Off The Record

Scientists Have Found The Worst Kind Of Pain You Can Experience, And It Is Not What You Might Think

Published on February 16, 2025

According to a study, this is the pain a person may experience.

Even though I’m sure we’d all agree that stubs rank among the most unpleasant and painful things a person can go through, they didn’t even make the top 10 in this study.

No, it also didn’t include standing barefoot on a piece of Lego.

According to earlier research, kidney stones are among the most excruciating conditions you can have.

In one study, nearly 89 percent of male participants and more than 78 percent of female participants reported that kidney stones were the worst pain they had ever experienced.

However, a more recent study that was released in 2020 made a different claim.

In this study, more than 1,600 people with cluster headaches were asked to compare the pain of cluster headaches to that of other unpleasant diseases such migraine attacks, knife wounds, and bone fractures.

With a mean score of 9.7 out of 10 on the pain scale, cluster headaches were rated as the most severe ailment by respondents.

Cluster headaches are being characterized by the Mayo Clinic as ‘a highly painful type of headache’ that ‘occurs in periods of frequent episodes known as clusters.’.

These cluster periods may continue for weeks or even months at a time.

Sharp discomfort behind one eye that radiates to other parts of the face, head, and neck; pain on one side of the head; restlessness; a runny or stuffy nose; and changes in skin color on the affected side of the face are some of the symptoms.

With an average score of 7.2, childbirth ranked second in the survey, while pancreatitis came in third with a score of 7.

On the other hand, kidney stones scored 6.9, placing them in fourth position.

A gunshot wound, gallstones, a slipping disc in your spine, a migraine attack, fibromyalgia, and a bone fracture were among the other diseases that required a score higher than five.

Even though heart attacks are among the most deadly disorders mentioned in the survey, they only received a score of five out of ten on the scale.

Heart disease is one of the top causes of death in the United States, with 805,000 Americans suffering a heart attack year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

However, cluster headaches do not pose a threat to life.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, they are exceedingly uncommon and impact approximately 0.1 percent of the world’s population.