I'll accept a brutal course of treatment or poor treatment at the hands of medical professionals for this question.

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[–] 4 points 34 minutes ago

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.

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  • [–] 4 points 35 minutes ago

    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

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  • [–] 2 points 17 minutes ago

    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 their, 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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 minute ago

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 19 minutes ago*

    having a endoscope-thing shoved up my nose into my sinuses.. and the doctor kept crashing it into bone. Which resulted in unfathomable pain, and not insignificant bleeding because at least one of the crashes tore/cut delicate tissues in my head.

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  • [–] 2 points 29 minutes ago

    Broken radius from a motorcycle crash. Doc set it by hand with only local anesthetic. Holy fuck that hurt.

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  • [–] 2 points 51 minutes ago* (last edited 41 minutes ago)

    6 months straight of daily Malarone.

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  • [–] 2 points 58 minutes ago

    Torn Achilles recovery

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  • [–] 14 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 11 points 7 hours ago

    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.

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  • [–] 11 points 8 hours ago

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 hours ago

    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.

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  • [–] 22 points 10 hours ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 hours ago

    Yes.

    In my case, the fluid shot out because it was under insane pressure and since I lost too much, I got the most horrible headache in the entire world. I was physically unable to be upright. I had to be hospitalized for a week and I wasn't able to go home until they gave me a blood patch.

    I'd rather have 3 more appendectomies and break my arm a few more times than go through that again. If anyone ever asks for a spinal tap again, I am going to tell them to suck my D.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 hours ago*

    Was going to say this. One of the most stressful procedures.

    Six fucking tries too, sitting and lying. And then it didn't flow all that well.

    I envy you though that they found nothing. No such luck for me.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 hours ago

    Hey, we're in the same boat. While the procedure itself went fine for me, the headache afterwards was hell and I had a leakage. Though there are options to close it, they decided to wait. After a while I had to be hospitalized but still no blood patch...
    The toll this shit takes on your body was understated in the info brochures. Haven't been the same since then.

    They also found absolutely nothing.

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  • [–] 23 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 hours ago

    I called to book a time. The answering machine told me they did not have time to pick up the phone today and call again tomorrow.

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  • [–] 25 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

    I'm sorry. My nephew and his granddad have had this. Both are currently in remission. My nephew could only eat thin yogurt.

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  • [–] 14 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

    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...

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago (1 child)

    I've quit mine once before 2 weeks of terrible brain zaps. You feel very uncomfortable living in your own brain.

    Although I should probably consider getting off of mine again. What actually worked for me was getting diagnosed with ADHD so I could get my hands on Adderall. That was the drug that finally worked for me.

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  • [–] 1 point 28 minutes ago

    This was my thing too. Turns out I wasn't necessarily depressed. I had executive functioning issues so I couldn't start anything. Things weren't fun because I knew I'd have to bully myself into getting started. I laid in bed all day on my days off not because I was depressed but, because of task paralysis. And turns out when life is just too hard to do anything other than the bare minimum, it can make you depressed. Who knew?!

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  • [–] 9 points 10 hours ago* (2 children)

    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.

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    [–] 12 points 10 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 hours ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 17 minutes ago

    My sister in law broke her arm in 3 places. They put her in a cast and put her in a sling. She kept telling them her shoulder hurt. Doctor ended up getting pissed off, calling her av drug seeker and kicking her out of the hospital.

    After a month she went to a specialist and was like "yeah my arm feels fine but my shoulder hurts really bad." Doctor did xrays, immediately requested the xrays from the hospital and had her come back in.

    He showed her on the most recent xrays how her arm was very clearly outside of it's socket. He showed her the previous xrays from the hospital where it was the same. Then he read her the notes where one doctor commented on it that it was out of the socket and dislocated and needed to be fixed. But the doctor she had wrote notes ONLY about the broken arm and specifically said everything else looked normal. Clearly not reading the other doctors notes.

    Unfortunately due to some other health circumstances and how long it had been, they could not do anything to get her arm back in the shoulder. She permanently lost all ability to use that arm for the rest of her life. The specialist said "I never tell people this but, if I were you, I would absolutely get a lawyer."

    She did. She won. That was also a fiasco. Their lawyer wasn't very good. Followed me around for months. Presented evidence that she was totally fine with picture and videos of me. The judge was not amused. My SIL was 30 years older than me, a foot shorter and about 70 pounds less. Zero chance you could confuse us.

    Her and my brother bought a house, a car, and a truck with that money. Which got them out of poverty.

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  • [–] 15 points 11 hours ago* (2 children)

    My insurance demanded that I switch one of my medications because they had a cut deal 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 returned 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.

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    [–] 6 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    As a zebra patient… too many to list lol

    But the one that stands out is my original POTS diagnostic test. They did something called a "tilt table test". They strap you on a table like a torture film, literally head straps and everything, and then raise the table vertically. The idea is to see how well your body adapts to gravity.

    Normally I have pretty good compensations for my condition. I've learnt specific ways to stand, lean, and hold my body so that my circulation works… not well, but decently. I can get up to make toast every now and then, stuff like that.

    The table bypasses all that. Immediately I suffered extremely bad effects. I could feel all the blood draining from my brain and my body and pooling into my legs. Couldn't breathe properly, vision going white, feeling absolutely horrible. I can't accurately describe the feeling of all your blood leaving your vital organs. It felt extremely bad, I felt like I was dying. Like a cold shower on the inside, hollowness, pain.

    Worst part was, I was too weak to even ask them to cancel the test, or move to remove the bindings myself. Turns out you need blood to do stuff like that. I was completely paralyzed.

    The doctors were like "wow this is the worst POTS I've ever seen! Usually when people say they have POTS it turns out they don't, but man… hey let's show Larry" and they leave the room to go find Larry and show them the interesting POTS patient. I could barely see on the monitor my heart rate was 180bpm and my blood pressure was 80/40mmol, which is very bad. I eventually lost consciousness completely. As I passed out I accepted that I was going to die right there on the stupid table because nobody noticed the problem.

    I didn't die (obviously). I came to when I was horizontal on the table again and they were unstrapping me. No idea how long I was out for, but fuck that. Nobody told me it would be that bad. "A bit uncomfortable" my ass.

    After all that, I got my diagnosis for severe POTS after 10 years of confusing symptoms. Now I have some medicine that helps it not be so severe, so I guess it was worth it in the end?

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  • [–] 10 points 11 hours ago* (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 28 minutes ago

    I had to get that electrified acupuncture to induce labor with one of my kids (the water broke and I was 'on the clock' but labor did not start) - the needles just felt weird but getting acupuncture to INDUCE pain was a mindfuck. It did work. Baby 2 hours later.

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    [–] 14 points 12 hours ago

    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

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  • [–] 15 points 12 hours ago*

    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

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  • [–] 10 points 11 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 10 points 11 hours ago*

    Man I went into the ER after bleeding out of my asshole for weeks, eventually bad enough that I was bleeding through my pants and underwear during the work day and staining my chair. The attending made me feel like I was absolutely wasting his time, then squeezed a blood clot the size of a lemon out of my asshole and sent me home.

    I thought I was fucking dying when I went in. Then I thought I was dying when he was squeezing that fucker out. Then I thought I was dying from his withering disdain.

    I think if I ever wind up with those symptoms again I'll just wait for death instead of going in.

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  • [–] [S] 13 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    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.

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