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I am currently in intense pain, having woken up in the middle of the night to take yet more ibuprofen, paracetamol and codeine. I've been taking all three for a few days, and been feeling pretty miserable. I have one tooth with an inflamed nerve, another with an infection in the root, and a wisdom tooth pressing on the infected tooth. I face having a filling, root canal surgery and surgery under general anaesthetic to remove the wisdom tooth. All in all, this is more painful than the total rebuild of my left knee I underwent 5 years ago. The only thing more painful was a VERY serious case of tonsilities and quinzies about 10 years ago when I had three weeks off work and went four full days without even eating.

On the bright side, the painkilling medication will kick in soon, and I will be able to go back to the dentist tomorrow for the third time in four days to get more done about it.

I don't want to imagine living somewhere like Haiti, Afghanistan or Sierra Leone, and not having those options. I simply can't comprehend the idea of not being able to fix this.

I've always given more money than most people to charity; a mixture of third-world charities, mental health charities in the UK and social charities in the UK, and by most people's standards I gave reasonably generously to a couple of collections for Haiti and also a collection for a burns-unit for my friend's son, who also happened to be one of my pupils who died a year ago. This pain is enough, however, to make me even more generous in future, and to change my intentions of cancelling some of my monthly direct debits due to having finally gotten a mortgage and bought my own place just before Christmas. I think I'll just put up with a few less luxuries like little toy soldiers instead of cancelling those payments, and I will even look at if I can increase them.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and in this case the silver lining is a bit of perspectve on how lucky I am to live in the country that I do, (which is the UK, despite the vague "EU" flag in my profile) despite the likelihood of a rampantly budget-slashing Tory government being voted in soon.

They have a fix in third world countries... its called a friend, pair of pliers, and a old piece of cloth.

Ah blissful relief - some 40 minutes after taking the meds, the pain just almost vanished over the course of about 2-3 seconds, and I can both think and relax the muscles in the side of my neck - Thank you pharmaceutical industry, even though I know you are in business for the money, not my personal wellbeing!!!

Tooth pain is the worst pain. And this comes from someone who has had 3 concussions, blown out his knee, broken 4 bones in his right hand, and had his left calf impaled on a rusty weight rack.

dogma wrote:Tooth pain is the worst pain. And this comes from someone who has had 3 concussions, blown out his knee, broken 4 bones in his right hand, and had his left calf impaled on a rusty weight rack.

Yep, I've had a migraine due to dehydration, migraines due to stress, a complete rebuild of my left knee, broken my nose about five times, etc etc...

Now, I actually think the two or three migraines may have been worse than this, and the worst of my three cases of tonsilities certainly was, but all of those times also came with the dubious "gift" of being delirious, which meant I did not have to cope with the pain in quite the same way. This is the worst pain I have had and still retained my rational thought processes.

No good.

You know, now that I think about it, the worst experience I ever had was migraine in 6th grade. It wasn't so much the pain that got me, as the fact that I went temporarily blind in my left eye. Absolutely terrifying.

Worst pain I had was a collapsed lung when my intercostal catheter was removed post a pleural effusion. Felt like I'd been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer.

In first world countries you can tell a person's economic standard of living at age 60.
Those with dentures were poor.
Those with bridges are well off.

Okay, meds are wearing off, can't take any more for another hour or so... I am not going to enjoy the next sixty minutes...

dogma wrote:No good.

You know, now that I think about it, the worst experience I ever had was migraine in 6th grade. It wasn't so much the pain that got me, as the fact that I went temporarily blind in my left eye. Absolutely terrifying.

You were blinded by a migraine? That sounds terrible...

In 1986, I had four impacted wisdom teeth at the same time, so I know what you're going through. I didn't have any fancy prescription meds, though, but I did have a rather large bottle of cheap scotch, which at least dulled the pain so that I didn't feel like screaming until my dentist appointment. It made being attacked by fire ants and falling into a rose bush nearly naked seem like bliss in comparison. However, us Humans are remarkably tough despite our supposedly fragile bodies. How do you think our ancestors survived the African Savannah for two million years and the ice age for thousands of years? We're harder to exterminate than cockroaches.

Getting my wisdom teeth removed was... surreal. The use of what I considered to be a pair of pliers, really messed with my head. It wasn't frightening, so much as nightmare-like.

Four impacted wisdom teeth, sounds like some of the worst pain I can imagine though... man... *shiver*

nevermind what i said.
But yeah. im glad i live in where i can have all those priviliges and can afford them.

Wrexasaur wrote:
You were blinded by a migraine? That sounds terrible...

I'd be alright with it now, as a jaded semi-adult. But back then, as a precocious 11 year old, being deprived of sight made me think of all the worst case future scenarios. I was not consolable.

Blurriness sort of crept in from the corners of my vision, and then everything went black as if someone turned out the lights; accompanied by throbbing pain of course.

I was once sprayed with bear mace....it is worse then anything you can possibly imagine....

JEB_Stuart wrote:I was once sprayed with bear mace....it is worse then anything you can possibly imagine....

Is it worse than the mace/pepper spray that people carry around to defend themselves from each other? That doesn't sound like a good idea, because causing that much pain to a bear would just make it angry, which would make it even more dangerous. I've never been maced, but I was working in a restaurant when somebody dropped a big fresh can of chili powder, and it made a massive cloud that blinded all the cooks, the dishwashers and half the waiters for a couple of hours.

warpcrafter wrote:Is it worse than the mace/pepper spray that people carry around to defend themselves from each other?

It is much, much worse. The potency of a pepper spray is measured by Scoville Heat Units, and just for reference I will provide some examples. A Jalapeno is measured at around 7500 SHU, regular pepper spray is measured at 25000 SHU, bear mace ranges from 1,500,000 to 2,500,000 SHU. Does that help you to understand how awful it is?

warpcrafter wrote:That doesn't sound like a good idea, because causing that much pain to a bear would just make it angry, which would make it even more dangerous.

It is actually a very effective, and relatively humane method, of dealing with wild animals like bears. With their more sensitive eyes and snouts they are much more severely affected then humans, but they also recover from it in a matter of minutes. I was wheezing like a 6 pack a day smoker who had just run to the bathroom for over 4 hours. Not to mention not being able to see for about 15 minutes, and throwing up pretty regularly for about 2 hours...and lets not forget the 2nd degree chemical burns on my hands where I was just glanced by the spray. It is a truly horrifying experience, but it may have saved my life, and that of those people around me.

JEB_Stuart wrote: bear mace ranges from 1,500,000 to 2,500,000 SHU. Does that help you to understand how awful it is?

I use that extract in my cooking from time to time. Quite potent, but also quite delicious.

My migraines don't cause any pain. They develop large patches of sparkly blindness in my field of vision, so I can't read, operate a computer or drive, and so on. There is also a kind of numbness and dullness in my head.

I normally manage to sit through this and it goes away in half an hour or so.

Afterwards, I usually feel re-energised.

Toothache is a total bitch. My mother is suffering at the moment and can't decide whether to go to a new, local dentist in London or wait until she goes back to Dorset at the end of the week.

Clove oil helps.

Kilkrazy wrote:My migraines don't cause any pain. They develop large patches of sparkly blindness in my field of vision, so I can't read, operate a computer or drive, and so on. There is also a kind of numbness and dullness in my head.

I normally manage to sit through this and it goes away in half an hour or so.

Afterwards, I usually feel re-energised.

Toothache is a total bitch. My mother is suffering at the moment and can't decide whether to go to a new, local dentist in London or wait until she goes back to Dorset at the end of the week.

Clove oil helps.

You're lucky. I've had migraines that have made me feel like my entire head was in a vice, and while I didn't actually lose any vision, I was so sensitive to light that I actually wrapped a black towel around my head. And then there's the nausea...

@Jeb, I see what you mean about the bear mace. However, I do know a couple of idiots who would use that to make hot wing sauce, and would smile through the pain.

Yah, my migraines when I was at Uni did not cause me to lose vision, but I did lose the ability to interpret the input I was getting from my eyes at one stage. I am totally there with the whole towel round the head thing too, and I threw up a LOT. Worst thing was the stupid bitch upstairs being noisy despite knowing how bad I was. I landed up spending one night in the med centre too.