
I'm having breast cancer removed next week so come back to me then. Considering the biopsy hurt for weeks it's going to be FUN, I'm sure.
bedwyr@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 2d
As an american, it's about every time I've sought medical help in the last two decades, only a handful of times.
E-rooms will misdiagnose you with something that isn't even close to fitting your symptoms just to get you out of there, then send you a 2000 dollar bill for it.
I remember getting wisdom teeth yanked out, this might not have been the dentists fault, I was doing some prescription opiates, and they gave me fentanyl and whatever, I of course didn't tell them of the big 200 mg morphine tabs we were getting. So I wasn't fully anesthasized as I should have been. I was half awake with mouth full of gauze as the dentist is yanking them out, why, won't, this, tooth, come, out, type of memory.
crystalmerchant@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
Torn Achilles recovery
bedwyr@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 2d
How long did that take? Did you need surgery?
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d
having a endoscope-thing shoved up my nose into my sinuses.. and the doctor kept crashing it into bone. Which resulted in unfathomable pain, and not insignificant bleeding because at least one of the crashes tore/cut delicate tissues in my head.
oopsgodisdeadmybad@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 2d
Dialysis.
I've done 2 kinds, the one you hear about (hemo) and the slightly better peritoneal kind. DeWalt with it for a year and a half (which is nothing compared to what a lot of people have to do).
It wasn't the most painful thing in these comments, but it is one of the most soul-draining things I can imagine. In the same kind of way that chemo probably is. But that's even more miserable.
And a lot of the treatments surrounding it are where the real pain was (I could go on a whole big comment/post about the pain, discomfort, suffering, other things that just sucked that I've had to deal with since 2020, both directly and indirectly related to this-it's a pretty wild trip) but that's not the question here.
The single worst part overall was the dialysis, because it hit the sweet (/s) spot between how uncomfortable it was, how much constant attention to it I was required to deal with, and how long it lasted.
I mean the longest thing I've dealt with is diabetes, but the dialysis beats that by far.
tooq@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 18h
I had a couple of chest tubes removed that had been in for around ten days without any sedation or numbing. They had to give them a twist to break them free. I didn't care, two weeks in the hospital and all I wanted was to get out of there.
dangling_cat@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 2d
The shady doctor did my lab, put the needle on the arm of the chair. I had to ask him to get me a new one.
Or the other doctor prescribed me meds that interfere my HRT, twice. I had to look it up.
tigermountain@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2h
Years ago when I got a colonoscopy my doctor told me I wouldn't feel anything but I'd be awake. I felt every. fucking. thing. And it is not pleasant.
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 14h
The treatment wasn't even mine. When I was a kid, we had an indoor-outdoor cat that ended up with a bunch of giant, oozing, odorous, pulsating sores on its neck. Turns out there's a fly that lays its eggs in animals' wounds and once the maggots hatch they burrow into the skin. Really gross. It was traumatic watching the vet pry and pull the maggots out of their flesh burrows.
I hate anything that requires a local anesthetic because of how often that stuff fails to work for me. Typically after several shots of local anesthetic, the doctor will say "it's not safe to give you anymore", either we stop here or we keep going but it's going to hurt and there's nothing they can do about it.
I've had my whole arm numbed up except the spot that needed to be stitched, granted the needles they used to inject the anesthetic were more painful than the needle they used to do the stitching. Another time I had to endure the pain of getting a wound cut open and the doctor digging around inside it with a scalpel trying to fish out debris or something.
ScarlettStunningSpace@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 15h
Wisdom teeth. Sure I was knocked out but after the sedatives and stuff wore off I had nothing for the pain. They said I could return to work the next day, is that supposed to be a joke?
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 14h
I had two removed. local anesthetic only. I was not knocked out.
I drove myself to work directly from surgery and worked a 12 hour shift in a 100° factory with only regular Tylenol to soothe the pain.
why? because I'm American. and no, that was not a statement made with pride.
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 2d
Broken radius from a motorcycle crash. Doc set it by hand with only local anesthetic. Holy fuck that hurt.
n0p1lls@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 3h
An antipsychotic for my schizophrenia. It leaves me like a zombie. In my experience, it's kind of a chemical lobotomy.
neidu4@piefed.social · 2 pts · 2d
6 months straight of daily Malarone.
cRazi_man@europe.pub · 2 pts · 1d
OGD - camera to the stomach and beyond.
It's unpleasant even if it goes smoothly. But he couldn't get through the lower opening of the stomach so he rammed at it for 20 min. The chest pain, stomach and retching/vomiting was pretty horrible. Someone shoving and twisting a scope inside your guts is pretty unpleasant.
Oh and I've also had a wisdom tooth removed by a dentist who used a hand saw (rather than electric instruments) to cut the tooth into 3 pieces and cut into the gum to extract the fragments. My face was swollen for a week after and I was eating liquid food for ages.
CoriolisSTORM88@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
There’s a pile of them.
An ear infection that either was staph or turned into it, requiring an ear to be reconstructed, a new ear drum, ear canal reconstruction, and the mastoid bone removed. There was a very real concern from the doctors that it was going to get into my brain. They cut my ear off of the side of my head, did the work, then sewed it back on. 10/10 for the doctors that did the treatment and fixed it all. -1000/10 for the different unrelated doctor that let the infection get that bad.
A 4mm kidney stone making its way out.
An ear infection (same ear as above) where the ear canal swelled shut, and the ENT and his staff held me down in his office on a table to force a wick into it to make the meds able to get into it.
Even though it was 30 years ago, the ear infection (prior to the reconstruction) is what I remember most vividly.
switcheroo@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Hadriscus@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 2d
You guys have wild stories. I've had good medical care for the most part. Damn, so boring