wooÐs

**Warning - graphic**

I had a HORRIBLE stomach / intestinal bug. It lasted for about 3 days. At it's worst, I was going to the bathroom with diarrhea every 3 minutes. I was crawling on the ground because my butt hurt too bad to walk. Plus I was so damn weak. Every time I made it to the bathroom - IF I made it in time - I was virtually screaming because I was so 'burned.' My Mom was here trying to take care of me and didn't know what to do. I had taken about 12 Immodium in one day (you're not supposed to take more than 4.) We finally went to the ER. They just gave me fluids, something to stop me up and pain meds and wrote it off as a stomach bug. But omfg, I'll never forget it. This was just a couple years ago. I mean, if I had Depends (adult diapers,) I would have worn them. I was that bad.

Ok, ur turn. Sorry if this grossed anyone out. Facts o' life lol.

LoganSnake

High fever. High to the point of hallucinating. My mom was telling me that I was describing things I saw in front of me. This was followed by me being unable to speak for three days. I was around 5. Not sure what I had.

The mono I had for two weeks doesn't even come close. But it's one of the two I remember the most. It sucked. Probably the sickest I've been in recent memory.

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Anormalguy

Strep throat when I was a kid. I was miserable for three days, & even over 40 years later I still get worried when someone I'm around has been around someone who has strep throat.

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Plan9

I got the most awesome case of food poisoning from the LT's care package in Iraq. I had clear fluids violently projecting from both ends of my scrawny body for roughly 48 hours. My squad leader woke me up for guard duty that particular evening when the sickness had first started and I greeted him with a cordial puking on his boots. It was the beginning of All Bad in the Desert 2003. Needless to say, I continued to eat moldy care packages after I recovered.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Willravel

Endocarditis, I guess. It really just meant some time in hospitals where I got Lender's Bagels with Philly cream cheese every morning, some time off school, a few catheterization tests and a portable IV for like a month.

The most sick I've ever felt would be after I ate about three or four of these:
It started out as a simple stomach ache, but soon turned into explosive vomiting leading to a severe asthma attack for some reason, then I was suddenly freezing and got the shakes so bad I passed out. I woke up the next morning in a bed so sweaty that we had to get my mattress professionally cleaned. The strange thing is that I don't have an allergy to anything that could possibly be in the candy. I have no problems with legumes or nuts or chocolate or sugar, etc.

Still, they were pretty tasty.

Fotzlid

Ruptured appendix with peritonitis.
Was sick as a dog for a couple of weeks. When I couldn't even hold down ice chips, My folks took me to the hospital where I was found to have a bad case of appendicitis. Wasn't till after they opened me up that they found the peritonitis. Had an open wound for several months while it healed from inside out. They couldn't take the appendix out for fear of spreading the infection already there. Spent a week inpatient and when I got home, my bedroom was the dining room for 3-4 months. (I wasn't allowed to walk up/down stairs. Surgeons orders) Missed just about my entire junior year of High School because of it. The teachers came by the house to keep me up to speed with the rest of the class.
About 8 months after initial surgery, went back and had the appendix removed.

cheese

beef and broccoli from a random Chinese restaurant. hurled all over the bathroom .. including into the heater vent.. rocked my world.

Other than that.. boot camp.. it wasnt a horrible sickness but i was sick for 8 weeks straight they call it "the crud" being exposed to basically all viruses from all over the country all at once. makes you sick as hell consistently for 8 weeks.

IdeoFunk

I've had to deal with two separate abscess teeth; the first was by far the worst. I occasionally had problems grinding my teeth at that age and at first I thought the toothache was just a result of that. However, after two days of a mild ache it went absolutely nuts. I've never experienced unrelenting pain like that; I felt like I was going out of my skull. I had to have cold water in my mouth constantly. I eventually went to the ER seeing as no dentists were open on the weekend and got some painkillers, but even though they were able to dull the pain I was still so messed up that night I remember as morning started to approach I had start convulsing uncontrollably. It was a horrendous experience. I gladly sat through two hours of root canals to get that sucker fixed up.

I remember once reading about a pharaoh who died as a result of an abscess tooth... can't even imagine how bad of a death that would have been.

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...out here in the perimeter there are no stars...

levite

I had fuck-ass bad pneumonia once: usually the x-rays will show an infection mass in one lobe of one lung. I had pneumonia in all the lobes of both lungs. High fever, puking my guts out, then into the hospital, where I discovered that I have a sensitivity to a certain kind of standard treatment for pneumonia, that they deliver through IV, and it felt like my whole arm and shoulder were on fire for hours at a time, until they figured out a better antibiotic for me. My doctor cheerfully told me how lucky I was, since if I'd had this sixty years ago, it would've killed me in a week or two. Then back to my parents' house to recover for a month and a half.

That said, I did also have to get my gall bladder removed some years ago, and while I wasn't sick, per se, nor was the recovery time so long, it hurt like hell's own bitch. The gall stone was apparently huge. Getting hit in the nads with a bad bounce from a ground ball, even getting kicked in the nads, was nothing compared to how much that hurt. My mom, who'd had the same thing happen to her years before, told me after I got mine out that hers had hurt worse than childbirth. That was bad.

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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

inBOIL

Food poisoning. Didn't know which end to put over the toilet at any given time. Had trouble walking my ass was so raw. And I somehow managed to be both cold and hot at the same time.

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And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

Xerxys

Food poisoning too. Damn, I mean it only lasted a night but I swear to god I took a shower 4 times that day. And the pain. Man the pain. The feeling of the four corners in your abdomen have been attached a wire such those used in pianos and were pulling inwards. Yes, the pain was bad.

Till today if I even feel a tiny inkling of it coming along I rush to the kitchen and drink a glass of water with sugar and salt mixture just to be on the safe side.

Raghnar -ITA-

every time I have a VERY strong Migraine I feel the worst ever because I can't imagine nothing worse.
The pain is so strong that you want to throw you off the window to have a stop, but you figure out that when you open the window light comes in and getting even worse (and you can't think of a "worse" than that).

There was a time when I have it with 2 weeks period, more or less, now is better and is a couple of months that I don't have it so strong.

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Vigilante

I had strep bad enough once in HS to cough up a chunk of my soft palate. It was interesting seeing that red chunk of flesh go down the sink. I hit nearly 105F during that one as well. I was definitely hallucinating some, but that I recall, mostly manifesting in strange half-awake dreams.

I got real bad chicken pox when I was in 1st grade. I recall having to sleep on the couch for 2 weeks.

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-Winston Churchill

GreyWolf

The sickest? A bout with Strep Throat. I remember when it began. I went to bed about 11:30 and had to get up to go to the bathroom around 12:30. I was shivering uncontrollably (and I just DON'T get that cold!). The next day I got in to see the doctor about 4pm. The nurse took my temperature (102) and asked how I was feeling. I said pretty lousy and she said she understood with a temperature like that. I asked: "Why? Is that high?" She looked at me like I'm and idiot (I get that look a lot, so I recognise it), and left. The doctor came in and asked the same thing and had I taken anything for it. I said pretty lousy and no. She looked at me like I'm an idiot (see previous parenthisis).

Now, in my defense, I had a 1-yo who was prone to throat and ear infections and whose temperature would regulalry spike to 102. And I HONESTLY DIDN'T KNOW that aspirin and Tylenol would reduce a fever. I thought they just masked the symptoms and eased the discomfort (ok, maybe the idiot look wasn't totally undeserved).

The most dangerous? When my wife poisoned me (so I say, she says it was just one of those things). We had tried a new dish for supper... a pork roast with a prepackaged sauce. Midnight again and I was scratching my arm, like I had some dry skin or something. I looked down and I could see the little red spots there. I thought: "Great! A rash or an infection of some kind." I finished of the last of a bottle of Children's Benadryl we had for the kids to stop the itching and went to sleep.

The next morning there were lots more spots around my groin and belly. I couldn't go to work because of the effort required not to scratch, so I wandered over to the hospital. By then, the red spots were merging into red welts and blotches. The doctor looked at them and asked if I was allergic to anything. With great confidence I said no. He looked at me like I was an idiot (do you sense a theme here?) and said: "Yes, you are. Those are hives." He ordered me to take the full adult dose of Benadryl for the next 2-3 days and if I had any trouble breathing, to get back there, or to call an ambulance. Nice, especially since my mother died of an allergic reaction.

So, I ended up with hives over 75% of my body (think Will Smith in Hitch, only I don't look that good on my best day), and I found out I DO NOT react well to Benadryl. It is an incredibly powerful OTC drug. Hitch's reaction wouldn't be atypical. I ended up in a trance... it was like thinking through mud. Just forming an idea/intent took an effort. Physical movement at a snail's pace was a major triumph. I cut the dosage on the second day, and even now, half a tablet affects me for a day (adult dosage is 2 tablets every 4-6 hours).

Oh, and I make sure *I* cook all the pork now.

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wooÐs

lol I love reading this stuff.

I also had my gb removed. 2 summers ago. I'd been having problems for years with horrible pain in my upper abdomen that would come out of nowhere. Sent me to the ER every time. After a few ultrasounds over the course of maybe 4 years, they just decided to take it out even tho it didn't look diseased or full of stones or anything. Afterwards, the doc did say there were loads of tiny stones in there - not even the u/s picked them up. So I'll definitely be ok now. Recovery sucked but wasn't too horrible. Just hate the scars now. So much for my cute belly button ring. 2 weeks after surgery, I was back in the ER with the same pain. I'm currently seeing my 4th gastroenterologist who believes it's a severe case of IBS that I get every so often. No other explanations. But the pain - omfg - I kick and cry like a child sometimes.
Would you believe folks are now getting high off of Benedryl? By taking 12-13 at a time, it creates the effects you described. I won't bullshit - I'll admit I've tried it. And I didn't like it. But it's interesting to me that a regular dose affected you like you took loads more. And just so you know, most sleep medications, like Sominex or Unisom, contain the same active drug as Benedryl - diphenhydramine - but in a stronger dose. So stay away from those too.

And btw, pork is my favorite meat 2nd to red meat. mmmm...

settie

It'd either be the month-long bout of ear infections in both ears that constantly turned into the flu last winter....being sick for amonth is NOT pleasant. It took 3 different kinds of antibiotics to get rid of the damn thing. EVERYTHING seems to leak from the bacteria.

And another would have to be the time two years ago by my birthday when I believe I had a kidney stone, and passed it painfully for 4 weeks, with no meds that aided in relieving the pain.
Dear christ, I could have used some painkillers for that. It hurt so bad, it make me vomit.

EDIT: for the last four weeks I have been ill with a double whammy of a kidney infection, and influenza. Then, last week, I passed a kidney stone. So for four weeks, I didn't eat. Because of pure sickness, I dropped a lot of weight. Being sick this long was pretty rotten, I'd say it tops my earlier post.

snowy

Kidney stones. Not only did passing the stones hurt like a bitch, but the medications they put me on to help deal with it sucked. I cannot take narcotics of any kind without getting violently ill, and I had to take hydrocodone for the pain. They did give me ondensatron, which is an anti-emetic meant for chemotherapy patients, and it helped a little, but most of the time I was passing the stones consisted of me puking due to the narcotics and the pain both or trying desperately not to puke because I'd just taken a pill and didn't want to waste it. I basically laid out on our futon in the living room like a zombie for three days, throwing up into a garbage can.

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Daniel_

The illest I've been would be the explosive decompression associated with food poisoning.

The most scared I've ever felt due to illness was the one and only time I believe I've had a migraine - I got a bad headache, and started to get occular involvement after a couple of hours - became totally affected by sounds and smells and nauseous, so signed myself off, and began the drive home - teeth clamped against the incipient vomit I felt was coming.

Half way home, I blacked out in one eye, and the headache became piercing. I pulled over and threw up, then slept for an hour in a layby before driving home still with one eye.

24 hours sleep, serious pain meds, and I was fine. 8 years later and it's not happened again, so I think it was stress.

The most miserable I've been was when I got the noro virus a couple of years ago. We'd been going through an IVF cycle, and went to the hospital for implantation (took all day). 2 hours late, we left the hospital, with JUST enough time for me to get home in time to pick our daughter up from school provided we didn't stop. We had 1 hour for a drive that takes 1 hour 10.

About 10 minutes into the journey I feel the need to vomit.

We made it to a petrol station where I got some water, some plain crackers, and was sick.

Back on the road (and certainly late) I drove in 10 minute sets, pulling over the throw up every couple of miles. After trying everyone we know on the phone we managed to raise the childminder to get the girl from school, and my dad to go and collect his granddaughter from her after work and keep her overnight.

In the end, the journey took four hours (counting a 40 minute stop on a park bench mid way).

The worst thing was that the IVF failed, and I have never stopped wondering if the stress of that journey was contributory.

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╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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girldetective

Pneumonia
That shrimpy sized bacteria kicked my ass, and knocked the joint.

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As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons...be cheerful; strive for happiness - Desiderata

World's King

My left lung... well.. popped. It kind of died. I had to have about 35% of it removed. It was cool. I had to learn how to breath again.

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heavy is the head that wears the crown

ironman

Antibiotics allergy when I was 12. I had taken that same antibiotic several times before that Saturday afternoon. My mom gave me a spoon of the antibiotic at around 3pm, then she and my dad went to the mall with my brothers. I stayed at home watching Fraggle Rock. When they got back home at around 5pm, my mom freaked out because my eyes were totally red, at that point I hadn't felt any symptoms, when I tried to get off the bed I couldn't, it was like I had no energy at all, my legs could not hold my body's weight. They took me to the ER and the idiotic doctor who saw me said I had conjunctivitis and must be really tired (at that time I was in the school's basketball and karate teams). He prescribed rest, some cream for the conjunctivitis and another spoon of the antibiotic to confirm if it was in fact an allergy. Thank God both my parents thought he was an idiot and took me to another hospital where I was diagnosed with a severe allergic reaction and was given several shots to stop it. I could not walk for over 2 weeks and I could barely lift my arms for the first 5 days. All the muscles in my body soared like I had being dragged by wild horses. I couldn't stay up on my feet for more than a few seconds for the next 2 months. It was hell on earth for almost 3 months. After that incident I have to be really careful of what drugs I take as my body develops allergies through the years. Almost 10 years ago I had another incident involving another antibiotic, but it was very mild in comparison.
Whenever I'm sick I try to abstain as much as possible of taking any medicines, there was a time a few years ago that even Tylenol gave me awful rashes all over the chest and face.

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KellyC

This is what my mom told me. When I was a baby, I was chubby. Sometime between the age of one and two, I suddenly got ill. I had really bad diarrhea and a high fever. The symptoms didn't go away after a few days so my mom took me to the hospital. But since it was a weekend they closed and wouldn't let her in until Monday. Mind you, this was back in the 80's Vietnam, the country had gone through a horrible war just a decade before and was still recovering. Any way, once my mom got me inside the hospital, the doctors told her that she should have brought me in earlier (ironic yes?) because my condition was really bad and I might've died if was admitted later. Whatever I had, it made me lose a lot of weight. I got skinny by the time it's over and has stayed that way since.

The sickest time I do remember was this past spring when my friend and roommate had a cough and spread it to me. He was able to recover within a week but it took me over a month to get rid of it. At its worst I coughing day and night. My throat got really sore because I coughed so much. Had a lot of phlegm and some times bloody phlegm due to all the coughing, and nose bleed and bloody mucus from the nose. Medicine didn't seem to help. Then again I didn't take it properly either so it's probably my fault.

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Him: Ok, I have to ask, what do you believe?
Me: Shit happens.

MSD

I thought it couldn't get any worse than food poisoning.

Then I got lobar pneumonia. My fever topped 106, I was hallucinating, everything hurt, and I needed 6 or 8 hours of IV fluids in the ER. I was hallucinating from fever even after 800mg of ibuprofen and ice packs to lower the fever, and the visions came back every time I started to fall asleep until I was recovered.

The only people who got taken in before me were the guy who was shot and the guy who was hit by a car and I don't think survived. Compound fracture of the lower leg? Take a number, buddy.

savmesom11

Streptoccocus blood infections....I truly believed I was dying.....

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iamG

Wow, I feel pathetic.

The worst I've had is chicken pox. Next to that, a bad cold / slight flu.

My mother on the other hand? She's had meningitis three times. =/

Borla

MRSA on my face/head. Something like 1:15 people that get it die from it. The infectious disease specialist that saw me in the hospital said it was one of the most aggressive cases he'd ever seen. I went from being completely fine, to it looking like someone took a blow torch from my temple to underneath my jaw in 12-18 hours. I was in the hospital for several days, and homebound on IV antibiotics daily for 3 more weeks. Not fun.

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Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde!!!!

ring

I hated my boss lady so much, that I wished her dead.
Two months later we found out she had incurable cancer.

She died four months later.

That's the sickest I have ever felt.

little_tippler

The sickest I have been doesn't equate with the worst I have felt. So I'll describe both.

The sickest I have been was when I was first diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. I was very, very anaemic and my doctor considered checking me into hospital because she thought I might need some blood transfusions.

The worst I have felt due to illness is when I had a really awful case of cystitis. My worst moments were when I was in so much pain that the only way I could pee was in a bathtub full of warm water. It felt like someone was stabbing me in my crotch with a knife.

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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

Salem

Hospitalized from viral pneumonia at 2. Almost died. Don't remember much of it.

ironpham

Interesting reads. I envy none of you.

I remember a couple. When I was around 11 or 12, I had some stomach bug. It caused me to vomit every thirty minutes for 24 hours. My mom finally took me to the hospital where I puked 3 more times. Terribly painful.

There was another when I was even younger. I was running a fever of 101ish (my regular temperature is much lower than average. I run at 96.something). I started hallucinating really badly. I remember my sister-in-law and my brother (later found out my sister-in-law was actually not there) were in the room with me. I thought I had a sword in my hand and I kept asking how I was going to give it to the sister who I thought was sitting just 2 seats down...

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SIGNATURE.

LoganSnake

Who knows you better than your parents? I asked my mom what's the sickest I've been that she remembers.

Apparently, when I was around 11 months old, I had some sort of bacteria in my body that caused violent and frequent diarrhea. I could not hold any milk or food down and according to her almost died from the constant bodily expulsion. She hasn't slept for about three days and only took short naps after that while I was sick. I got better after the doctors told her to put me on a very portions of food - enough to sustain my body but not enough to cause a reaction.

Kinda glad I don't remember it.

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Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

lostgirl

On a road trip to move my friend from Ft. Lauderdale Florida to California. I felt really sick, when we reached Salt lake city, I was throwing up constantly, and in a lot of pain. I also felt as if my life was fading away. I went to the emergency room, and found out I had a bad kidney infection, and my kidneys were shutting down. The doctor said I could have died, and I felt like it too. Thank god for morphine and modern antibiotics.

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We always arise from our own ashes. Everything returns later in its changed form. - Children of Dune

osse32

My story is pretty much the same thing as the person who started this thread, but it hit in the middle of nowhere during a 7 hour car ride. I've done everything humanly possible to avoid sleazy gas station restrooms ever since.

Salem

Another time, I was about 10 or 11. I caught some stomach bug, and I was of course having a grand time with diarhea, but even worse was the fact that every 20 minutes, like clock work, I was vomit. By the end i wasn't even throwing up anymore, I was just heaving up bile and mucus. It was fucking horrible. Lasted a few days. Wanted to die the whole time.

lisarole

I happen to always have the same kind of pain when I either don't eat or eat something..