What's the worst pain
you've ever experienced?
A broken bone?
Touching something hot?
Maybe stepping on a sharp toy?
Well, in this What If experiment,
you'll learn what real pain feels like.
Pain is your body's way of telling you
that something's wrong.
It's the result of lightning-fast messages
sent between your nerves and your brain.
Pain comes in many shapes and sizes.
And everybody experiences it differently.
It can feel like throbbing,
stabbing or just steady, aching.
And it can leave you feeling
sick to your stomach,
angry or even depressed.
So brace yourself.
You're about to enter
a world of extreme pain.
The pain you feel in childbirth
is from contractions
of the uterus and pressure on the cervix.
Once your water breaks
and you're in full labor,
this pain only gets worse.
You'd experience
cramping under your belly.
Or pain radiating all around.
It could be so bad
that you'd have tunnel vision
and tune out everything around you.
Delivering your child
could feel as if somebody was pulling
your internal organs out.
Kidney stones are a hard mineral material
made from chemicals in your urine.
When these stones get stuck in your
ureter, you'd experience
severe cramping and sharp pain
on either side of your lower back.
It would start out of nowhere.
And then it would come in waves.
But it would feel like
being stabbed in the back,
then having that knife twisted.
Toothaches are often
caused by nerve irritations
at the root of a tooth.
They can be sharp and sudden.
Or a constant throbbing.
And sorry to say,
they often get worse at night.
So if you thought falling asleep
would give you some relief,
well, you'd be wrong.
Cluster headaches are considered
one of the most painful
types of headaches.
They come from a nerve pathway
in your brain
responsible for the sensation of heat
and pain in your face.
Without warning, you'd feel intense
pain in or around one eye.
And this burning or piercing
feeling could last anywhere
from 15 minutes to three hours.
It would pretty much feel like your head
is about to split wide open.
The femur is the bone in your thigh
that stretches from your hip to your knee.
If you broke your femur,
you'd feel immediate and severe pain.
It would take a lot of force
to break this bone,
so you'd feel it in the hip,
back and buttocks, too.
The feeling would be a mix of deep
radiating pain and total numbness.
Almost like freezing
your leg on the outside while dosing it
in flames on the inside.
Second-degree burns
not only affect
the top layer of skin
but the second layer too.
Superficial burns of the second layer
of skin are initially the most painful.
When the first layer burns off,
it leaves nerve endings exposed.
And that means that even a gentle breeze
could cause agony.
Appendictis is an inflammation
of your appendix.
You'd feel a sudden pain in your lower
right abdomen that would start to move.
Any physical movement
could make the pain
more severe.
So be careful when you cough,
or you could feel a sensation
similar to multiple knives
carving up your insides.
There’s no way to prepare for it,
but when a blood vein presses
against the trigeminal nerve,
you could be close
to one of the most painful
feelings possible.
It would be more severe
than a heart attack.
You would feel a sudden jolt,
almost like getting zapped
with tons of electricity.
At first,
it would only be for a few seconds
but it could start to last longer.
It would be so intense
that you'd be unable
to eat or drink anything.
You could become infected
with tetanus
after a puncture injury
like stepping on a nail.
It's caused by a bacteria
that produces a poison
resulting in sudden,
involuntary muscle contractions.
You'd arch your neck and back.
Your legs would stiffen like rocks.
And you’d clench your fists
tightly for several minutes at a time.
Man, I need to check
if I'm up for another tetanus shot.
This list wouldn't be complete
without some
animal kingdom representation.
The 13 spines
on the back of the stonefish
could inflict a ton of pain on you.
These spines are full of venom.
This venom would cause intense
swelling around the sting.
And that swelling and pain
would quickly spread to the whole limb.
You'd be so preoccupied with the feeling
of a gigantic sledgehammer
slamming down
on the affected body part that
you wouldn't even be able
to put your pain into words.
Whew, that was intense.
After all this pain,
you wouldn't be crazy to wish
you never experienced pain at all.
But that's a story for another WHAT IF.