I consider myself lucky so far in this regard. The worst illness I got was a bad flu that made me feel I was about to die. I know people had way worse, and I hope for the best for everyone.
I imagine cancer is not what you’re asking here so definitely COVID. I’m not certain about this and I’m not patient zero or anything but I live in NYC and in late January 2020 I was the sickest I’ve ever been in a cold-flu sense. My wife felt so ill we took her to the ER.
I had a next-level case of lupus (auto-immune disease) years ago. At my diagnosis, I had the highest non-drug-induced ANA (anti-nuclear antibody) level ever recorded. I took prednisone and hard chemo to keep my immune system halfway in check. It came with horrible arthritis, inflammation and fluid around my left lung necessitating me to sleep upright, kidney issues, mouth sores, inflammation of my esophagus, and a host of other symptoms. It would have killed me if it wasn’t for an experimental gene swap that turned it off.
Pancreatic cancer. Had a 10 hour surgery called a whipple. It was very traumatic and surgery still haunts me to this day. Surgery was in 2021. Still clear from cancer
I got a bad stomach bug once (pre-covid), and to put it as mildly as I can, I had stuff coming out of both ends. It was really just one long night though, with a couple hours spent sitting on the toilet with a bucket on my lap.
The most enduring bad one I had was when I caught the H1N1 swine flu in 2009. I actually got strep throat as a complication of that, and it REALLY sucked bigtime. On top of that, I was unable to say goodbye to my grandmother (last remaining grandparent) on her deathbed because I was so sick.
it was honestly hell to live through. remembering how every morning they had to take a blood sample (i have a REALLY BAD fear of needles) and i did a blood transfusion and i never had an appetite to eat anything (i don’t know if it was just a mental issue as to why i couldn’t make myself eat) but i was WEAK for about 9-11 days
Ruptured appendix (and surgery) that caused pneumonia, peritonitis, ileus, and several abscesses in my abdomen and pelvis that required drains I had to keep for a month.
Don’t know the name but my intestines stuck in a knot.. An actual knot or twist it stuck together, it blocked my digestive system.
I could not walk or talk all I could do was scream and roll on the floor
The thing was I had to walk upright because rolling on the floor made it worse.
However the pain was too much and in my pain I gave my boyfriend a black eye and kicked my mom only to roll on the floor in pain.
Anyhow they somehow got me to a doctor and I was given a heavy painkiller injection.
I fell a sleep straight for hours after that
I’ve been sick with many things in my life. But the worst one hands down is Trophic Ulcer. It’s rare and very difficult to get rid of. It comes out on feet. Next level of pain
Back when I was 7 years old my mom and I both got influenza and it was extremely bad that year and really dangerous for some reason. I almost died from it
Three way tie between Gastroparesis, Chronic Fatigue, and Fibromyalgia. There are more intense acute illnesses but anything that just drags on and on and on can really destroy your life even if they day to day symtoms don’t seem so bad.
Swine flu made me feel like my bones were made of glass and had to focus all of my energy on each breath. 500 kids at school and only 72 were able to show up one day. Insane that this happened before covid.
Clostridium Difficile after taking amoxicillin for an ear infection. Non-stop pooping (30-40 times a day) for almost a month before they got it under control. I lost 40 pounds.
I have Multiple Endocrinal Neoplasia type 1 syndrome.
The 3 phases are:
PARA-THYROIDS Overactive Para-thyroids causing calcium buildup in Kidneys. 35 stones removed-2 by major surgery. Major para-thyroid operation to remove swollen glands.
PITUITARY GLAND. (Benign tumour) operated through sinus cavity – given 3 months to live at age 31.
PANCREAS GLAND. Overactive – diabetes.
Suffer from major depression after para-thyroid operation. Since age 30.
Life is a real struggle at 70 but still alive & kicking.
Either an obstructed kidney stone or h pylori. One was the worst pain I’ve ever felt and the other was just non stop vomiting/diarrhea for 5 days straight followed by 4 antibiotics at once which wrecked my stomach for weeks.
It’s probably a 3-way tie…shingles (second-youngest case the doc had ever seen), gallstones (required 2 procedures and an ambulance ride to our nearest larger hospital because my liver enzymes were 10x the normal range), and whatever this respiratory junk is that I just got over. I felt completely fine…until I started coughing. I would cough so hard I’d fall out of my chair and didn’t leave my bed for 3 days straight. I coughed for 26 days straight, at day 10 they put me on 2 antibiotics and a steroid that finally broke it. AFTER I developed pneumonia. I tested negative for everything under the sun, and between days 3 and 10 I had developed a wheeze so bad my doctor couldn’t believe I was still upright. It was probably the sickest I’ve ever been.
Collagenous Colitis (pooping 20 times a day)….but it led to the detection of early stage breast cancer in November, 2020. I’m doing fine now and truly believe that Colitis saved my life!
A mild stroke after a car accident. I lost my speech for a few months but was wronly diagnosed with PTST. Because of that I did not get any good treatment. I am getting better but it took me years. I am so glad I did not give up and kept looking for answers myself.
MERS. It was more of an annoyance because I was stuck in bed for 2 weeks. The only positive was that I was miserable enough to not have nicotine withdrawals, should’ve kicked the habit then and there but about a month later I picked one up and been smoking since
I guess chicken pox as a kid. I’ve not really had a serious illness since then (I’m 47). I had covid a few years ago, but only for a couple days, and the flu a couple times, but usually only 24-48 hours
Nurse here, gotta say these comments are making me all tingly… OOF some of the shit y’all have been through.
Worst illness for my body that I felt: fungal pneumonia as a smoker.
Worst illness for my body that I didn’t feel: exertional rhabdomyolysis. (Went into the walk-in clinic and was like, “Hey; yeah, I have rhabdo,” and the NP said, “No offense, but if you had rhabdo, you wouldn’t be walking in here. Most of my patients with rhabdo are in the ICU.”)
I was like, well, just for funzies, let’s draw labs… mmmmmk 30 minutes later they were calling my emergency contact because ya boy has my phone permanently on DND and they couldn’t reach me.
Not technically an illness, but I got my tonsils taken out at 27, and that is how I found out that I was allergic to my painkiller and experienced hyperalgesia. Oof, let me tell you something: head pain in and of itself is bad, but this; it hurt to breathe.
Lost 21 lbs in 9 days and nearly ended up hospitalized because I could barely eat or drink. Was bleeding still at day 9, and within 3 days of a med change, I was pain-free and mostly healed within 3 days.
I’ll suck-start a shotgun before I EVER go through that again.
For context, I have a high pain sensitivity for pain. I’ve broken about 7 bones, did combat sports, and have chronic nerve damage. I know pain, but that hyperalgesia… I’d only wish that on my worst enemy.
Aortic dissection, type Stanford .
It was urgent and I thank to the surgeon that I am still alive.
It happened in 2018 . Now I just take my medicine and try not to have much stress ( not easy task)
COVID was pretty fucking bad. I’ve never been that exhausted in my life. I couldn’t even muster the energy to turn 180 degrees to pick up my phone when it rang. I remember being on my computer and barely having the energy to keep my head up or even browse the internet.
Makes me feel horrible for the people who ended up with long COVID and have that level of exhaustion permanently. I can understand why they become suicidal sometimes. Because it’s not the same as being tired enough to sleep. You can’t fall asleep, and you’re also too exhausted to do or enjoy anything. Every moment being awake just feels like pain.
I’ve had the flu in the past that was worse in terms of coughing/pain, but COVID was the worst in terms of just completely disabling my ability to do ‘anything’.
Ulcerative colitis. Not curable and last year I nearly bled to death by literally shitting blood for months before going to the hospital. Needed blood transfusions. Would not repeat if I had the choice
Several years ago, I loaded a bunch of camping gear onto my bicycle and spent the better part of the next seven months riding 5,300 miles (8,500 km) around the western US solo. At night I often preferred to wild camp. Rather than paying to sleep on the ground in a proper campground, I would simply find somewhere to disappear into the woods, somewhere people we unlikely to find me and less likely to care that I was there.
One night while alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere, I started coming down with food poisoning. Spent the whole night tossing and turning and leaning out the door of the tent to vomit. Next morning, I fixed a flat tire before riding for half a day through cold rain to a motel for some proper rest. I managed to outrun it for a few days, but eventually it caught back up to me when I was out at a museum after making it to a larger city. Spent a rest day in the hostel letting it all out of my system through the opposite end compared to the vomiting (TMI, I know, but you asked!) In hindsight, I’m just thankful the shits waited until I was back in civilization!
Strictly based on symptoms, Covid was probably the most miserable illness I’ve ever had. But the circumstances of my food poisoning, being alone in the woods with nothing but a bicycle to get me anywhere, made it genuinely one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
Small bowel obstruction that required an NG tube up my deviated septum nose that resulted in chronic nose bleeds for 2 days. Choking and gagging on the tube. Not being able to eat or drink for the 2 days. Receiving a dye through the tube that opened the obstruction, sending me into immediate painful, uncontrollable diarrhea.
My wife had amoebic dysentery and, to top it off, she had it in a developing country. This was one of our first (but certainly not our last) experiences with hospitals / emergency rooms in the developing world. Kinda exciting now that we know we can live through it!
I got my second Covid shot and my first shingles vaccine on the same day to save myself a trip to the health department. The following three days were the most miserable I’ve ever had.
Scoliosis. It’s not an illness, but it was pure hell and heavily restricted what I could do. Luckily I underwent spinal fusion surgery and have fully recovered
It’s not an illness. But a tonsillectomy as an adult was brutallllll. I have had about 7 surgeries and 2 C-sections with no drugs after and I would do all of them over again many times before I would consider the tonsillectomy. I was truly shocked as I have always had a higher pain threshold and figured it would be a piece of cake, turns out it is far more painful to get as an adult (especially if your tonsils were as big as mine were).
Well, my liver failed and just about killed me, so that one. Severe Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency Disorder to be precise. Liver transplants are basically miracles.
if that doesn’t count, I’d have to say the first time I got strep-throat when I was 11 years old. made me so weak I could barely stand up, swallowing anyting felt like I was swallowing glass. had to stay in bed for a week while taking meds. it ruined my perfect attendance streak up until that point. hadn’t missed a day of school up until that point. that was back when I thought school was fun.
Liver failure was pretty epic. I had 33 liters of fluid in my abdomen for almost a year. Malnutrition, constant vomiting, uncontrollable itching that doesn’t stop when you scratch. All kinds of fun stuff. And then, when I actually started getting better, my teeth started crumbling. I’m mostly healthy now but still dealing with the effects of it.
Checked myself into the hospital on New Year’s Day with a hefty helping of the flu and pneumonia.
Last thing I remember was the doctor checking my chart in the hallway with an obvious change in mood to sadness, shaking his head and telling his colleagues that I might code overnight.
Woke up the next day feeling much better and never smoked again.
Cdiff. I felt disgusting and worried I was somehow infecting everyone around me just by existing, even though I was incredibly careful. I couldn’t relax and was afraid to sleep, and forget leaving the house or even walking around outside. It was the worst at night, I’d be up all night in the bathroom. So much so that I brought a chair in and a spare pillow to prop on the back of it so I could sleep on the toilet. The smell made me so nauseous and it felt like my insides were burning. 3 rounds of antibiotics to clear it.
Not a doctor, so I’m not sure if it counts as an illness, but appendicitis when I was 8yo, my appendix ruptured during surgery. Extreme pain where my right leg met my hip before and after surgery. Multiple fevers going above 103F. Multiple UTIs. Throwing up bile (getting a tube forced down my nose at 8yo has been my most traumatic experience in life so far). Extreme thirst cause they wouldn’t let me drink water (but somehow things like milk or juice were fine). Forced to drink that red liquid stuff for the scans that would cause me to throw up even more. The “solids” part of my lower digestive tract refused to work for roughly 10 days. Probably some other things too that I think my mind has blocked out.
MRSA. I got an infection inside a surgical incision on my scalp that would not stay closed. I had to work with a specialist wound care team for months.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of packing material tucked inside the incision, then having it pulled out every 2-3 days only to be restuffed. It is disgusting on a whole new level.
The worst physical illness I’ve ever had was honestly just the stomach flu, I guess I’m pretty lucky in that regard, the stomach flu is a bitch but nothing overly painful or life-threatening.
I’m much more mentally ill than the average person though, I manage to pass for high functioning but no one really knows how much of a mess I actually am. I have pretty severe PTSD from my childhood. I’ve been hospitalized in a psych ward five times but have been relatively stable for a while.
Parent of a son with schizophrenia, bipolar, and anxiety. A mother to another son who suffers from high-functioning autism and OCD. And I suffer from Lupus, RA, and chronic migraine
Bowel perforation from diverticulitis. It was the worst pain I have ever felt so far in my life. I had peritonitis and had to get a colectomy. Thankfully, I’m alive, but I am missing approximately a foot of colon.
Comments
Do mental illnesses count
I consider myself lucky so far in this regard. The worst illness I got was a bad flu that made me feel I was about to die. I know people had way worse, and I hope for the best for everyone.
Covid-19 for sure
Food poisoning. The real thing, not just ‘the food gave me an upset stomach’. 24hours of pure pain, down to the bones. Stuff going out every exit.
food pois- scratch that scarlett fever
Rsv, kidney stones. Thankfully not at the same time.
I imagine cancer is not what you’re asking here so definitely COVID. I’m not certain about this and I’m not patient zero or anything but I live in NYC and in late January 2020 I was the sickest I’ve ever been in a cold-flu sense. My wife felt so ill we took her to the ER.
Pretty confident that was COVID.
I had a next-level case of lupus (auto-immune disease) years ago. At my diagnosis, I had the highest non-drug-induced ANA (anti-nuclear antibody) level ever recorded. I took prednisone and hard chemo to keep my immune system halfway in check. It came with horrible arthritis, inflammation and fluid around my left lung necessitating me to sleep upright, kidney issues, mouth sores, inflammation of my esophagus, and a host of other symptoms. It would have killed me if it wasn’t for an experimental gene swap that turned it off.
Pancreatic cancer. Had a 10 hour surgery called a whipple. It was very traumatic and surgery still haunts me to this day. Surgery was in 2021. Still clear from cancer
Mono
Pneumonia
I got a bad stomach bug once (pre-covid), and to put it as mildly as I can, I had stuff coming out of both ends. It was really just one long night though, with a couple hours spent sitting on the toilet with a bucket on my lap.
The most enduring bad one I had was when I caught the H1N1 swine flu in 2009. I actually got strep throat as a complication of that, and it REALLY sucked bigtime. On top of that, I was unable to say goodbye to my grandmother (last remaining grandparent) on her deathbed because I was so sick.
severe dengue
it was honestly hell to live through. remembering how every morning they had to take a blood sample (i have a REALLY BAD fear of needles) and i did a blood transfusion and i never had an appetite to eat anything (i don’t know if it was just a mental issue as to why i couldn’t make myself eat) but i was WEAK for about 9-11 days
Shingles at 21 😭
I had a brutal case of gastroenteritis. It was so bad I lost 30 pounds in 10 days.
Constant vomiting and diarrhea, and was burning up the entire time.
Lyme disease and mold illness combined
Ulcerative colitis.
I used to have it, still do, but I used to too.
Affluenza is something we all share
Guillain-Barré
Ruptured appendix (and surgery) that caused pneumonia, peritonitis, ileus, and several abscesses in my abdomen and pelvis that required drains I had to keep for a month.
Sepsis. It is fast-moving and deadly.
Don’t know the name but my intestines stuck in a knot.. An actual knot or twist it stuck together, it blocked my digestive system.
I could not walk or talk all I could do was scream and roll on the floor
The thing was I had to walk upright because rolling on the floor made it worse.
However the pain was too much and in my pain I gave my boyfriend a black eye and kicked my mom only to roll on the floor in pain.
Anyhow they somehow got me to a doctor and I was given a heavy painkiller injection.
I fell a sleep straight for hours after that
Edit the name is Colic
Norovirus
Covid in March 2020 so pre-vaccine.
Was like having a cold. Thought I’d recovered after a week or two. Tried to go on my usual daily 5K walk. Collapsed.
Five years in, still got long covid. Have never walked 5K again.
I’m disabled from birth does that count?
Other than that, inflamed gallbladder. Hurt like a motherbitch.
Sinus infection that got under the skin and started swelling. Caught it about 12 hours before it was meningitis.
Food poisoning. I was sweating, cold , vomiting, shaking, and had explosion diarrhea for 3 day. Lost 10lbs in that time.
bpd.
I’ve been sick with many things in my life. But the worst one hands down is Trophic Ulcer. It’s rare and very difficult to get rid of. It comes out on feet. Next level of pain
Schizophrenia
Back when I was 7 years old my mom and I both got influenza and it was extremely bad that year and really dangerous for some reason. I almost died from it
Three way tie between Gastroparesis, Chronic Fatigue, and Fibromyalgia. There are more intense acute illnesses but anything that just drags on and on and on can really destroy your life even if they day to day symtoms don’t seem so bad.
Swine flu made me feel like my bones were made of glass and had to focus all of my energy on each breath. 500 kids at school and only 72 were able to show up one day. Insane that this happened before covid.
Fibromyalgia. Still have it tho so lucky me
Clostridium Difficile after taking amoxicillin for an ear infection. Non-stop pooping (30-40 times a day) for almost a month before they got it under control. I lost 40 pounds.
Pretty sure I’ve had alcohol poisoning a time or two. 😔
Luckily those days are long gone…
Swine flu. Bar-none
Long Covid.
Totally disabling.
I have Multiple Endocrinal Neoplasia type 1 syndrome.
The 3 phases are:
Suffer from major depression after para-thyroid operation. Since age 30.
Life is a real struggle at 70 but still alive & kicking.
Meningitis
Either an obstructed kidney stone or h pylori. One was the worst pain I’ve ever felt and the other was just non stop vomiting/diarrhea for 5 days straight followed by 4 antibiotics at once which wrecked my stomach for weeks.
It’s probably a 3-way tie…shingles (second-youngest case the doc had ever seen), gallstones (required 2 procedures and an ambulance ride to our nearest larger hospital because my liver enzymes were 10x the normal range), and whatever this respiratory junk is that I just got over. I felt completely fine…until I started coughing. I would cough so hard I’d fall out of my chair and didn’t leave my bed for 3 days straight. I coughed for 26 days straight, at day 10 they put me on 2 antibiotics and a steroid that finally broke it. AFTER I developed pneumonia. I tested negative for everything under the sun, and between days 3 and 10 I had developed a wheeze so bad my doctor couldn’t believe I was still upright. It was probably the sickest I’ve ever been.
Treatment resistant depression.
Man, I was going to go on and on about how sick I was from one particularly bad case of strep throat, but then I read the comments.
Mono when I was a kid
Post viral arthritis.
Collagenous Colitis (pooping 20 times a day)….but it led to the detection of early stage breast cancer in November, 2020. I’m doing fine now and truly believe that Colitis saved my life!
Swine flu, hands down.
Lung cancer
Flu which led to secondary bacterial pneumonia. Brutal.
A mild stroke after a car accident. I lost my speech for a few months but was wronly diagnosed with PTST. Because of that I did not get any good treatment. I am getting better but it took me years. I am so glad I did not give up and kept looking for answers myself.
MERS. It was more of an annoyance because I was stuck in bed for 2 weeks. The only positive was that I was miserable enough to not have nicotine withdrawals, should’ve kicked the habit then and there but about a month later I picked one up and been smoking since
hernia. can’t get surgery on it and when it flares up it feels like my body is about to open up
Cholestatic liver injury and extreme hypervitaminosis a resulting in neuro degeneration.
Suicidal ideation.
Pneumonia
I guess chicken pox as a kid. I’ve not really had a serious illness since then (I’m 47). I had covid a few years ago, but only for a couple days, and the flu a couple times, but usually only 24-48 hours
An illness in which docs couldn’t find out what it was. Turn out to be black magic. Thankfully got out of it
Nurse here, gotta say these comments are making me all tingly… OOF some of the shit y’all have been through.
Worst illness for my body that I felt: fungal pneumonia as a smoker.
Worst illness for my body that I didn’t feel: exertional rhabdomyolysis. (Went into the walk-in clinic and was like, “Hey; yeah, I have rhabdo,” and the NP said, “No offense, but if you had rhabdo, you wouldn’t be walking in here. Most of my patients with rhabdo are in the ICU.”)
I was like, well, just for funzies, let’s draw labs… mmmmmk 30 minutes later they were calling my emergency contact because ya boy has my phone permanently on DND and they couldn’t reach me.
Not technically an illness, but I got my tonsils taken out at 27, and that is how I found out that I was allergic to my painkiller and experienced hyperalgesia. Oof, let me tell you something: head pain in and of itself is bad, but this; it hurt to breathe.
Lost 21 lbs in 9 days and nearly ended up hospitalized because I could barely eat or drink. Was bleeding still at day 9, and within 3 days of a med change, I was pain-free and mostly healed within 3 days.
I’ll suck-start a shotgun before I EVER go through that again.
For context, I have a high pain sensitivity for pain. I’ve broken about 7 bones, did combat sports, and have chronic nerve damage. I know pain, but that hyperalgesia… I’d only wish that on my worst enemy.
Aortic dissection, type Stanford .
It was urgent and I thank to the surgeon that I am still alive.
It happened in 2018 . Now I just take my medicine and try not to have much stress ( not easy task)
Chickenpox as an adult and pregnant. Absolutely awful
COVID was pretty fucking bad. I’ve never been that exhausted in my life. I couldn’t even muster the energy to turn 180 degrees to pick up my phone when it rang. I remember being on my computer and barely having the energy to keep my head up or even browse the internet.
Makes me feel horrible for the people who ended up with long COVID and have that level of exhaustion permanently. I can understand why they become suicidal sometimes. Because it’s not the same as being tired enough to sleep. You can’t fall asleep, and you’re also too exhausted to do or enjoy anything. Every moment being awake just feels like pain.
I’ve had the flu in the past that was worse in terms of coughing/pain, but COVID was the worst in terms of just completely disabling my ability to do ‘anything’.
Vertigo, totally disabling!
Since a kid my body can’t regulate temperature. I. Get very hot, insanely hot
Gallbladder infection due to massive jagged stones sucked.
H.pylori
Preeclampsia. Thank goodness for modern medicine – saved both me and my preemie
the disease in my nervous system most people dont believe exists or that I (22) dont have it because of my age!! fibromyalgia:3
Chicken pox at age 33,damn near killed me.
Having M.S. I wanted to die at first.
Fucking Norovirus. It. Was. Miserable.
The only time in my adult life that I vomited from anything other than binge-drinking.
Ecoli
SLE
Ulcerative colitis. Not curable and last year I nearly bled to death by literally shitting blood for months before going to the hospital. Needed blood transfusions. Would not repeat if I had the choice
Lyme disease. Still dealing with it.
Several years ago, I loaded a bunch of camping gear onto my bicycle and spent the better part of the next seven months riding 5,300 miles (8,500 km) around the western US solo. At night I often preferred to wild camp. Rather than paying to sleep on the ground in a proper campground, I would simply find somewhere to disappear into the woods, somewhere people we unlikely to find me and less likely to care that I was there.
One night while alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere, I started coming down with food poisoning. Spent the whole night tossing and turning and leaning out the door of the tent to vomit. Next morning, I fixed a flat tire before riding for half a day through cold rain to a motel for some proper rest. I managed to outrun it for a few days, but eventually it caught back up to me when I was out at a museum after making it to a larger city. Spent a rest day in the hostel letting it all out of my system through the opposite end compared to the vomiting (TMI, I know, but you asked!) In hindsight, I’m just thankful the shits waited until I was back in civilization!
Strictly based on symptoms, Covid was probably the most miserable illness I’ve ever had. But the circumstances of my food poisoning, being alone in the woods with nothing but a bicycle to get me anywhere, made it genuinely one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
Mycoplasma Encephalitis when I was 5. 4hrs in a coma, 6wks in hospital. Still have side-effects more than 30yrs after.
My wife got Steven Johnson’s Syndrome
She was given an anticonvulsive and it lead to her mucus membranes and skin separating from eachother. Looked like a horrible figure from a movie.
She was treated like a third degree burn patient in the burn ward. Few drs had seen it at the time.
No scars on her body after 20 years but she cannot produce tears and has eye issues.
Small bowel obstruction that required an NG tube up my deviated septum nose that resulted in chronic nose bleeds for 2 days. Choking and gagging on the tube. Not being able to eat or drink for the 2 days. Receiving a dye through the tube that opened the obstruction, sending me into immediate painful, uncontrollable diarrhea.
My wife had amoebic dysentery and, to top it off, she had it in a developing country. This was one of our first (but certainly not our last) experiences with hospitals / emergency rooms in the developing world. Kinda exciting now that we know we can live through it!
I got my second Covid shot and my first shingles vaccine on the same day to save myself a trip to the health department. The following three days were the most miserable I’ve ever had.
Sepsis from a kidney infection from too-bog kidney stones that blocked the urethers.
Fun times.
Scoliosis. It’s not an illness, but it was pure hell and heavily restricted what I could do. Luckily I underwent spinal fusion surgery and have fully recovered
Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura
Required 3 weeks in the hospital and eventually my spleen removed, which is no longer the treatment plan for the disease.
Cancer
Pneumonia. The cough lasted a month and I ended up getting a secondary infection from it. I wasn’t really fully better for almost 2 months.
It’s not an illness. But a tonsillectomy as an adult was brutallllll. I have had about 7 surgeries and 2 C-sections with no drugs after and I would do all of them over again many times before I would consider the tonsillectomy. I was truly shocked as I have always had a higher pain threshold and figured it would be a piece of cake, turns out it is far more painful to get as an adult (especially if your tonsils were as big as mine were).
Norovirus
Well, my liver failed and just about killed me, so that one. Severe Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency Disorder to be precise. Liver transplants are basically miracles.
Bronchitis for the first time. Right before CV 19 came around.
It’s a toss up between a brain tumor, brain infection and cancer. All three really sucked.
umbilical hernia with an obstructed bowel.
if that doesn’t count, I’d have to say the first time I got strep-throat when I was 11 years old. made me so weak I could barely stand up, swallowing anyting felt like I was swallowing glass. had to stay in bed for a week while taking meds. it ruined my perfect attendance streak up until that point. hadn’t missed a day of school up until that point. that was back when I thought school was fun.
Liver failure was pretty epic. I had 33 liters of fluid in my abdomen for almost a year. Malnutrition, constant vomiting, uncontrollable itching that doesn’t stop when you scratch. All kinds of fun stuff. And then, when I actually started getting better, my teeth started crumbling. I’m mostly healthy now but still dealing with the effects of it.
Anorexia Nervosa
Checked myself into the hospital on New Year’s Day with a hefty helping of the flu and pneumonia.
Last thing I remember was the doctor checking my chart in the hallway with an obvious change in mood to sadness, shaking his head and telling his colleagues that I might code overnight.
Woke up the next day feeling much better and never smoked again.
Pneumonia. It makes you a type of tired and weak you didn’t know you could be while still technically alive imo.
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Absolute hell for 6 or so months.
Malaria. The gift that keeps on giving.
My partner and I had H1N1 in 2018 and we both thought we were going to die
I’ve had COVID twice and bowel cancer, but I never been so sick before or aft
Kerataconus, I’ve had 4 corneal transplants… the shape of your eyes become rugby ball shaped and not curved.
Besides my mental health, I had cellulitis (a skin infection) on my leg that led to septic shock. I almost died.
Cdiff. I felt disgusting and worried I was somehow infecting everyone around me just by existing, even though I was incredibly careful. I couldn’t relax and was afraid to sleep, and forget leaving the house or even walking around outside. It was the worst at night, I’d be up all night in the bathroom. So much so that I brought a chair in and a spare pillow to prop on the back of it so I could sleep on the toilet. The smell made me so nauseous and it felt like my insides were burning. 3 rounds of antibiotics to clear it.
Mono. Some people barely feel a thing and I guess I just got a really extreme reaction
My appendix ruptured and gave me sepsis.
Not a doctor, so I’m not sure if it counts as an illness, but appendicitis when I was 8yo, my appendix ruptured during surgery. Extreme pain where my right leg met my hip before and after surgery. Multiple fevers going above 103F. Multiple UTIs. Throwing up bile (getting a tube forced down my nose at 8yo has been my most traumatic experience in life so far). Extreme thirst cause they wouldn’t let me drink water (but somehow things like milk or juice were fine). Forced to drink that red liquid stuff for the scans that would cause me to throw up even more. The “solids” part of my lower digestive tract refused to work for roughly 10 days. Probably some other things too that I think my mind has blocked out.
MRSA. I got an infection inside a surgical incision on my scalp that would not stay closed. I had to work with a specialist wound care team for months.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of packing material tucked inside the incision, then having it pulled out every 2-3 days only to be restuffed. It is disgusting on a whole new level.
Polio. Pre vaccine. Or fun and life long issues. VACCINATE yourself and your kids.
The worst physical illness I’ve ever had was honestly just the stomach flu, I guess I’m pretty lucky in that regard, the stomach flu is a bitch but nothing overly painful or life-threatening.
I’m much more mentally ill than the average person though, I manage to pass for high functioning but no one really knows how much of a mess I actually am. I have pretty severe PTSD from my childhood. I’ve been hospitalized in a psych ward five times but have been relatively stable for a while.
Parent of a son with schizophrenia, bipolar, and anxiety. A mother to another son who suffers from high-functioning autism and OCD. And I suffer from Lupus, RA, and chronic migraine
Bowel perforation from diverticulitis. It was the worst pain I have ever felt so far in my life. I had peritonitis and had to get a colectomy. Thankfully, I’m alive, but I am missing approximately a foot of colon.
Not covid
Fibromyalgia
So sorry to hear everyone’s illnesses BIG Hugs to you all.
Having ptsd
I just had the flu a couple weeks ago. Completely wrecked me!