Shocking Injuries That Hurt Less Than Fibromyalgia
Constant widespread pain can make acute pain seem like small stuff
In 2018 I learned what a ‘comminuted’ fracture is. It meant my foot had been splintered into fragments, itty bitty freakin’ pieces. I’d had a very bad fall, but like many fibro fighters, I’ve had many bad falls before that one, and I was too overwhelmed with trying to survive life while disabled — so I pushed through, walking on my poor lil’ shattered foot for 10 days.
The pain from fibromyalgia was far worse, so the pain from my foot was almost a welcome distraction, I figured it’d be fine. Eventually enough people looked at my foot with repulsion and told me I really needed to get that looked at, so I did. I was shocked when the doctor told me it was broken, and very badly at that. (Oops, fibro overshadowed a thing doctors actually regard as painful again!)
And I’m not the only fibro fighter who’s done something like this, far from it. For instance, a recent fibromyalgia subreddit about problems regarding the 1–10 pain scale led to many stories about having traditionally high-end pain injuries but not experiencing them that way due to the way constant fibro pain distorts our definition of “bad” pain…fibro hurts so much worse than people who don’t have it can understand.
Here’s 7 more injuries that fibro fighters have shrugged off because fibro was torturing the rest of their bodies far worse:
- Apparently I broke my wrist at some point and didn’t notice because my pain tolerance is so high. 🤷🏻♀️😅 — masters_domme
- I broke my right wrist once in 3 places and still drove a standard about 30–40 miles to get to the hospital. — malia73034
- fuck dude i passed a kidney stone december last year and didn’t even realise it until after i left the urgent care. i heard they’re painful (sometimes more so than giving birth, esp since mine was 4–5mm) but tbh it wasn’t too bad compared to most descriptions, probably due to the same reason as yours (high pain threshold) — M48_apocalypse
- I broke my leg near the ankle and refused to admit it was broken. Walked (hobbled) around on it for 1.5 weeks before showing it to the dudes at the office who’d been laughing about my gimpy ass hobbling around like Igor. By that point, my leg was black and blue from the bottom of my foot up to my knee. The dudes stopped laughing immediately when they saw it. Their reaction was so startling, I thought maybe I should go get an X-ray. When I got in to see the dr and pulled up my pant leg, her face turned sheet white. She kept asking me how I was walking around on it. I’ve never seen a doctor react like that. Greenstick fracture of the fibula. 4/10 pain. — cmeleep
- I broke my leg last year, fracturing my ankle and fibula and snapping my tibia in half. If it wasn’t for the fact that my tibia was now two bones instead of one and I literally couldn’t stand on my own, I guarantee this would have been me. I even told the paramedics to leave me and go help someone else because I was certain if I just sat and rested it for a bit, I’d be able to get up and walk on home. Sure I was in pain but I’m also used to it at this point and therefore didn’t see any reason to go to the hospital for the doctors to dismiss it and me anyway. — gemmabond
- Torn Achilles… I wrapped it with a lidocaine patch and carried on. 🤷🏼♀️ — S4tine
- Broken arm ( tip of my elbow) is maybe a 5 on my scale, toe operation healing where I wasn’t given pain meds after was a solid 9 and a cracked rib is my 10. My fibro alone has easily reached an 8.5 and regularly hits a 7 for me. — 555666hereticsk
So, the next time you catch someone cracking a joke at the expense of fibro-fighters, or writing off health struggles that can’t be seen — please let them know we’re no effing joke.
