Ask Lemmy

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.

An antipsychotic for my schizophrenia. It leaves me like a zombie. In my experience, it's kind of a chemical lobotomy.

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?

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.

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.

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.

And of course they found absolutely nothing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.