You ready to suck it up, buttercup? Because today we're diving straight into the
most painful injuries you could ever experience. Torn ACL
It's the bane of every professional athlete, one of the most common sports injuries and
one that can easily end your dreams of being a global superstar. From Tom Brady, Chipper Jones, Teddy Bridgewater,
and... wait, Tiger Woods? Really? Ahem... as we were saying, torn ACLs are a
nightmare for professional athletes engaged in extreme performance sports such as... golf,
apparently. Yeah, the sport where you drive to your ball
after you hit it. Anyways, torn ACLs are caused by sudden and
very rapid changes in direction. Your anterior cruciate ligament connects your
knee bone to your shin bone, and is responsible for 90% of your leg's stability. When you suddenly change direction and your
ligament tears, your leg can't properly support you anymore and you'll be on your way to a
very quick introduction with the dirt. If the tear is small, you can typically get
away with rest and rehabilitation- though beware, because even a small tear can take
you out of the sports action for up to a year. This is the reason that the injury is so dreaded
by professional athletes, who in effect can tank an entire season and even part of a second
season with even just a small tear. However if the tear is severe enough, the
entire ligament may need to be replaced with surgery. In that case your torn ligament will be replaced
with a grafted on tendon that can be taken from another part of your own knee, or from
that of an organ donor. Think just because you're not a pro athlete
you're not at risk? Think again. ACL tears can occur from everyday things like
jumping and landing wrong, doing squats improperly, twisting your leg in a fall, and just sitting
there watching your favorite YouTube channel. Only one of those is made up, and we're not
telling which. Speaking of tearing things, if you like using
your arms this next excruciating injury will leave you crippled for up to a year and a
half. Torn Ulnar Collateral Ligament
Let's stick with ligaments for now, because your body is full of them and they are extremely
prone to ripping, tearing, and generally disintegrating into dust inside your body. And when they do, it's a one-way ticket to
the worst pain in your life both from the injury, and the very, very long and painful
rehabilitation process. Most common in sports that involve rapid overhead
movement, such as baseball, discus throwing and the javelin, this injury leads to the
tearing of the ulnar collateral ligament which is located in your elbow. As the most important ligament in providing
stability for your forearm and elbow, a torn ulnar collateral ligament is not only painful,
but can make many activities- even non-sports related ones- impossible. You can trust us on this one, because the
writer of this script is writing from personal experience. Like a torn ACL, you might hear a pop when
you first suffer the injury. After which, if the tear is small, you'll
experience extreme pain radiating from the inside of your elbow and will generally be
unable to move your elbow very far without extreme distress. If the injury is severe enough to tear your
ligament completely, you'll need surgery to replace the torn ligament and as much as a
year and a half to recover. Baseball fans might remember that this injury
used to be fatal to ball players until an experimental surgery in the late 1970s replaced
LA dodger's pitcher Tommy John's torn ligament with a tendon from his forearm. Our next injury is not only very common, but
absolutely devastatingly painful. Fractured Leg
So you broke a leg- big deal, God gave you a spare for a reason. But wait a minute, because severely broken
legs- and we mean injuries to the point of thoroughly shattered bone- can be one of the
most painful, and likely, injuries you'll ever experience. You can break a leg in any number of hilarious
ways, as a quick YouTube fail video search will show you. However, shattered legs are only common in
extreme situations such as high speed car crashes, air accidents, and very high falls. When Alcides Moreno survived an incredible
47 story fall as a window washer, his legs were so severely fractured that doctors briefly
considered amputation. In old times, amputation would have been about
the only option, as a severe enough leg fracture would have prevented the leg from healing
properly or fusing back together correctly What would result would be a deformed leg
that could end up completely useless. Modern medicine though has gotten a lot better
at putting humpty dumpty back together again. Often in severe fractures that can't be treated
right away, perhaps because of the severity of your other injuries and the risk of surgery,
an external fixation is used to keep the bone together while you await treatment. These are typically metal rods that are screwed
directly into your bone, but the rod remains outside of the body. Metal plates can be used to hold the pieces
of a broken bone together if the fracture is severe enough, and these plates can either
be left in the patient or removed after healing. Screws are also commonly used to hold your
pathetic bones together while they heal, and like plates may be left in or taken out after
healing is complete. Screws can actually come in many different
shapes and sizes, depending on the need, and are used alone or in conjunction with other
attachments. In severe fractures of the long bones, nails
or rods are inserted into the hollow center of the bone which would normally contain bone
marrow. The rod runs the length of the bone and screws
are used to keep it in place. The rod provides stability and prevents the
fracture from shortening or rotating until it has healed. If your bone has shattered like glass though,
you'll end up receiving treatment using wires and pins that will literally piece back together
the confetti that your bone has turned into, giving it a chance to heal and fuse back together
in one piece. If the fracture was severe enough, doctors
have no choice but to leave the wires in for life. The next injury on our list not only leads
to extreme pain, but possible lifelong paralysis. Fractured Vertebrae
All of the injuries we've covered so far can be recovered from, even if the very painful
rehabilitation can take a long time. Vertebrae however are kind of the primadonnas
of the skeletal system, and once they go, they can go for good with devastatingly painful
consequences. Vertebrae can be fractured in a variety of
ways. People with severe osteoporosis, a disease
that weakens the bones, can fracture a vertebrae just from sneezing, which must make allergy
season absolutely terrifying for them. People with tumors on the spine may not even
be aware of the tumor until it has eaten away enough of the vertebrae to cause it to collapse. However, by far, most people fracture vertebrae
in sports, falls, and car accidents. Fractured vertebrae can lead to a host of
medical issues. You might get lucky and only suffer severe
back pain- sometimes lasting for life even after the bone has healed. Or you might get unlucky and suffer partial,
or complete paralysis. If the damage is severe enough and has affected
the nerves that run along the spine, that paralysis too might last for life. Treatment for fractured vertebrae can be surgical
and non-surgical. In non-surgical treatment, the vertebrae is
allowed to heal on its own, which means you'll be left in crippling pain for several months. While medication can be effective, doctors
are wary of prescribing habit-forming opioids and thus you might be left with nothing but
tylenol to fight off the pain. A relatively new procedure known as vertebroplasty
can be used to treat severe fractures surgically. During this procedure a needle is inserted
into the spine and used to pump the collapsed vertebrae with bone cement, which hardens
within minutes. A more refined version of this technique uses
a balloon which is inflated inside the affected vertebrae to create 'height', which is then
filled in with the bone cement. This helps restore the fractured vertebrae
to something closer to its original form, and can dramatically reduce long-term or permanent
pain. With either treatment option though there
is no guarantee of pain relief. But when the pain you’re experiencing is
literally in your mind, no amount of pain relief can help... Traumatic Brain Injury
Every year 1.4 million Americans suffer traumatic brain injuries. Most sufferers of traumatic brain injury will
experience chronic pain that can last for months. Unlike acute pain, such as what you feel when
you break a bone, chronic pain is persistent and can be very difficult to treat or manage. Medicines typically used for acute pain don't
work very well at treating chronic pain, and their long-term use can either be habit forming
or risk serious kidney and liver damage. People with TBI will usually suffer from several
different kinds of pain. The first is headaches, which usually start
right away after the injury but can manifest months after. These can range from your typical headache
you might feel when sick, to more intense migraines which last for hours and feel like
someone is driving a spike into your skull. Chemical changes in the brain or damage to
its structure can result in neurological pain. This pain typically has no cause, and results
from the brain misfiring and creating phantom pains that your nerves dutifully report. Individuals may feel like they are burning,
have electricity coursing through them, feel cold, hot, or experience painful numbness
and tingling. The fact that there is no physical cause to
the pain, which can manifest anywhere on the body, can be extremely maddening to deal with. TBI can also result in spasticity, which is
a condition where the muscles don't react the way they should. While the condition itself doesn't cause pain,
the failure of muscles to react properly can lead to very severe pain. For example, a muscle may remain flexed long
after it should have been relaxed, resulting in severe pain. If you've ever experienced the delight of
a charlie horse, you know just how terrible this type of pain can be- now imagine that
you're getting hit with that level of pain randomly across any muscle of your body. Given how delicate and complicated the brain
is, traumatic brain injury pain can be extremely difficult to manage- especially when it has
no obvious source. While most people will recover over time,
some unlucky few will have to suffer their pains for the rest of their lives. They say childbirth is the most painful thing
that you can experience, but our next entry can affect both men and women and rivals childbirth
in levels of gut-wrenching pain. Kidney Stones
Not technically an injury, kidney stones are still one of the most painful things you can
experience, and something that will absolutely bring you to your knees in tears. Your kidneys are responsible for cleaning
your blood, and if you have a poor diet, are overweight, or take some supplements or medications,
minerals and salts can start to accumulate in your kidney. The various materials making up the kidney
stone will typically crystalize as the urine is concentrated, and while some can be flushed
out before they get big enough to notice, others will happily live rent free in your
kidney until they grow quite big. How big? Well, Vilas Ghuge of India holds the world
record for a 5.11 inch (13cm) wide kidney stone that had to be surgically removed from
his kidney. The average kidney stone however will only
be the size of a chickpea, which isn't really very big- until you consider that you have
to pass it through your pee hole. Oh, and also the stone itself is typically
very sharp and jagged, like one of those super mario spike balls. The pain typically begins when the stone begins
its path out of the kidney. At first this can mean slight discomfort which
can be associated with back pain. As the stone crashes through your urinary
tract like a ping pong ball, the pain very rapidly increases to truly excruciating levels. Remember, you're trying to push something
as big as a chickpea through a tube barely big enough to accommodate it. Oh, and that chickpea is jagged and pointy
all over. Even the strongest opiate pain medication
can sometimes barely begin to cover the pain, which has been compared to childbirth. Luckily, the pain pretty rapidly subsides
after the stone passes through your system. If however, you're unlucky enough- like this
writer was- to have a stone large enough to cause a blockage, you're in for weeks of crippling
pain and agony that'll leave you bedridden. Especially if the VA refuses to approve surgery
and basically tells you to “ just keep drinking water and you'll push it out eventually”. During a blockage, urination is extremely
difficult and can feel like high pressure lava is escaping your body. The blockage can also lead to infection as
you're unable to fully drain your system of urine, and an accompanying urinary tract infection-
already an extremely painful condition- becomes the cherry on the top of a delicious cake
of pure human misery. Now go watch the most painful things a human
can experience for more misery, or click this other video instead!
