Users on the social media platform Reddit have shared personal accounts of the illnesses that caused them the most severe physical pain in their lives.
The discussion took place in the AskReddit section of the platform, where forum members described intense symptoms ranging from sudden head pain to internal organ blockages.
Many contributors to the thread admitted that they had never felt worse than during attacks of gallstone disease. Gallstones are hardened deposits of digestive fluid that can form in the gallbladder and block bile ducts, causing sudden and severe abdominal discomfort.
One member using the name soapyrubberduck reported experiencing pain that felt like a harbinger of inevitable doom, leaving them convinced they would not survive. The individual suffered the episode during coronavirus quarantine and refused to visit an emergency department, choosing instead to curl up on a cold tiled bathroom floor and accept their fate.
Cluster headaches and neurological pain
Other users highlighted cluster headaches as the most excruciating condition they had encountered. Medical experts classify cluster headaches as severe neurological attacks characterized by intense unilateral burning or drilling pain around the eye and temple, typically lasting from 15 minutes to 3 hours.
A forum member writing under the username ___po____ described the onset as a sudden impact comparable to being shot in the head with a nail gun. They explained that during an attack their face twitches and winks in a manner resembling a stroke, leading them to scream without making a sound before experiencing a panic attack.
Endometriosis and kidney stone comparisons
Female respondents diagnosed with endometriosis rated the pain caused by the disease as 10 out of 10 on a standard pain scale. Endometriosis is a chronic condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the organ, leading to inflammation, severe pelvic pain and scar tissue formation.
To illustrate the severity of endometriosis pain, one female contributor using the handle beckdrop compared it to a life-threatening renal infection. She recounted suffering from sepsis caused by a kidney infection when a stone almost completely blocked her ureter, alongside a second stone measuring two to three centimeters in the same kidney.
She noted that the intense discomfort provoked by the severe kidney stones and infection reached a maximum of seven points on the pain scale, falling short of the pain caused by endometriosis.
The discussion follows a previous online thread where female users shared unpleasant discoveries made while visiting men's homes, with dirty floors cited as a common reason not to return.
