You snooze you lose?
As pain is often considered to be subjective and dependent on individual pain threshold, describing it can be rather tricky. However, while the pain levels of a stubbed toe or cuts are rather debatable, there are certain health conditions or illnesses that are undeniably excruciating. Preventing you from performing your daily tasks, they include well-known pains such as broken bones and kidney stones, to the lesser-known, but still agony-causing, gout or trigeminal neuralgia.
Intrigued? To discover more about the most painful injuries, click on the following gallery.
Cluster headaches are seriously debilitating bursts of pain in one side of the head. They're often felt near the eyes.
Shingles is an infection of the skin and nerves, which usually affects a single area on one side of the body. The painful rash can transform into itchy blisters containing the virus.
Frozen shoulder occurs when the connective tissue enclosing the joint thickens and tightens. The cause isn't known, but it can happen after shoulder or arm injuries. It's also more common in people with diabetes.
Breaking a bone can be incredibly painful. Fractures of the ankle, hip, arm, and nose are among the most painful of all injuries.
CRPS is a form of chronic pain that usually affects an arm or a leg. Although most cases of CRPS are triggered by an injury, the resulting pain causes unexpectedly severe and long-lasting discomfort. On top of agonizing pain, affected areas can also become swollen, or undergo fluctuating changes in color or temperature.
Most heart attacks are caused when the arteries narrow and fill with fatty materials, preventing blood from flowing. The most common signs of a heart attack include chest pain, pain in the arms, neck, jaw, back, or stomach, sweating, light-headedness, shortness of breath, and nausea.
A slipped disc is when a soft cushion of tissue between the bones in your spine pushes out. Caused by twisting or lifting, most people with a slipped disc experience sudden and severe lower back pain.
SCD is a group of blood disorders, typically inherited, which affect the red blood cells. The most common type is known as sickle cell anemia. One of the most common and distressing symptoms is a sudden episode of pain, known as a pain crisis. The pain, which usually occurs in the bones and joints, can last for up to seven days.
Also known as scratched eye or scratched cornea, this eye injury causes significant discomfort. It occurs when something scratches the corneal epithelium.
Arthritis causes constant and often debilitating pain in the joints, usually in the hips, knees, wrists, or fingers.
A migraine is usually a moderate or severe headache felt as a throbbing pain on one side of the head. Migraine attacks can be frightening and may result in you having to lie still for several hours.
Ruptured eardrums are tears in the flimsy tissue that separates your ear canal from your eardrum. Not only does it hurt a lot, but it can also cause hearing loss, nausea, and dizziness.
The sciatic nerve is the longest nerve in the body, running from behind the pelvis down to the feet. Sciatica refers to the pain that is caused by injury or pressure on this nerve.
Passing a kidney stone can produce a sudden, sharp pain in the lower back, and along the side of your abdomen or in the groin. The pain can in some cases last for hours.
Appendicitis is a painful swelling of the appendix. A medical emergency, you must seek help right away to remove the appendix before it bursts.
While there isn't an actual bone that can be broken, it's possible to suffer a penile fracture. Profoundly painful, it's essentially the rupture of the tunica albuginea, the tough connective tissue that surrounds the penile shaft.
A chronic pain disorder that involves sudden, severe facial pain, TN is often described as an electric shock in the jaw, teeth, or gums. The attacks can last for a few seconds to up to two minutes.
Endometriosis is a gynecological condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other areas of the pelvic region. Severe pain is a classic symptom of endometriosis.
Gout is a common form of inflammatory arthritis that is very painful. It usually affects one joint at a time, often the big toe joint.
Acute pancreatitis is the swelling of the pancreas, which appears with a severe and sudden abdominal pain. The aching pain often gets steadily worse and can travel along your back, or below your left shoulder blade.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder that causes pain throughout the body, as well as fatigue and trouble sleeping. Scientists still don't fully understand what causes it.
Bone pain from cancer can come directly from bone cancer itself, or from bone metastasis, which is cancer that has spread to the bone from another part of the body. Breast, prostate, lung, and kidney tumors are among the most likely to spread to the bone.
A stomach ulcer is an open sore in the lining of your stomach or your small intestine. Its most common symptom is a burning or gnawing pain in the center of the abdomen.
Broken ribs are extremely painful. There's often a strong pain in your chest area, particularly when you breathe in.
A complete elbow dislocation is extremely painful and very obvious. The arm will look deformed, and it may also present an odd twist at the elbow.
Also known as a dislocated jaw, mandible dislocation occurs when some external force displaces the jaw. It can also happen if someone opens their mouth too wide.
The Achilles is the thickest tendon in the body, and when it ruptures it can cause an unbearable amount of pain. Surgery is often required to correct the ripped tendon.
Defined as any damage to your tissues caused by heat, burns are categorized by three different degrees. Third-degree burns are the worst and damage the deepest layers of the skin, including the internal tissue.
A collapsed lung occurs when air enters the area between the lung and chest wall. Extremely painful, it requires immediate care.
See also: The most painful ways to die (according to science)
Injuries and conditions known for extreme pain
From kidney stones to cracked ribs
HEALTH Injury
As pain is often considered to be subjective and dependent on individual pain threshold, describing it can be rather tricky. However, while the pain levels of a stubbed toe or cuts are rather debatable, there are certain health conditions or illnesses that are undeniably excruciating. Preventing you from performing your daily tasks, they include well-known pains such as broken bones and kidney stones, to the lesser-known, but still agony-causing, gout or trigeminal neuralgia.
Intrigued? To discover more about the most painful injuries, click on the following gallery.