# Broken nose? Concussion? Cracked ribs? Anyone? (1 Viewer)



## Tealynn (Apr 11, 2016)

Hi all, 

So my MC has had a very rough time of it lately, as you can see from my title, and what I've learned so far is that I have had a very dull/blessed life. :-s I have NO idea how any of those injuries feel. I can surmise - they hurt! But I want to know more on an intimate level without actually having to suffer any of it. 

Anybody care to share a line or two about their experiences with any of the above? I've never had a broken bone... And I will openly admit I am a BIG baby when it comes to pain :cower:ZERO pain tolerance:cower:  so I could end up going way over-board on my descriptions. Just looking for some reality to go with my fiction.

Thank you!!


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## Phil Istine (Apr 11, 2016)

I've never broken any bones, but did experience concussion as a kid when I fell from some play equipment.
It was peculiar.  Apparently I was knocked out for about 30 seconds - but obviously didn't find out until later.  Things felt a bit hazy and I behaved a bit oddly, even swearing at my father an hour or so later (unheard of!).  The next day I had partial memories of odd conversations, but no-one figured out until the next day that I had been concussed.  There were a few blank spots in my memory.  Surprisingly, no headache either.


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## Sonata (Apr 11, 2016)

All three I am afraid, and more than once at that.  They all hurt but I think ribs are the worst as they take so long to heal.


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## Tealynn (Apr 11, 2016)

Phil Istine - So you never really felt any pain with the concussion? More issues with memory loss.

Sonata - sorry to pester to you, was it dull pain? Sharp? Stomach rolling? did you have pain with your concussion? I really have no idea!


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## PrinzeCharming (Apr 11, 2016)

My hand was torn apart. Nothing broken. 13 stitches in my right hand, and a story to tell the ladies. Sorry. I can't say too much about that department.


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## Sleepwriter (Apr 11, 2016)

concussion and cracked ribs here.    The concussion, as Phil said was more of a memory issue than any real pain from it.  When I came to, I was very confused, but I was more confused as to why I felt confused.  Couldn't remember how I got there or what happened.  I know I kept a low-grade headache for quite awhile, and my memory slowly returned except for the moment of impact that caused the accident.

the cracked rib hurt like a mutha.  Long story short.  Full contact martial arts meet.  Left an opening and paid for it.   It hurt to sit, stand or breathe, and I thought I would die when I coughed.


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## Ariel (Apr 11, 2016)

I had a massive concussion in my early 20s.  I stood up into a stained glass/cast-iron chandelier.  My knees crumpled.  The impact hurt but the dizziness and exhaustion that followed led to some very odd days.  I don't remember much of them other than not being able to walk straight.


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## Phil Istine (Apr 11, 2016)

Tealynn said:


> Phil Istine - So you never really felt any pain with the concussion? More issues with memory loss.
> 
> Sonata - sorry to pester to you, was it dull pain? Sharp? Stomach rolling? did you have pain with your concussion? I really have no idea!



That's the peculiar thing about it.  I must have banged my head, but didn't feel any lingering head pain.  There was some initial pain from the thud, but it was gone within a minute at most.  It was more just a feeling of vagueness and everything felt weird and distant.


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## Sonata (Apr 11, 2016)

Tealynn said:


> Sonata - sorry to pester to you, was it dull pain? Sharp? Stomach rolling? did you have pain with your concussion? I really have no idea!



Broken nose - hurts but not for long.  It has been a long [very] time since I broke it but each time the pain was worse when coming round from the anasthaetic when it was reset.  The first time they just reset it but when I jokingly said that it was a pity they were not giving me a new nose I was promised they would if I broke it again.  Which I did, about a year later.

Broken ribs - hurt like hell and took ages to heal.  The problem is that when I am not in my chair I have to heave myself on my crutches and my shoulders and upper arms are very weak and hurt to start with when using them, so going to the bathroom, even with rails each side and a raised seat, had me ouching like mad when getting on and then getting off the throne.  

Actually everything was a nightmare.  Things are difficult enough at the best of times but with broken or even just cracked ribs I really did not need the prolonged pain.  

Concussion - when a head hits a stone floor, if you are not instantly knocked out you HEAR the bang it makes.  Trying to get up when you are so disorientated that you do not even know where you are...  then when eventually back in your chair you just sit and do not know what to do.  Laying down your head just swims.

I  have stone floors and too many times my head has hit the floor.  Yes it hurts and I usually have a headache for a few days afterwards.

It is difficult to explain the type of pain for each thing - they are all different and all depend on the severity of the injury, and each person has a different pain thresh-hold.


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## -xXx- (Apr 12, 2016)

_-delete line-_
read about vestibular hyperacusis at all?
"lost in space" with "biochemical language bypass"
can you say neural-reroute-required? i thought you could.


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## Bloggsworth (Apr 12, 2016)

I had an off in my racing car (the one before the avatar to the left), backwards at about 70 MPH into the barrier; had a headache for a week; thinking back it was probably concussion. Broke my ankle at work; got my wife to strap it up really tight (jockeys do that as it maintains a degreee of mobility) - If I'd gone to hospital they would have put it in plaster, which would have stopped me driving. Popped my shoulder playing rugby, the referee, a doctor, thumped the point of my elbow, it went back in, so I carried on playing. On another occasion I dislocated my little finger at the second joint, it popped out onto the top of the first joint (rugby again), so I pulled it back and carried on playing - If I'd gone to hospital they would have splinted it and I wouldn't have been able to play for six weeks, so I strapped it to the next finger, consequently it pops out every now and then as it never healed, but there was no way I was missing 6 weeks rugby for a broken finger! I have osteo-arthritis in my neck and a crushed L3 disk, too many years as a prop-forward, but I still, at 71, wish I could run out and play of a Saturday...


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## Jack of all trades (Apr 12, 2016)

The symptoms of a concussion are different depending on location. The back of the head impacts vision, hearing and balance. The front of the head impacts reasoning. I found that out when the hospital staff asked me the wrong questions and my concussion went undiagnosed initially. Pain? I had a deep wound to my eyebrow, which needed stitches and hurt very much. The concussion? No real pain. Just had to have others keep a close eye on me as I didn't have any common sense and was likely to act on any impulse.

Never broke a nose or ribs. Broke my hand, and while it hurt, I didn't need any pain meds for it. Wasn't even offered any (that I recall) with the head injury.


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## TJ1985 (Apr 12, 2016)

I've had all three, some a couple times. Oddly,  thinking back I have had all three from bicycle crashes... so friggin' glad I got my driver's license... 

Okay, broken nose... First thing is that it's pain in a body part that you rarely have pain in, so it's not a pain you can get used to. Also, we humans forget how much we really do touch our noses until it hurts when we touch it. Immediately after the fracture, I got a good nosebleed going. The pain was there, but it was a numb feeling for a couple minutes. The real pain set in a few minutes later and it just throbbed and throbbed. Every heart beat, I felt it in my nose. A needle-like pain. If you sneeze, the blood restarts, the pain increases exponentially. It truly feels like your sneeze has re-fractured your nose. It took about two days for my pain to subside and then it only hurt when something touched it, I sneezed, etc. That went away about a week, week and a half later. Never, ever, EV-ER, break your nose during allergy season... Pollen sucks, fresh cut grass sucks, and... outside sucks actually. 

Concussion. I'll give a lot of material here because, as I understand it, the experience changes some person-to-person. I went over the handlebars and came down head first. I was lucky not to break my neck, though the injury probably can take credit for some of my current neck problems. I checked my watch and it was 1:27. The next thing I recall is my mother gently slapping me awake about ten, fifteen minutes later, near fifteen to two. My head felt... weird, like I'd been given a numbing shot in my scalp. My head hurt, but from inside my head, not outside. Neat little thing with me which I've been told is unique to me, if you shined a bright light in my eyes for three or four days, I'd throw up. No real reason why, but that was my trigger. A doctor looks in my eye with that little penlight, I'd barf. Poor doc, I tried to tell him but Some folks have to learn things the hard way. 

My memory about the entire event is spotty. I do not remember anything after checking my watch. I do not remember where I crashed. (I know where I crashed, but not on my own, I know it because family have told me where it happened. I don't remember it myself.) I do not remember getting back to the house, whether I walked, was carried, flew, pogo-sticked. Dunno. When I went to check out my bike the next day, I truly didn't know what the hell had happened to it. I thought some jerk had run over it with a car. Somebody had to tell me to touch my head (which was mucho sore by this time) and then I connected two and two together: some jerk ran over my bike and *I* with a car. (No car was involved at all. I went over the bars all by myself. It should give a picture of how wonky your mind works when you've had a wreck that involves a head-thump.) When concussed, you're loopy for a couple days. I suppose that's why folks call it "getting your bell rung" because I felt... rung, lol. It took a couple weeks to "start acting like me" again. There are still blocks of time the day after the crash, the day of the crash, and the day before the crash, that I do not remember anything about. I recall repeating (or trying to repeat) tasks I'd done the day before because I didn't remember doing them. The injury itself, I really don't remember it hurting that much, the memory/cognitive stuff either made the pain seem minimal or the pain was minimal. I truly don't have more than foggy memory about the whole mess. For a week or so, I was in a haze. Thank heavens I was 10 or somebody would have thought I was a stoner and called the cops. 

Cracked ribs. I'm with Sonata: the ribs are worst because the pain lingers for so long. You breath a lot, and every breath flexes the cracked bone, presses against it. It really feels like somebody is in there with a knife prying on your rib. If you cough, sneeze, laugh, or do anything else that causes a rapid breath in or out, you immediately know about it. In this, it's pretty much the same for everybody. 

I hope some of this is helpful.


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## -xXx- (Apr 12, 2016)

wow! writers are a beat up bunch.
_*knows there's a story in here somewhere if i could just find a...never mind, this napkin will do.*_


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## Tealynn (Apr 12, 2016)

Thank you everyone! 
TJ1985 - that was a fabulous reply. Thank you for going into such detail! Again, I feel truly fortunate I haven't experienced any of it - but that also makes it difficult to write about it in a realistic way. Thank you thank you!


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## TJ1985 (Apr 12, 2016)

Speaking as an accident prone guy, you might consider adding a fractured clavicle/collarbone to the mix. I've fractured it and fingers most of all, and oddly, it was an injury that accompanied both my first serious concussion and my broken nose. It's a pretty common injury and it renders the arm on that side nearly useless. The shoulder kinda needs that collarbone to move and without it being stable and solid, any movement of that arm/shoulder is level 7 pain. It truly depends on how beat up you want your MC to be. If you're just going for general ouchies, I'd say you're well covered. If you want him to be having a thoroughly miserable day, it's your call.


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## PSFoster (Jan 19, 2020)

I haven't broken my ribs but I did bruise them. Incredible pain. Hurts to breathe or even move. I also had a bad car accident where I was knocked out and was unconscious for about 4 hours. No one said it was a concussion. The only memory loss was from a short time before the accident until I awoke in the Emergency room. I could remember everything except the actual accident. That was in 1995 and I still don't have a clue what happened.


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## Amnesiac (Jan 19, 2020)

I've had cracked ribs from boxing. They used to tape ribs, but found that doing so can cause pneumonia, so they stopped. Now, if you have cracked ribs, it's just... be careful not to laugh, cough, sneeze, or roll over in the middle of the night for about six weeks. It sucks.


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## indianroads (Jan 19, 2020)

Sorry - I've not read the whole thread. I've had all three.

Nose broken four times (slow learner... but I've perfected the 'face lead' when fighting).
Ribs twice - in the old days of martial arts we didn't play around.
Concussion - once at least. I was fighting in a PKA full contact karate match. My opponent caught me coming in with a back kick, broke my ribs and sent me through the ropes and I fell off the ring apron onto the concrete floor. I don't remember any of it, but that's what I was told. Last thing I recall of that night was walking toward the ring.

Nose: swells up - my partner said I looked like the guy on the Indian head nickel. If you turn your head fast it kinda feels like you nose lags behind.

Ribs: miserable. Breathing hurts. Laughing... oh man, everyone turns into a frigging comedian. Coughing and sneezing? Just don't.

Concussion - like a migraine that doesn't go away for days. And memory loss too.


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## Foxee (Jan 19, 2020)

Wow, this reminds me of reading a Jack Reacher novel. Anyway, I have not experienced the injuries above though I have had a badly wrenched ankle and one thing I noticed was that your whole body is tuned to the injury. You compensate for it with where you put your weight and how you move (which can create further soft tissue strain and injury) and everything seems to jolt and jostle that affected part. 

Also, injuries affect you differently depending on how far you are from when the injury happened. For instance, SHOCK. A friend of mine had a big piece of firewood bounce off of a fence right into her face and broke her nose. She knew immediately that it was broken and while she was still in shock she put her fingers on either side of it and snapped it back into place. Then, decorated with blood down her front, she drove herself to the ER.


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## LCLee (Jan 19, 2020)

Broken nose in a bar fight that left it full of dried blood of which I couldn’t touch because of the pain. It took three days before I could breathe through my nose.
Broken ribs from a car rollover—nine times—and I couldn’t breathe even after I was wrapped by the doctor. I went from bench pressing 225# to screaming like a little wimp at 150#.
Humerus replaced as it broke apart in a motorcycle accident and left my arm tied across my chest until—the daughter of Satan—therapist got it moving again took two months before I had range but no strength.
Broken wrist water-skiing accident when the single handle tow rope broke, forcing the handle from parallel to my body to an instant vertical snap. healed pretty quick. But I’ll stop there.


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## Sam (Jan 20, 2020)

I've had cracked ribs and a concussion before in my life. 

The pain of cracked ribs isn't really the problem. The pain of having to breathe is the problem. Even bandaged to the hilt, on pain meds, breathing with cracked ribs is a exercise in agony. Have you ever had a stitch in your side? Of course you have. Well, cracked ribs is only about twenty million times worse than that. 

Again, the concussion part isn't really the danger. If a concussion is not treated with care and haste, you run the risk of getting post-concussion syndrome -- and that's as bad as it sounds. I've never experienced it, because my concussion occurred in a period when head injuries in sport were treated as a medical emergency, but my friend got it after a collision of heads in a football game. He shrugged it off and kept playing, but spent the next six months with severe headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and tinnitus. Nowadays, 'concussion protocol' is activated any time a person suffers a head injury. 



Tealynn said:


> Hi all,
> 
> So my MC has had a very rough time of it lately, as you can see from my title, and what I've learned so far is that I have had a very dull/blessed life. :-s I have NO idea how any of those injuries feel. I can surmise - they hurt! But I want to know more on an intimate level without actually having to suffer any of it.
> 
> ...


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## Amnesiac (Jan 20, 2020)

I've had a concussion from being hit with a bottle. I don't remember much about it. I remember it hurt like hell... Someone else told me I got hit with a bottle because I couldn't remember it. I simply awoke in a battalion aid station with a righteous headache, slurring my words, and blurry vision.


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## ResMax80 (Feb 11, 2020)

I suffered a concussion when my idiot drunk cousin shoved me hard and I fell on the hard sand. What I remember is a nasty headache, general confusion, and a loss of balance/stumbling. Fortunately my other cousin got me to the hospital and got me treated, and once the doctors had diagnosed the concussion they had me take it very easy, limiting my exposure to TV, computers, and crowds among other things. I also naturally, had to be extremely careful with physical activity and get a good amount of  rest.


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## hvysmker (Feb 11, 2020)

In the eighties I lived in a bad part of Honolulu. One night a female friend and I were drinking in a second-floor apartment with a hooker we knew, socially. I woke in the hospital with a concussion and broken wrist. I had been blanked out by alcohol but my friend said the other girl pushed me off the lanai during an argument.

A detective wanted me to press charges, but I refused. For one thing, I lived there and didn't want a snitch reputation. And, then, who could tell. Next time I might be the one doing the pushing.


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## Plasticweld (Feb 11, 2020)

.......


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## Ralph Rotten (Feb 11, 2020)

Never broken any bones, but not for a lack of trying.
Broken my nose half a dozen times. It always pisses me off and I generally go berzerker when it happens.
Never had a concussion, though I did fall through a ceiling and onto my back once (while ditching school I fell through the roof of ANOTHER school I was at.) Back hurt for a few days.

I did cut the tip of a finger off with a worm saw. Took eleven stitches to sew it back on. I initially was just gonna wrap it up and keep working, but the guy I was working with made me file a claim and go see a doctor (but I think he just wanted my pain-pills.)


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## luckyscars (Feb 12, 2020)

Biro said:


> I burnt my willie (penis)  once as a teenager.  Long story.  Still got scar today.  No chance of any pictures though.



Must have been some hot sex.


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## TL Murphy (Feb 12, 2020)

Okay, Plastiweld wins!

I broke ribs when I went over a cliff on my mountain bike.  Probably concussion, too. The worst was that I had a bad cold so every time I coughed for the next week I thought my chest would explode.

Broke my back at work.  Fell from a ladder that slipped out on some ice. Fortunately, no surgery.

By far the most painful injury was a torn ACL while playing basketball.  I finally got it repaired surgically two years later.  Long recover and lots of physio.  It’s good now.


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## Phil Istine (Feb 12, 2020)

Biro said:


> I burnt my willie (penis)  once as a teenager.  Long story.  Still got scar today.  No chance of any pictures though.



Wow, that certainly beats catching it in a zip (twice).


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## River Rose (Feb 15, 2020)

Kidney injury. Every test run on me. No explanation. One was injured more than the other. I am an avid walker. I log,,,9 miles a day in Exercise. I find things on my walking. Weird things. Things to repair ships. I found 2 in the last few days. I know when I see them that they have been left for me. If I ignore and don’t pick up the first go around,,,they will remain their until I do. So,,,I pick up my finds which clues me I am going to work. Not here. Light distances away. Fractured seconds. No time nor space. I was not injured on this planet. Is why they can not fix me here. Next week I will find out the long term damage done to this earth issued battered body.


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