My sister was in labor for 20 hours and described it as “a little uncomfortable” - I’ve seen her in serious pain that she described like this so I knew. I insisted she go in, the baby was born about an hour later.

Went to a physiotherapist cause I threw my neck out (kind of a chronic issue, used to happen a lot). He's doing this one manipulation on me and asks "....does that hurt?" "no, why?" His eyes kinda bug out for a second and he says "Most people would be screaming..." Hypermobility. It's a superpower and a curse.

Both my father and myself have really high pain tolerance. My father had a finger mostly severed during a logging accident after he hit a metal spike hammered into a tree anti-logging activist had put into it. Doctors even actually managed to save the finger. And for me; well I stopped taking pain meds 2 days after major brain surgery. I didn't really know this was that odd when I mentioned it to my doctor while he was stitching shut one of the drainage holes they have to put in during neurosurgery.

Heart attacks are always described as massive because the ones that aren't don't get talked about as much. They do happen though.

Some of these sounds more like shock than anything. I once hit my head in the pool. Was literally bleeding so much that I apparently looked like a murder victim. I was a bit confused and it did feel a bit uncomftable but no pain despite the fact the cut went to my skull. Shock is a hell of a drug.

Reverse case: When my dad had a work accident and broke some ribs and damaged his spine, they wanted him to "roll over" inside the machine, so they could scan the other side. With no painkillers, he was already holding in his screams, just trying to stay still for the scan. Same place that couldn't find anything wrong for 3 months before declaring he had end stage cancer and 2 weeks to live, stomach GONE and cancer long spread to everything else in there. They also didn't pick up the emergency call and called back the next day to ask if anything happened. Yeah, he died that night. I know if I ever have a car crash, I have to run off into the woods and perform first aid on myself, because these guys will turn me into minced meat. If they actually show up, that is.

I can relate to these stories a bit. I've always had an issue with this one ankle rolling on me while I'm walking, usually down stairs. I'm always just like "Ouch. Sprained again." whenever it'd happen. Well my last fall made me realize that maybe not all of them were sprains. I was at work as a self checkout attendant. I had just got done helping a customer on one of the machines and was walking back when my ankle rolled and I fell. It was 4th of July weekend so no one noticed me fall. I pushed myself back up and hopped back to my station where I had a phone for if we needed an override. I called my supervisor stating that I had just twisted my ankle and needed a chair and some ice for it. Maybe an hour later, the pain didn't decrease at all so I asked to go home, figuring I needed to better elevate it. Called my mom to get me, hopped to the breakroom to get my stuff from my locker, hopped out front to get in my mom's car, and went home. All the while being in mild to moderate at best pain. Once home I sat on the couch and took my shoe off and that's when my mom was like "That's not sprained. That's definitely broken." I guess she could tell from the bruising or swelling or something. We drove back to my work where we had to have an incident report done since I was at work when it happened before going to the hospital. Turns out when my ankle rolled it caused a tendon tear and avulsion fracture. I was in a walking boot for a while. Perhaps I overestimated how painful a broken bone actually is, I was always told that if I broke something I'd be screaming. Or perhaps I just have a higher tolerance than I thought.

My grandpa was a farmer. He was milling the cows one day and fell. He was 88. A few weeks later he had a routine doc appointment and said his leg hurt. Gets sent for an x-ray and returns home. A hour or so later his doc calls him. Doc says he just got yelled at by the ER chief for sending an 88;year old home with a broken hip Hairline fracture that had already started to heal

Ayo he used Doctor Mike in the thumbnail and I was the only one who noticed? Best medical youtuber I have ever watched! :D Edit1: Damn 128 likes and 28 replies in a row?! New record! :D

I have multiple tattoos and yet have a needle phobia. Like panic attacks, throwing up, sobbing, passing out phobia. To me, a tattoo is just in the skin but an iv or shot is much deeper and that scares me. It’s something going in my body (or coming out) and it’s past the skin barrier

My dad when he broke his elbow. It was a clean break and he needed screws to hold it while it healed. They doubted it at the hospital because he didn’t show any pain. His pain tolerance was insane.

For me it's the thin needles. When I got my piercings, the needles are thicker and for some reason not as scary. I got plenty of tattoos and there's been no issues there either. When it comes to shots and having blood drawn, I usually look away and tell them not to say anything but just do it. It hurts more if I know it's coming.

I know a lot of farmers…and quiet a few of them are missing a finger or 2. One of them, his hand is basically a mitten, all the fingers fused together…I’ve heard 2 versions of the story, one involving a lot of beer and an M80, the other trying to clear out a bailer. They’re cut from a different kind of cloth, hard as woodpecker lips. Personally, I’ve lost the same thumbnail twice helping out on a farm…once smashed it between about a 40 pound log and the edge of a wood stove, and once was trying to drill out the holes in plumbers tape when the drill bit bound up, whipped the tape around, and put a nice deep gash in the tip of my thumb and ripped the nail clean out…that one resulted in a few stitches…Ill tell you what, I consider myself to have a pretty strong constitution, but there’s something about watching a doctor lay stitches in your nail bed that just ain’t right.

My grandmother has unfortunately passed away, but the events leading to her passing still baffle me to this day. Grandma was taken by stage 4 lung cancer (she was a perpetual smoker of 50+ years, also the catalyst for me quitting after 15 years) but she was such a bad b**** she lived with it untreated for months until she randomly passed out during a family outing, it was a rapid decline and two weeks later she was gone, but the fact that she was able to live with stage 4 lung cancer for several months without anyone figuring it out just blows my mind. *I don't mention this to garner sympathy, just to add to the consensus that old folks are some seriously tough mofos*

Paramedic here, responded to a nursing home for a dislodged foley catheter. Normally that would involve the inflatable bulb at the end of the tube that holds it in place deflates for one reason or another and the device slips out. When we get to the scene the male patient is in bed and there is a trail of blood tracing how the incident might have happened leading to the dislodged catheter tube, with the bulb STILL INFLATED! While internally screaming I ask the gentleman to rate his pain on a scale of 1-10. His response? A confused "I'm not in any pain." *internal screaming INTENSIFIES!!!*

Ive had hundreds of joint dislocations due to a rare genetic disease and they stopped hurting a long time ago when it comes to resetting it.

My dad had a band gig one night and during his set he started having chest pains. Didn’t say anything and continued playing for the rest of the evening. When the show was over he quietly asked his band mate to give him a ride to the ER. Turns out he suffered a pretty bad heart attack and had something called The Widow Maker and his heart somehow created it’s own bypass that was keeping him alive. He was airlifted to Memphis and had double bypass surgery. Still kicking and still rocking to this day 🤘🏻🤘🏻 The doctor says it’s nothing short of a miracle that he survived.

(I work as as a first responder)Once there was this boy, probably about 13 or so, who had broken his arm, I didnt realize how bad until i had walked over and seen it, his hand was a good 2-3 behind where it was supposed to be and the bones of his radius and ulna were sticking out of the front of his forearm. He was rollerblading, and broke it, he said he didnt hit his head (thank God). and he was talking to me calmly, all he asked me was for some water. He was obviously in shock, though a lot of people i see who are in shock dont talk very calm they instead scream, or cry because they are confused and dont feel anything.

Thing with opioids in hospitals is I've specifically told doctors ahead of time that I was an addict with other substances and didn't want to be prescribed opioids because of the risk and they would acknowledge it and then prescribe me one anyway. Luckily I know psychopharmacology probably better than most er docs and was like no I don't want that I told you that but the fact that even after asking they tried to slip one by is appalling

My dad overlooked a nail in a board he was running through a table saw. When the blade hit that nail it caused the board to jump and dad laid his arm into the blade. Dad wrapped his arm up with greasy shop rags and electrical tape. He said his wrist was shooting blood like a lawn sprinkler and was mostly annoyed because he had to clean the blood off his work area, which he did before driving himself to the hospital.

I had an especially high pain tolerance growing up. In 6th or 7th grade I was catching a football in my front yard on an early Saturday afternoon, but caught it wrong (it hit my non-dominate pinkie). My parents had me ice it and it felt fine Monday night I was horsing around during swim practice and a teammate hit my finger and I was instantly in extreme pain. After school on Tuesday my mom took me to the doctor. He squeezed my pinkie asking if it hurt. I said "not really." He had x-rays taken just in case but felt it was probably nothing. When he got them back he was at the viewing light around the corner and we heard him exclaim "He actually broke that thing!" It was a nice spiral fracture in my middle knuckle. I also swam into a teammate in warmups before a high school water polo game and his goggles sliced my forehead open. I didn't know that I had an injury until someone yelled "Ben, your bleeding!" I got about 5 staples in my head for that (the worst part was removing the adhesive bandages that were wrapped my head - my hair - and under my chin to the top of my head which included my nice thick beard) Meanwhile, my great grandma was even tougher than me. She was in a car accident and was okay. The next few days she was understandably a bit sore so she took the recommend dose of Aspirin for 7 days and then stopped. She then flew from Bakersfield, CA to Huston, Texas and met one of my great aunts. They then proceeded to drive back to Central California in a motorhome. When they returned my great grandma was taken a regular doctor's appointment and when e heard she had been in a car accident ordered x-rays. They showed that she had broken her hip, but were practically healed already! He said that the walking in and out of the motorhome probably helped heal it faster.

My pain tolerance looks nonexistent. Turns out I often feel way more pain than is normal and my body doesn’t respond because I’m in some degree of pain so constantly that I literally didn’t believe people my age don’t have this kind of pain until I was on extremely potent painkillers in the hospital and suddenly my sheets stopped feeling all prickly like they always do.

I've had several surgeries and only ever needed real pain meds on one of them, and for that only a couple of days. The others just didn't really hurt or were only uncomfortable. I've also been told by my neurologist, when he did a nerve conductivity study, that I had a very high pain tolerance because the needles and electricity didn't bother me at all. All of which is odd because I ALSO have fibromyalgia and if you poke me in certain areas of my body with a finger (my back or sides), I'll scream from the pain. And my neck and shoulder pain was so bad that I had to get a nerve block put in. So none of it makes any sense at all to me. I have no idea if I have a low or high pain tolerance and just feel what I feel in the given situation.

Not a doctor but the patient. Once went to the dentist to get a root canal. The cap for my tooth had not yet come in so the dentist drills out the nerves and puts in some temporary stuff that only lasts 2 days or so. This happened on a Friday. Next morning I go run a 5K. I felt totally normal though I had randomly threw up though this is just a normal thing for me as well. When I go into the dentist to get the crown on, he looks into the drilled spot again and noticed that I had a mutation and had an extra nerve ending that had been exposed the whole weekend. I got a lot of “how did you run a 5K with this?” And “how are you not in so much pain?” I just shrugged and they fixed the issue.

My grandfather is a carpenter, and one time his foot got crushed by a bulldozer and he needed pins in his heel to keep it together. Right when it happened, he didint ask the person operating the bulldozer (his brother) to take him to the emergency room because he didint want to disrupt his work

I was in labor with my first baby, and the doctor said if they knew I was going to be like this they would have filmed it for medical students. I never yelled, never cussed at my husband like the other wives were doing in the other rooms, never shed a tear. When I was in labor with my second baby, my contractions were literally "off the charts". The doctor walked in while I was going through a contraction while napping. After seeing the contraction on the machine, he gently touched my foot to wake me up and said, "Don't even TELL me you're SLEEPING through these!" I said, "I'm tired!". Good times!

A friend of mine has a real high pain tolerance. She had both of the lower part of her legs blown off, a metal rod go through her side in one lung out and around her heart through the other lung out her back, and a metal shrapnel piece embedded in her spine and protrude through her body, in an IED explosion in Vietnam. She also had an insanely long labour with her first (86 hours I think she said). She always says it wasn’t that bad and a buddy had it worse. Dude was brought in by his buddies to the medical tent (Vietnam war) and had most of his body wrapped in as much bandages and plant leaves as could be found. He was chatting away with her and the two nurses, would talk for two seconds then pass out and come back about two minutes later to repeat the process. Dude was covered in second and third degree burns from head to toe and had so many infections and legions there was no way in hell that he was surviving. Made a full recovery, though they did have to amputate an arm and a leg that had gotten infested with maggots that ate the bones clean. Don’t ask about the smell, she told it once and that was it. Story 9 was funny. People do have minor heart attacks but massive ones do seem to be more common. Same friend described above has had 6 heart attacks and three strokes, 4 massive heart attacks and 2 minor ones. She always jokes that if war, domestic violence and organ failure hasn’t killed her, old age sure as hell ain’t. Story 19 kinda sounds like me. I fell down stone steps at home when I was like 2 and didn’t make a sound so my parents rightly freaked out when they saw my head gashed open. I also slipped getting out the shower with one foot in and one foot out. Got a nasty bruise on my foot (surprised I didn’t rebreak that ankle). Pain wasn’t that bad. People seem to be able to interpret pain differently depending on what’s hurting. Each pain is different.

Before my mum died of generalised cancer, she had metastasis in her bones and it shattered one of her vertebrae. The only "pain medication" she took for that was CBD and it's the only painrelief she used for her cancer up until her death. Pretty sick (pun intended) pain tolerance if you ask me.

I severely broke my finger once. I was having a my finger in a cast and splint for over a year total. At first I didn't notice it was broken only that it hurt a little when I moved it. Doctors had no clue why I was not freaking out over pain. Lol to this day I am highly pain tolerant.

I once received a hairline fracture to one of my fingers in class (weight training class, a few of us were throwing around a 15 pound medicine ball and it hit my fingertip), I didn't realize until hours later when I was sitting in front of the tv and my little brother asked what was wrong with it, looked down and saw that it had swollen so much that there was barely any give to the skin (and I know that because that's all I was doing in the waiting room of the ER, lightly squeezing it

Not a doctor but I walked around on a broken foot for almost a full day with no pain, I just couldn't walk properly and it was a weird numb feeling

My granny has fallen out of 2 cars in her lifetime. The first time was in the late 1930’s. They didn’t have seatbelts and doors barely had latches. She fell out and broke her elbow. Well, it healed badly, so she couldn’t straighten her arm. The drs made her dangle her arm off the table and hold a bucket full of sand to stretch her tendons out. The second time, was the early 1950s. My grandpa turned a corner and the door malfunctioned, no seat belts, and she fell out into traffic. She popped back up and got back into the car and told my grandpa to keep going, because she was embarrassed. She also walked on a broken foot for 2 years. She is a tough lady. About to turn 90 later this month, and still going. She has colon cancer, but told the drs she didn’t want treatment. She had a huge mass removed from her colon and she’s just living her life.

Drove myself to the ER while passing a kidney stone, brother got cut in half, and was just like 'oh, thats not good' and gave a thumbs up when he got out of the ambulance at the hospital, only thing holding him together was his spine, cut through his sternum, 4 ribs, partially both lungs, and bruised his heart, yes he is still alive

In first class, I had a car accident and had inner bleeding and had to stay overnight. My worst memory was not being able to sleep because a thing I was connected to Beeped every 5 minutes. In second grade I broke my leg in a bus accident and my mother couldn’t get out of work. So I just attended school like always. The worst thing? We made the class photo on that day and my foot is in a weird ankle. Is that high pain tolerance? For me, it was a challenge. How do I walk through school? (But more like a fun challenge. Also, the children and teachers all didn’t really mind or wonder why I was still there)

with the thumb, super glue isnt the worst idea considering it was invented to close lacerations on the fly in combat

I lived with a very painful undiagnosed disability for almost 20 years so severe chronic pain is normal. in high school, just from walking, I broke my foot in multiple places. I kept walking on it until I couldn't bear weight [thinking it would go away] and went to the hospital. I had so many fractures the radiologist and podiatrist couldn't count them, and I walked with those fractures so long I had free floating bone fragments in my foot too. this happened THREE more times after that.... I don't really walk anymore and am now on palliative care

One of my friends have an extremedy high pain tolerance. Once we were at camp and doing activities. We were doing the rock climbing wall and he somehow fell off and onto a table underneath him. the wood table split in half and some bits of wood had jammed into his leg. He was still for a moment, and then we were like "oh my gosh are you ok?" And then he went " yeah but I think I sprained my wrist. Then we talked for a while and he didn't seem like the was in any pain at all and when we asked him if it hurts he said "oh not much" We called ambulance and a few days later found out that he had to have a minor surgery to remove some stuff from his leg and his arm and let was broken and he also broke a rib. he was literally lying on the bed and was chatting to us like nothing happened when we visited him.

Immunity to painkillers and sedatives can be innate. I had a surgery when i was 13 and they had to give me 4 times the dose (never drunk or used any drugs at the time) but i still fetl almost everything. Now i am clinically immune to opiates and benzodiazepines...

I had a root canal done and then redone ( yes it had to be redone because it wasn't done properlythe first time), both times the local anesthetic did not numb it at all when they got to the deeper part of the tooth. Both of the times I said nothing about it evertho my dentist told me to tell him when it hurt immediately because I preferred that pain over the feeling of a needle in my gums. I don't have a fear of needles, am completely fine with flu shots etc, but the feeling of a needle in my gums is horrible. Some goes for when I had one of my wisdom teeth removed, the upper left, felt everything once they were halfway through the procedure and I just didn't say a thing. I hate the feeling of having anesthetics injected into my gums... EDIT: spelling

In 2008 I was on a frac crew. We was rigging down and I was guiding down a 1200lb downjoint from a wellhead. Crane operator dropped the cable on me. 1200lbs sandwiched my hands between another pipe. I could see my bone on my middle finger. Got it cleaned and taped up and went back to work. About 5yrs ago, I was mowing. A piece of wire was on the ground beside the mower. So I grabbed it. It was longer than I thought and it was under the mower as well. The wire hit the still spinning blade and broke the little finger. Got it cleaned up, got a ass chewing from the wife and she stopped me from finishing mowing that day. Last year had a heart attack. I waited 5hrs before mentioning it to my wife. I knew something was wrong but the pain wasn't barely noticeable. I've had rheumatoid flares worse than that. On the way to the hospital, my wife was cussing me up one side and down the other for waiting so long. Worst pain I've been in was when I had lyme disease. Last month I had the flu and that triggered a severe rheumatoid flare. Still nothing compared to lyme.

My grandfather died because he was almost insensible to the abdomen pains he had felt for months. His physician underestimated them too because the patience himself treated them like the normal generic little pains of an aging farmer. When the pain suddenly broke out and brought him to the hospital, the doctors who found the terminal illness that took him one month later couldn't believe he hadn't felt much pain all those months (he was "supposed" to scream in pain much earlier and go to the hospital when it was still treatable). This was in the '80s btw.

I have a pretty high pain tolerance myself. A couple examples 1) Having cavities filled by my dentist: starting at around 11 I decided to speak up about how much I hated the novocaine shots and asked him to just do the filling without anything. I would just squeeze the arm of the chair when it hurt but came through with no problems or complaints. My dentist was always amazed and said he couldn’t have done that in my position. 2) childbirth: I had apparently begun going into labor around 10:45 that night just before my husband left for work, I continued on until around 3:15am convinced it was false labor as it didn’t match the pain pattern the booklet said should be for actual labor. Finally I ended up with a small amount of blood so called my doctor who told me to go on in to the ER and that they likely wouldn’t keep me. On arrival at the ER all was pretty calm until the nurse looked and said I was fully dilated and ready to have the baby NOW. My son was born just after 5am with no pain killers. Afterwords the nurses kept asking about my pain levels and I was typically around maybe a 4 (I have constant pain so any normal day for me is a 2-3) and finally I did let them give me a single Tylenol just to make the nurse happy as she was just convinced that I had to be in so much pain.

Former opiate addict here: I've been shot in my left thigh and refused pain medication. Crushed my foot (Turned black and blue) and broke a bone (obviously displaced bone) and didn't bother going to the doctor. It healed incorrectly and now causes me a bit of pain if I walk too much. Once you're a recovering addict you tend to stay away from doctors and the ER because they often treat you like an active addict even if you tell them you don't want narcotic pain medication. It's degrading and humiliating to go through all the withdrawals to get off opiates, then 5 year later still get treated like an active addict.

My mom has a high pain tolerance. She's been immobile for almost 5 yrs and staying in our den. She hates not being able to do normal things, but she's more turned off to the idea of doing physical therapy and has relied solely on a diet-based strategy to try and get well again. For the last several months, she's been up and around the house just once a week. I wish she had a lower pain tolerance. If she did (and was much more motivated to get better), she'd be walking around right now. She's 71, but it feels like I'm taking care of a 91 yr old.

My neighbor was a mix of nurse, doctor, witch doctor, and firearm enthusiasts. Had to get a surgery on a shattered leg. She doesn't like the idea of being drugged to sleep, so she just took pain meds and watched the surgery. Chatted with the doctor on how it felt during the surgery. Afterwards the doc said he'll never let the patient stay awake

To the person with the expired Vicodin, I have heard of people with the same problem and have kept the expired pain meds and taken them anyway. And they still work. I didn’t worry about it myself. If it’s expired, I take it if I have to.

I wish I had a really good pain tolerance.

My sister's friend once injured herself playing soccer and thought it was nothing. A few weeks later her ankle really begins to hurt so she goes to the ER and finds out that she tore her ACL and had to get immediate surgery. It was surprising since she is still recovering now months after the injury, yet she barely felt any pain in the period between when she got the injury and when she discovered how serious it was.

My grandfather was moving round haybales with a forklift attachment on a tractor. He lifted too high, flipped the tractor over backward and the haybale landed on top of him breaking his back. He walked home from the field. I swear that man was built different.

Was watching a documentary about life in the ER. A guy came in who had been fighting with his cousin at the golf course. When the docs saw him they almost lost it. He had 1/2 the golf club stuck in his head. They weren’t sure what to use to get it out. The maintenance guys weren’t to thrilled to be asked if they had anything that would get the club out of his head. I believe they got a neurosurgeon to take care of him.

There's a lady that comes into the pharmacy I work at, her husband has pretty advanced parkinsons based on the meds I have to fill for him and she does so much to help him it's quite beautiful. She told me after a couple months on a sore ankle she finally got it checked out and it was fractured.... she'd been walking on this fractured ankle for months.

To be fair to farmers, the job needs to get done whether you're hurt or not so might as well get it done before it causes more jobs

I recently broke my arm by falling down the stairs. It hurt but I didn't think anything of it as it felt like a bruise. I then went to work as though nothing happened, I should mention that my job is in construction. Around lunch my arm was really swollen and 1 of my work colleges drove my to the hospital and that's when I found out that I'd broken my arm when falling down the stairs that morning.

I tore my ACL climbing up on a flat bed trailer for Senior Homecoming when I 18 in 2003. At the end of the parade, everyone jumped off and I knew something wasn't right, even though my knee just kind of ached. So I slowly squatted down to get off the trailer and intense pain shot through my knee. Some teachers helped me down and over to a bench. The football coach was sure it was my ACL. My mom wanted to take me to the hospital, but I wanted to stay for the pep rally. So we did, and then we went to my family doctor. He took a look at my knee and said, "There's no way you tore your ACL. You wouldn't be able to walk on it. It's too painful." So he told me to get a knee brace from the drug store and take some pain pills. I went back to school the next day, no crutches or anything. The first few weeks I had to leave classes early to make it to the next ones. I walked on it the whole rest of the year. I performed in a musical. And I walked the stage at graduation. That summer, my mom took me to an orthopedic surgeon. I showed his nurse how I could dislocate my knee joint. She had never seen something like that and went and brought him into the room so I could show him. He ordered MRIs right away. A few days later I came back. "I don't know how you're walking. You have no ACL left." I had to have an ACL replacement and be on crutches for weeks. I'm 37 now and have arthritis in that knee.

One time when I was a kid I was riding my bike and the chain jumped to a different heat causing me to fall onto some gravel. When my parents were pouring peroxide on it and removing large pieces they said something along the line lines of “I’m sorry this is going to hurt” or something like that. I felt nothing and was laughing at their over reactions. It turned out that to not be serious but the area affected is still a slightly different shade than the skin around it

2:52 Can confirm. Broke my leg recently close to the hip and during most of the time after it happened (because we didn't originally suspect anything to be broken, so I stayed at home and my parents didn't take me to the ER) I just laid around and watched TV because if I tried to walk, it hurt so bad. I remember trying to walk across the house at one point and just taking any opportunity to sit down because it hurt so much. It was hard to try to get comfortable in bed because when I moved my leg it hurt. I like telling this story. Probably because it happened super recently (my leg is still healing, in fact. It hasn't even been a week since it happened) and in this short time it feels like a lot has happened. I experienced a lot of firsts in those days

I'm a housekeeper for an elderly lady, she's a 2-time cancer survivor with RA and recently had a pinched nerve sending shooting pain down her leg, but she didn't know that until she went to the hospital three days after it started--she wouldn't go to the ER, she wanted to go to her regular doctor. Problem is she can't drive, so she had to wait for someone to take her. She thought she had a fractured hip and was TERRIFIED of that scenario. Later she told me that when you're older, it's hard to go to the hospital because even before covid nurses were always overworked, and it's understandable that they can't get to everyone, but it doesn't make it any easier. Also when you're like her and live in a home tailored to your needs, where you can get up and go to the bathroom by yourself, get yourself a glass of water etc, it's hard to go to the hospital where you're probably going to be uncomfortable, alone, and need to wait for help every time you have to go to the bathroom. Every time I heard a story about an older person "not wanting to make a fuss" I thought of that. Still didn't stop me from vowing to myself that if I'm 80 and in so much pain that I'm weeping every time I move, I'm calling an ambulance.

I think sometimes when a bone is broken the brain ignores the pain for a little while. I broke my arm once and said EXACTLY the same thing as the judo kid who broke his leg. I proceeded to calmly for the next hour or so, by which time I was at the medical center at the university campus. They asked me to call friends to see if someone could give me a ride to the hospital and the pain slowly started to kick in. At some point a nurse came to check on me and I was holding the phone, unable to talk and with tears pouring down my face from agony. "Did anyone give you anything for the pain?" I could only shake my head. She quickly gave me a shot of Perc and I didn't feel a thing after that.

I'm known for getting into fights at school, but parents night of 7th grade one dude (who had been a d*** for years) decided to roast my friend about his dead dad and I lost it. He dislocates my shoulder right as his parents walk in, and freezes, saying sorry over and over again. I glare at him, and pop my shoulder back into socket. His mom, who was a nurse, has her mouth wide open, and he gets expelled when the principle walks in next. Legendary

This happened to me. I have lived with chronic pain for so long now I think it has rewired my brain to pain. I was walking my 230# mastiff at the park, he got excited when he started playing with his friend and slammed into my leg. He broke my leg in 3 places. The EMTs were laughing at me calling me a tough broad because I wasn’t reacting to anything they were doing. I was busy on my phone trying to get my husband down there to get the dog. Then other days clothes touching me will make me have a meltdown.

That stuff about farmers is absolutely true. I spent half the year on my grandparents farm growing up, and my biodad was raised working on it. The farm was half an hour from the closest town, and two hours from the nearest big box store or actual hospital. Biodad used to go on about how "soft" my siblings and I were from living in the city. He would proudly tell us about the time he had accidentally impaled his foot on a broken branch jumping into the water hole as a child, and just walked home, washed it out with running alcohol, and had his mom stitch and bandage it up for him. I remember my sister breaking her arm when we were in elementary school. She was scolded for crying as my dad wrapped her arm up against a section of two-by-four from the backyard fence, then drove her to the local hospital himself. Didn't even go in through the ER entrance. It wasn't an emergency as far as he was concerned, because she wasn't bleeding to death. As for me, I have chronic pain, and I never go by the "0 to 10" pain scale because of how subjective it is. A small child would probably rate a skinned knee at 9 or 10, because it's literally the most painful thing that they've ever experienced in their entire life; the worst pain they could imagine would be proportional to that worst experience. Meanwhile, most adults would barely rate that as a 1. So instead, I rate my pain on a scale of ignorable to "please take a chainsaw and chop off my leg, because it couldn't be worse than how said leg is feeling right now." People usually bluescreen for minute to process it, but I find it more effective to accurately communicate what I consider a 5 to be.

When my dad was little, space exploration began and was popular. My dad became obsessed with rockets and at age 9, tried to build one. His attempt ended in blowing up his hand, tearing his hand to shreds and even exposing bone. He was scared of his mom finding out, so he went into the house and called the operator to call an ambulance. When the first responders showed up, his mom was explaining that there must have been a mistake, until my dad walked out of the house with his mangled hand.

My dad took a bad spill while body surfing several years ago. We got him out of the surf and were waiting for the ambulance to show up. He says, "I'm fine. Probably just a broken arm. My fingers feel a little tingly." Well, we get to the ER. The doctors take him in, do x-rays, yadda yadda. Turns out, he did not break his arm. He broke HIS NECK!. Amazingly, aside from some numbness in his right hand, he didn't have any paraplegia. He was literally walking around his hospital room four days later, to the amazement of all the nurses. My father also lived with a rare form of liver cancer for over thirty years. He would often take the bare minimum amount of pain killers and stop taking them as soon as possible, because he didn't like the feeling of his head being cloudy. Sadly, he passed away in 2021, but he was a legend.

My wife did this to her orthopedist. She'd had ankle issues for years so she was getting yearly checkups. One year we walked in and he took a new xray on her ankle like usual. The look on his face was utter shock when he pulled up the image. He looked at her and asked if she was having any pain. She said she wasn't. He had a total look of disbelief and said she shouldn't be able to walk right now. Turned out part of the joint collapsed and she had 6 fractures. The only symptom she had was swelling which she had for years anyway. She had to have a partial fusion to repair it. Turned out she wasn't really a badass, but had unknown nerve damage as well and actually couldn't feel it. The only pain she felt during recovery was her skin pulling from the stitches.

Worked with a tractor driver who had the most gruesome spiral scar from his elbow to his shoulder, once we got to know him, we asked what happened and he told us the story of how his arm nearly got ripped off from some sort of potato harvesting machine. There was a type of corkscrew mechanism he got it caught in.

My brother on his ninth birthday was running at the walls in the upstairs of our house. He then would bounce off them with his forearms. After a bit he went quiet and then called down to my mom saying he thought he broke his arm. Her response was "you did not, get down here." He calmly walked down. About two inches back from his wrist his bones had broken and were about five degrees off set. Mom freak out and the neighbor heard her yelling that he broke his arm. Luckily he was a Corp medic and was able to calm my mom down and get my brother off to the hospital. The whole time my brother is as calm as a cucumber.

The last one reminded me of when i was younger I didn't like needles so when i was at the dentist they had to remove two teeth I didn't want them to inject the numbing medicine so they did it raw it had me dying inside after that i was like yeah Imma need that rq

gave myself a hernia throwing a log over a fence when I was 16, felt a pop as I threw it, then i hit the ground cussing out the existence of everyone and everything for about 5 minutes then back up and at er. felt pain in my "boys" and lower stomach constantly for 2 and a half years and it was only when I missed a day of work because of the pain I decided to talk to a doctor. turned out I needed surgery and my doctors couldn't for the life of them understand how I just continued my life like normal for that long.

When I was a kid, I was pressed into service at a calf branding. One of the adults roped a 650ish lb bull calf, and when it hit the end of the rope, his thumb was between the rope and the saddle horn. It popped his thumb right off at the first knuckle. After he and his partner had processed the calf He rode over to the branding fire, picked up a hot iron, and cauterized the thumb climbed back on his horse and finished out the days work. I'm still trying to work up that kind of toughness.

The guy in the thumbnail is Doctor Mike, he's a really great KZfaqr :-) Just wanted to write this.

Eu tive um corte profundo na mão, profundo o suficiente pra cortar o meu tendão e nervo do polegar Os paramédicos ficaram esperando eu desmaiar enquanto eu simplesmente conversava com eles enquanto aplicava pressão por cima do corte Inexplicavelmente, eu sou o único com sangue frio na minha família, meus pais literalmente desmaiam se verem cortes, enquanto eu encarei e abri o corte pra ter certeza se eu só cortei a carne ou aquilo branco era o meu osso

I had a skull fracture last year and I was totally chill about it same with almost cutting my finger off on accident in the skatepark just three months after.

I know a girl who had an insane story. She was at a gym and put her hand on one of those weight plate stacks (the ones in the machines) without realising that someone was using it. The person using the machine lost grip of the bar or whatever it was, and the weights (around 80 kg) slammed into her hand. She yelled at him for "being too rough with the equipment," yanked her hand out (this caused a finger to get almost completely pulverised), and proceeded to call a cab (or taxi). She came back to the same gym a while later (more than two months) and said, "Surgery is boring." She was not smart.

I've always had a huge pain tolerance and it was even more so as a child. Several examples: Our front porch was old wood and I liked to be barefoot, but since I never knew when I had splinters, it'd get to the point where I'd look like I had a limp but wouldn't really feel anything so at that point my mom would have to sit me down and spend an hour or so pulling splinters out with a needle. We had a dirt hill going up to a neighbor kids house and I'd regularly slide down it. Once midday I did that and later that night at bath time my mom discovered I'd sliced myself open on something, a large flap of skin hanging off, filled with dirt and caked on blood. At that point it was too late to get stitches, so I still have that scar on my thighs. My pinky toe nails are not normal looking and grow up, rather than along the nail. After a point they'd annoy me so I'd rip them out so they could start growing anew. I tried to jump a curb on my bike that was too high, and again, barefooted like an idiot, so my big toe hit the curb and off went my big toe nail. I still didn't put shoes on but I put a bandaid over it. I was often sick in the way of vomiting as a kid so one of my front teeth ended up being eroded in the back and needed a root canal. The feeling of having the needle pushed into my jaw felt weird so I told them to do it without numbing me, they did, expecting me to stop them before they got too far. I didn't. I also tended to fall asleep during dentist appointments, even when cavities were drilled. Now I have back, knee and hip issues and I can't tell if I'd be in more pain if I were someone else, or if I'm in less pain but Feel like it hurts more because this is the first "pain" I'm feeling, since it seems that most of my tolerance is for pain at surface level and stuff that's inside doesn't count.

As a labor and delivery nurse, I saw a wide range of pain tolerance to intolerance. A 20 something mother came in claiming she was in labor. I placed my 2 fingers on her wrist to take a pulse. She let out a scream that brought 3 other nurses running to the room. When I asked her why she screamed she said that my placing my finger on her wrist, "hurt really bad!" L&D department has a lot of crying and moaning. For 3 nurses to come running this was a scream like she just had a monster cut off her arm. I don't even have long nails. Thankfully she was not in labor and was sent home. Even better, I was not there when she did come in with active labor. I heard it was a total s**t storm.

I thought this was going to be a Doctor Mike video! That tag threw me off! Lol

People always says breaking a clavicle hurts like hell. My younger brother broke his clavicle a few years ago. He was 7 years, almost 8, and we didn't know anything until he turned 8 and had a routine check. The doctor touched something weird and said "well we're getting some X rays done, I think he has an extra bone". Turns out he had broken his clavicle about a month before and he didn't realise. He didn't even remember having been hit by anything and we couldn't figure out how did he break it. It was already halfway healing, but not in the proper place and they tried fixing it with a compression bandage but it didn't work. They said surgery wasn't necessary unless he had trouble with it, so it's been almost 4 years and we can still touch the clavicle that healed in a strange position, and makes a bulk (sorry for any mistakes, not a native English speaker)

Ha, my dad drove himself to the hospital after a heart attack too. Then my sis was telling me he once impaled his hand through and through with a screwdriver, yanked it out, and drove himself then too. Apparently, I was on stick shift in the truck. I don’t remember, so I must have been pretty small. She knew it was painful, because he was using his off hand to drink his beer.

I went to the doctor once with what felt like a pretty horrible sore throat. He looked down my throat and I could see the shock in his eyes. I was as if I had canker sores coating my throat. He actually asked me if I was in much pain? He said "I am going to give you a shot but it's not going to make you feel much better for a few days." He was apologetic.

I had a teacher once, the man was incredibly lumpen - tall, heavily built with hands the size of bear paws. One day while doing some work at home on a ladder, he slipped and rammed a wooden peg into his leg through his foot. Apparently all he did was to pull it out and put a bandaid over the wound. This was on a friday. He went to school on monday and all he did was to limp a bit. It wasn't until he told another teacher, who was also a first aid instructor and had some paramedic training, that he went to the hospital. Or better, the other teacher had to talk at him for about half an hour. Good thing he finally went, because the would had already started to get infected. He healed up perfectly fine, no lasting damage. Then again, I once saw the man get struck by 230V from an electric outlet and he just shrugged it off.

My (then 17 yr old) son had mild back and side pain for several months.The doctor continued to dismiss it, saying it was gas or constipation. I finally insisted there be some kind of x-ray or something. Turns out he had what turned out to be a 2.9 centimeter kidney stone. It was too big for lithotripsy. They had to cut his back open to remove it. The urologist was stunned that he was only in mild pain.

I had an attack of kidney stone. It was so painful that it raised my pain tolerance. This made my dentist wondering because I did not react to anything she did.

Story 23 - I am a Cancer survivor. Discovered I had Ovarian Cancer by accident in an ER for what I thought was probably trapped gas which gets bad sometimes due to intestine surgeries I'd had which makes it sometimes easy for that to happen. Turns out my "bad gas that won't go away" was an 11in. tumor which wasn't found somehow by my regular medical providers and had ruptured a little so the tumor material had leaked a little into my abdomen. Spent about 3 days in the ER in a state I'd been in less than 24 hours then flew back to my home state for open abdominal surgery. After the initial rupture (after about the first day) for me the pain wasn't major only maybe a 5 on the pain scale but I never really understood those because I don't experience pain that way exactly - so it was very bizarre for me to watch medical professionals tip toe around the issue, I got a lot of worried looks and sad smiles - it was the weirdest experience lol. The reduced pain is most likely either because I am Autistic and I have Fibromyalgia so I'm in pain daily anyway and generally don't react at all. I have had burns bordering on 3rd degree and showed no reaction. The way I perceive pain isn't an ow or panic response more like my spidey senses say something is different but it's not measurable the way the measure at hospitals. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ETA: In relation to story 23 not that it's me to be clear lol

My mom lives in near constant pain of varying levels, migranes, hip problems knee surgeries, Recently we found out she'd had broken bones in her foot for over a month and hadn't noticed because she was so used to just pain in general. She has a high tolerance and tries not to do many painkillers. Had to have surgery and also had a bunion there which is the only reason we found out about the broken bones.

About 12 years ago in high school I chopped my middle fingernail in half at a 45 degree because of a broken dumbell. The doctor told me you can't really numb a finger but he'd try, just like here. After a couple shots I could still feel him poking it and he said that's all he could do. I got 3 stitches the middle one going through the center of the nail. He had to stand up for leverage to push the suture through the nail. It hurt so bad and felt so gross, same with it getting taken out.

I fell through a bad place on my back porch and broke three toes. I set them myself and never got medical treatment for it because it didn't really hurt that much. My 30 years of never ending horrific back pain have made me pretty nonchalant about minor discomfort.

someone i know went into the ER due to pain, they gave them a large dose of Valium. when the nurse and doctor came to check on them, the nurse and doctor were surprised to see them awake and still in pain. this person does not do any drugs.

Anesthesia takes effect on me but wears off in minutes. After growing up tortured by dentists who didn't believe me, and waking up during two surgeries, I had serious PTSD. Thankfully, with extensive therapy, the development of long-duration anesthetics (marcaine, septacaine) and learning hypnosis--I can get thru essential procedures without trauma! Elective or preventative procedures are still a no-go. >:-/

Seeing Dr Mike as the thumbnail I needed to figure out which channel I was looking at since a Dr Mike video was recommended beside it heh

Family member of mine had a huge heart attack with multiple high level blockages. Had no pain the entire time and only nausea and throwing up. He was sure he wasn't truly having one due to the lack of pain but it happened lol

Farmers' spouses are tough too. I used to work for a rancher and his wife. They told me a story that happened before I started working there. The wife had gotten in a car accident. She was taken to the hospital and said she was ok just sore. Her husband picks her up and they go across the state to sell calves. When they get back, she goes to the doctor because she was still sore. Come to find out that she had a broken rib and a ruptured lung. Also, my dad has a high pain tolerance. He works at a sawmill. Once, he got his finger caught in a machine, shredding the tip. He didn't even look at it (said that he knew he hurt it and leaving the glove on will hold it together) and went back to work. At the end of the day when he got home, it was still held together by congealed blood. So he just cleaned the wounds and bandaged his finger. He went back to work the next day.

I remember in grade school my dad was pulling out of the garage. It was the 70’s and he didn’t have an opener hooked up to the door. (Those doors are heavy too). He closes the garage door and as he gets in the car he pulls out his handkerchief and just calmly places it over one of his fingers. I see the bright white handkerchief start turning red but I don’t say anything. When I got home from school I found out he had sliced off the tip of his finger and was looking for a bandage to just cover it up. My older brother was up and convinced dad to go to the ER. When he was 80 he slipped in the shower and we found out he had been suffering from shingles and ripped off a good 6” section of skin on his back during the fall. He was in the hospital for a few weeks but never even took a Tylenol. And yes any time I have a patient with a full sleeve tattoo and I heed to draw blood, or put in an IV. They will pass out on me. I don’t understand, sometimes the ink will help me keep my place on where to insert the needle. It’s like my own little map your a lot easier to do because I won’t loose my place when I turn away to wipe with alcohol before doing my job.

As one guy said farmers (especially older ones) are so used to being is some kind of pain or other be it back pain, knee pain, scratches, bruises small bone fractures and that is when they are not injured and having to work through it that they just become accustomed to pain. As someone that deals with some chronic pain myself you get so use to it that it becomes like background noise and you have to get above that level just for it to noticed and even worse then that for it to actually "hurt" and even then that's just the level of over the counter pain meds.

Walked around for 3 months with a partial acl tear. Told my wife “this bruise in my knee won’t go away” she inspected it and found my right knee swollen significantly. Sent to the hospital and yep partial tear

I am also a farmer in Alberta. I have managed to walk on a broken leg when I was 5. The doctor didn't even believe it was broken until he saw the x-ray. Then as an adult, I believe I was about 20 I walked on what I thought was a mildly sprained foot/ ankle. Turns out I broke my foot. Walked on that for nearly 4 months.

Regarding the whole fear of needles thing, I've come up with a neat little trick when I was a child. At the beginning, I would always panic and cry and scream when I was supposed to get a shot, get a blood sample taken, etc. Then one day I had a doctor who managed to distract me and make me look away while he put the needle in my arm and I noticed that I barely felt anything at all and it wasn't scary anymore. So now, even to this day, I simply close my eyes or look away whenever I'm about to get stung. Weirdly enough, once the needle is in, I can look at it as much as I want, it's just the exact moment when the needle is getting pushed into my skin that I can't look at. Maybe I could even watch getting stung by a doctor nowadays, but I've never tried out of fear of embarassing myself. Regarding the nail thing I've heard a somewhat related story from my grandma. When she was a child, she once hit her foot against a door extremely hard and it badly injured the toenail on her big toe. Nothing was broken, I think, but she still had to spend a long time in bed due to the damage to the nail. Her toe turned all sorts of weird colors and after like 2 or 3 days, the nail just came off. Then her mother disinfected the toe again and after some more days it healed and I think the nail even grew back (not really sure tho). Maybe it wasn't the entire nail but just a large part of it.

I saw Dr.Mike on the thumbnail and was like YESSSSSSSS

Working in women's health for almost 40 years, it never failed to astonish me that drug abusers could not understand that the drug abuse not only hurt them and their babies, but it prevented us from giving them any pain relief in labor unless it was an epidural because their drug abuse drugs being misused from their 'highs' meant that pain relief from any pain relieving medication, whether oral or IV was not going to work. Worse, many of them claimed to be afraid of needles, so the use of an epidural was often refused. Don't even ask if they had taken any labor classes like Lamaze. On a personal note, though, my pain tolerance is pretty high. I put it to my personal history of being an orthopedic patient and undergoing surgeries since I was just over 2 years old. that meant that when I had my first Total Hip Replacement, I had one IM pain med in the hospital, went home with a prescription for pain meds enough for two weeks, and still had most of that prescription a year later.

I worked for a farmer who shot himself in the leg when jumping a fence(revolver in front pocket). Not sure what actually set it off but he walked a mile pack to his truck and drove back to the house. When he came limping through the door he exclaimed that he was the smartest dumbass who existed, put his gun away and drove himself to the hospital. My grandfather was hunting illegally with a shotgun. Jumped a fence and tried to pull his gun under the fence by the barrel, gun went off and took 60% of his hand, arm, and some of his chest. He wasn't sure how long he was unconscious but drove himself to the hospital after. Lived a long time after that.

I was 3, climbing a TV antenna up over the house roofs. On the third step from the top I slipped and fell. My friend went in to tell my mom I was outside sleeping on the ground. They brought me inside, and when I came to, I was able to walk across the room. Just to be safe, they took me to see a doctor, who took x-rays. My leg was broken in 3 places. I also went natural childbirth with both my kids, but I don't think I've got that high a pain tolerance. My husband's grandmother had it in spades. In her 80's she still walked downtown every day to buy groceries and carry them home. One day she fell on the way home. Someone stopped to help her pick up her dropped groceries, and offered to drive her home. She refused, since she didn't know them. She walked the rest of the way home with her groceries, and then called her granddaughter. She'd broken her hip. Pain meds don't work well on my husband or son. My husband recently had a root canal without meds, and my son has had minor surgery where he felt everything.