Wednesday night my ears were feeling really sore after swimming a couple of days before but I just tried using Debrox drops to clear them out. By Thursday morning, after a night of no sleep and really intense pain I told my wife I needed to go to the doctor right now. I could barely hear out of either ear, and the pain was almost unbearable. The area just under my lobes was swollen giving me a chipmunk kinda look and I could not close my jaw to bite anything. One side was a little bit more swollen than the other making my lack of bite even more lopsided.

I got to the doctor that morning and he seemed more interested in talking into a recording deal than actually treating me as a person. They gave me an anti-inflammatory shot in the ass and some anti-inflammatory ear drops and anti-biotics. Nothing for pain, saying the drops will help with the pain. Problem is, my canals are swollen shut and drops cannot get in! Someone down there must have wised up because we got a call an hour after getting home telling us to come back down at 8:45am the next morning. It was a very rough night and Ibuprofin 3 at a time didnt even take the edge off. It was a different, younger doctor this time and told us we needed to see an Ear Nose Throat doctor right away. He said my hearing was at stake, ripped off a script for some Vicadin and got me squoze in at 10:45 with the ENT doc.

She said the anti-biotics they gave me would not work and she had to put sponges in my ear canal that drops could hit and soak in down the canal. She used a deal to squirt liquid in my ear and vacuum it out then insert the sponges. Apparently, another day or so and the infection could have breached the membrane and spread to my face and I would have more serious problems. Going for my 5th visit to the doctor in 7 days tomorrow and I am feeling better. Long story short, Vicadin could have possibly saved my life. I am not a big fan of pills at all and resist taking them when I am sick because I just feel it takes longer to heal that way but the pain was ridiculous. I have had pain before, but this type of pain is hard to describe. There is nothing that can be rubbed,iced, etc. Anyway, just thought I would share!

For me: Having to clean the MRSA wound myself. The hospital removed the abcess without painkillers, but that was nothing compared to cleaning of the wound.

The other was my tonsils taken out and a palate revision as an adult. No solid food for 5 weeks and everyday when I drank water it felt like I was swallowing broken glass.


Oh and another toughy was when I walked 1/2 mile to get my ruptured appendix removed. My family doesn't feel their appendix inflame, only rupture.

All good stuff and the inner ear's are really sensitive to pain I know and I can only imagine a ruptured Appendix!

Wait until you try a Kidney stone. Hope you never have to actually.
Passing them is the easy bit though, it's when they move on down through the Kidney is when the pain really starts.

Sorry for your pain gents but we've all been there, lets hope that's it as far as that is concerned.

Kidney stone FTW. Been burned, knifed, etc, etc, but I'd take anything over having another one of those damn things. I keep painkillers (and I mean the good stuff) on hand just in case.

My worst was after open heart surgery. I had been in hospital for six months with blood poisoning before the op and so I was already weak. Nine hour operation to rebuild the heart and four days in intensive care. Then they moved me to a ward bed. Nurse told me later that she seriously considered sending me back to ICU. She said I was the only patient she had seen who was poured into a bed. General pain was bad enough the real pain came when I coughed. Having your rib cage opened is not nice and so any strain let's you know it's not welcome. Even though I was being pumped full of morphine I was given a tightly rolled towel and told to hold it tight against my sternum when I coughed. Try lying in bed and praying hard that the tickle in your throat won't cause you to cough.
As you so rightly said, many of us have been in that world for various reasons and none of us would wish it even on our worst enemy.

Back in the late 80`s me the wife and two kids were in Pontypridd on a saturday afternoon shopping trip.I had the youngest boy (2.5 year old) sitting on my shoulders eating a chocolate Thorntons lollipop and was standing outside Princes Cafe looking at all the wonderfull cakes and pastries in the window while the wife was inside.When any of the kids sat on my shoulders I would hold on to each leg just to make sure they didn`t overbalance and topple backwards and they sat there quite comfortable and we had drummed it into the boys "Do not throw your rubbish on the floor ,give it to mam or dad"
Well Jar had finnished the lollipop and was left holding the round little stick and fairplay to the little bugger he did not throw it to the floor he pushed it into my right ear and pierced my eardrum ! The spasm of pain seemed to last for minutes as the world went into slow motion but it was only a second or two before I pulled the friggin` thing out and how I didn`t put my head through the shop window as a jerk reaction I do not know to this day,probably because he was on my shoulders.
That smarted a little bit.(It really feckin hurt,and brought tears to my eyes)so first stop on the way home was A&E at East Glamorgan Hospital where they confirmed a tear in the eardrum.
I have a hearing deficiency in my right ear hearing now and use a hearing aid.

Paul

Watching Virus in the theater. The pain wouldn't stop for almost 2 hours. I was too doubled over to even walk out.



The Jedi Master

I have a tie... both happening in the same week... passing a stone and getting tazed.

kidney stones.....broke my pelvis once and it was a frickin' joke compared to kidney stones !!!

Mine wasn't the ruptured appendix...it was the peritonitis afterward...I begged the nurses to let me die. The morphine was good for about 45 minutes...unfortunately, they'd only give it to me every 4 hours.

I concur! Passing them for me was a piece of cake...but maybe I was lucky--and without ultrasound. I still have one left though, and it is less than 6mm in dia so they don't feel ultrasound is necessary. PLus it hasn't moved so...

v6,
boNes

Ha, yeah me too. I have Norco in my medcab!

v6,
boNes

Mine was 8 years ago this weekend.

Daytona, July 4th weekend 2003. Went down at the invite of a friend to see the NASCAR race.

The day before the race we hit the beach. We were talking while applying sunblock and - not paying attention - I forgot to put any on my legs from the knees down.

After 4 hours in the sun my lower legs were pretty badly burned. That night saw me out of bed, lying on the bathroom floor for a couple of hours, feeling like I was either going to be sick or pass out or both.

Driving back to Virginia a couple of days later was no picnic either. 11 hours in the car was absolute torture. I knew after I'd been home for about 30 minutes that I was going to need to go to the hospital because I was rapidly reaching a point where I wouldn't be able to walk anymore. I called some friends trying to get a ride, finally got a coworker to come by.

Spent a little time in the ER where the doctor told me "Yep, you got sunburned."

Gee, thanks doc.

Told me to keep my legs elevated and gave me a prescription for some painkillers. As soon as I put my legs down I figured out why he told me to keep them up as all the fluid that had built up in my legs went rushing back down. At that point, I was done - I couldn't walk anymore. They wheeled me out to the car, and when we got home my co-worker had to pick me up and carry me in.

I spent the next week either on the couch or in bed. Going to the kitchen for food or going to the bathroom meant a slow, agonizing crawl because there was no way in hell I could even think about standing up. I used the entire bottle of painkillers, PLUS a bottle I had left over from having my wisdom teeth removed that I didn't use. They didn't work, not that I could tell, but I tried anyway.

After that week, I was able to stand again but the damaged skin on my legs was drying out and flaking off. Any time I moved I could feel it pulling and stretching, sometimes splitting.

The skin on my legs now is a different texture than it was before and I have all sorts of little brown spots my doctor and I are keeping a close eye on.

Safe to say, that's the last time I ever went to the beach.

Common story from people from "elsewhere" visiting a beach or Orlando in FL, especially in summer.

See, FL is about 2x closer to the sun than the rest of the US, so you never, NEVER spend any amount of time outside without being covered or wearing a half-tube of sunblock on every exposed surface.



The Jedi Master

Kidney stones...nah. Had them. Try shingles in your eye.

It seems kidney stones are pretty common. Anyone know what are some usual causes?

This should be called the "I'm old!" thread!

I know there are some that I have succusfully blocked out. The last bad pain was last year during my 2nd Chemo treatments. Number 6 of 12. For some reason that time it was so bad if I could have gotten ahold of a knife I would have cut my arm off to stop the whole arm from hurting. All of the over treatments went pretty smooth besides throwing up, etc.

I swim several times a week, but use earplugs. Gack!
Was this from swimming in a pool, or in salt or fresh water?

2nd degree sunburn after playing at Ft Walton Florida beach all day. Blisters on my shoulders. Heading back to Ft Polk La while i was in the Army by buddy in the middle seat (bench seat in an S-10 pickup) decided to adjust himself. Placed his hands on my left shoulder (i was in the right side seat) burst the blisters and his hand slide down my shoulder bursting the rest of them.

Wasn't pleasant at all.