What is the greatest physical pain known to man?

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My vote goes to a swarm of angry hornets stinging one in the balls.

Hmmmmm...

I've had an outpatient surgical procedure with ,basically, no anesthetic because they do not work on me. They actually told me I was lying and couldn't possibly feel anything. They eventually intubated me and fully sedated me to shut up my screaming and crying.

I have fibromyalgia - 15 years and counting. It cycles. it can get pretty bad, especially when you are actually IN pain. Being in pain every day is nothing compared to having your entire body severly overreact to something like a pulled muscle. I've almost gone to the emergency room just because of the pain. On their little smily/frowny face chart in the triage room- those were 8-9 days. I cried it out and knocked myself out with valerian instead. Our local hospitals have a real low tolerance for anyone coming in looking soley for 'pain relief' - they think everyone is just drug seeking. And it was 'just pain' - I know there is nothing physically wrong with my body. It is just an overabundance of overactive neurotransmitters. That helps control the panic.

I gave birth naturally. Gotta tell ya - that right there is some class A pain. But, your body goes into an almost trance like state if you don't panic. Too many women fear pain and then panic and that makes it even worse. If you go with it, it's a powerful experience and I think your body keeps you from the possible PTSD you could have from that much pain. It literally feels like you are spontaneously turning inside out. Despite that, I wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

From what I understand - desloughing dead skin from a 3rd degree burn patient is supposed to be one of the most agonizing things that can be done to a human being. And it needs to be repeated over and over.

I'd have to say that caning is pretty painful. That was standard punishment in the British school system until recent years.

I really don't know .. but for me, the greatest physical pain, is when I twisted my back to crack it, and endured a hernia instead, (DON'T CRACK UR BACK!! ! ) It''s painstaking.

eloquent quashing of an urban myth there Cornflake. good show

Neural disorders or manipulation, definitely. Physical pain, if you mean what I think you mean, is a "no-brainer". Anguish makes things complicated.

i have already stated what i think is the most pain in a physiological sense, but i think the worst sensation to be condemned to would be the destruction of the semicircular canals in your ears.

they provide the x plane and the y plane and the z plane stability that tells your mind where you are, and that you are still.

when you spin around on the spot (with your axis being upright(or vertical (rotating with respect to the x axis))) , you disrupt the fluid circulating through your x axis canal, and it eventually starts to spin with you due to surface tension. when you stop spinning, the fluid continues to spin and loses it's momentum after a time, but it makes you feel like you are spinning in the opposite direction for a while. the semi circular canal on the vertical axis is disrupted.

if you were doing cartwheels for a few hundred meters, then when you stopped, you would fell like the world is spinning like a dial in front of your face. the axis of rotation is parallel to the horizon, but the perceived effect is that the world is spinning like the face of a clock (in time lapse).

if you decided to somersault for a mile or so, then when you stopped, you would feel like you are still tumbling end over end (from behind to "in front") for a while. this is a z axial disturbance due to the same fluid dynamic that caused the other axial aberrations in my earlier examples of spinning.


when the semi circular canal is destroyed, there is a sudden loss of stability in all 3 axes of orientation, and the sufferer is condemned to a world of disorientation and almost fatal nausea for the rest of their lives..

Hives.

For me, in order:

1. Kidney stones (doubled-over and nearly drowned in a wave pool)
2. Infected, ready to explode gallbladder (emergency surgery as a result)
3. Tracheoplasty (to relieve apnea, didn't work, lasers burned throat and nerve endings woke up two days later)

amputation. I've seen a documentary and the pain is so bad an avid hunter asked his wife to take out all the guns in the house since he cotemplated suicide the pain got THAT BAD! Sure you are put to sleep to take off the limb but the brain still sends nerve messages to that body part although it's no longer there. I believe that's how it works if I'm remembering the documentary correctly.

Death by universal constant imbalance. In this scenario, everything would break down. The suns would die and the people would melt into goo and evaporate. Of course, such a scenario is hypothetical.

Cluster Headaches. No real good treatment. My 1-10 pain scale, 5-10 are cluster headaches.

Had an eye injury, supposedly really painful, didnt bother me.
Viral encephalitis is rough, but the pain wasn't too bad.

An honorable mention to turf toe for me. Got it in both my feet from playing too much indoor soccer. Loved soccer enough that I tolerated it until I really was incapable of playing. But this is more from idiocy.

The bad thing about cluster headaches for me is the psychological aspect of them. I've been in the middle of this cluster for 7 days now, and it might still be here tomorrow. And god knows when I'll start my next cluster, the impending, for-lack-of-a-better-word, doom of them is haunting.

Something like a really bad burn, torn muscle--you kinda get numb to, you get used to it, or at least you can knock it out with drugs.

these are the things that happened to me that were most painful, in no particular order:


-squashing my fingers in a safe (1 damaged, 1 broken)

-hot glueing a piece of felt onto my thigh

-passing a kidney stone

-migraines

-getting my hand web pierced

-45 hours of childbirth with no anaesthetic (10 hour delivery. i stubbornly refused the ambulance, and since my baby was in no distress they didn't have a leg to stand on). the experience included feeling the midwife's fingers in my vagina lifting the anterior cervical lip over my daughter's head, cracking my tailbone, and tearing my perineum (not too badly, but it added to the whole painful experience)