Scientists reveal the worst pain you can possibly feel and it's not what you might think
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
A study has revealed what's supposedly the worst pain a person can feel.
While I'm sure we'd all agree that stubbing your toe is up there as one of the most painful and unpleasant things a person can experience, it didn't even make it into the top ten of this study.
No, standing a piece of Lego while barefoot wasn't on there either.
Previous studies have suggested that kidney stones are one of the most painful things you can endure.
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In one particular investigation, over 78 percent of female participants and almost 89 percent of male participants said that kidney stones were the most severe pain they'd ever had.
But a more recent study - published in 2020 - has suggested otherwise.
This study asked over 1,600 cluster headache respondents to compare cluster headache pain to other painful conditions such as bone fractures, stab wounds, and a migraine attack.
And cluster headaches came out on top as the most painful condition, with respondents rating it a mean score 9.7 out of 10 on the pain scale.
As per Mayo Clinic, cluster headaches are described as 'a very painful type of headache' that 'occurs in periods of frequent attacks known as clusters'.
Such cluster periods can last as go on for weeks, or even months, on end.
Symptoms include sharp pain behind one eye that spreads to other areas of the face, head and neck; pain on one side of the head; restlessness; stuffy or runny nose that hurts; and skin color changes on the side of the face that hurts.
Coming in second on the study was childbirth with a mean score of 7.2, with the third most painful condition being pancreatitis with a score of 7.
Kidney stones, meanwhile, came in fourth place with a score of 6.9.
Other conditions to score above five included a gunshot wound, gallstones, slipping a disc in your spine, migraine attack, fibromyalgia, and a bone fracture.
Surprisingly, a heart attack was only scored 5 out of 10 on the scale, despite heart attacks being one of the most fatal conditions listed in the study.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 805,000 Americans have a heart attack each year and heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the country.
Cluster headaches, however, are not life-threatening.
They're extremely rare and affect around 0.1 percent of the global population, says Cleveland Clinic.