I was playing with some kids I was babysitting in McDonald’s play tubes when I was 18. I bent my ankle weird. I’m turning 30 in a couple months and there’s literally not a single day without ankle pain. Sometimes it’s disabling. Several times they haven’t actually found anything wrong with it but last time they said it had something (can’t remember) and it made a lot of bad clicking sounds when the podiatrist handled it. I’ve tried lots of things to help.

I came off my bike as a teenager and broke my funny bone! So it sticks out now and is easier to bump, and the weird tingly pain it causes if so much worse!

I never felt my hand break.

The tip of my opponent’s long sword snapped into the back of my right hand, just behind the pinkie. There was no flash of incandescent pain, no stars in my sight - my mind was too focused on the swordfight. My opponent had scored a hit - and it had hurt, even through my glove - but adrenaline, as they say, is a hell of a drug.

After the tournament, it became clear that something was wrong. My hand began to swell and deform, my right pinkie levering itself inward across my palm until it was sitting at nearly 30° off true. Its nail sat jauntily behind the second knuckle of my middle finger. Making a fist was impossible.

Unfortunately, I was nineteen and had neither cash nor insurance for a doctor. So I did the next best thing - ignored it and told people it was probably just a bad sprain. When people suggested I see a doctor i responded, “What’s a doctor gonna do? Tell me it’s broken and take it easy? I’ll save the money.”

After a few weeks the swelling had gone down enough that I could finally feel the bones in my hand. Where there had once been a single line from wrist to knuckle, I could now feel an ‘x’. An ‘x’ which had clearly spent the last few weeks knitting together at a now permanent bad angle.

It occurred to me then what a doctor would do - set it properly. But now they’d need to re-break the bone.

Unfortunately I still had neither insurance nor cash.

What I did have was a freezer full of popsicles and a small toolbox. I ate a popsicle. And then put the stick between my teeth as I braced my right hand on the table and raised a hammer in my left.

WHAM … WHAM!

I hauled on my pinkie to pull the now-separated bones out straight then massaged them into position until things felt roughly aligned properly.

… Many years later I had health insurance and told my doctor this story and asked if he could x-ray it for me. A week later I received a letter in the mail. Inside was a printout of my hand x-ray with the healed break circled in pen. Besides the circle was a note: “Good job with the hammer”.

All things considered I did a pretty good job, but it’s not quite perfect. My pinkie still leans inward - just a hair. Just enough to remind me.

Accidentally kicked something while running out of a room. Busted my big toe pretty good and the toenail eventually fell off. Two years on and the toenail still hasn’t grown back right. Doctor gave a medication for a fungal infection that sort of has helped, but I’m not so sure it’s ever gonna go back to normal, it just looks like the toenail keeps regrowing over itself but never grows out fully. So it grows 90% of the way, then stops, and it keeps growing over or under it. Gross to look at.

When I was a teenager we had a giant trampoline. One time I was jumping on it and I landed wrong and tweaked something in my back. From then on, If I twisted just right, I would have some sort of spasm in my lower back that would immediately put me on my knees. It used to happen fairly frequently but it’s very rare anymore. I probably should have had it looked at but I didn’t. I haven’t been on a trampoline since. No need to aggravate that injury.

Was eating soup after a long day of work. Tired. Figured I’d drink the last bit out of the bowl.

Crashed it into my front tooth and a piece of it flew off. Enough to be visible, not enough for the dentist to do anything about it. It’ll just stay like that forever.

Not so bad compared to many other stories, just really really pathetic.

I pulled my bed out to grab something that fell behind, forgot to push it back, turned off my light and went to lay down. Stubbed my pinky toe into the leg of the bed frame so hard that I broke two metatarsal. I already had arthritis and tendonitis along with an as of yet diagnosed neurological condition. It ended my welding career and made most general labor positions impossible, and with no office or administrative experience, I’m at a tremendous loss and now navigating the nightmare that is qualifying for disability assistance in the US with no insurance and no money for a doctor to get the proper medical records.

Bent down to pick up a kitten in my garage when I was 8. It was under a car engine suspended on a lift, and I brained myself badly while standing up. Lots of blood, seizures due to three TBI and resultant swelling. Thankfully my mother bravely stood up to the mean old doctor insisting I needed surgery to relieve the swelling and instead treated me with psychic healing and veggie smoothies. It only hurts sometimes 45 years later.

Bent down to pick up a box while cleaning an extra bedroom that had become infested with bees (they had started a hive in the wall due to an unseen opening happened around a hot water pipe after an earthquake). Frustrated due to both the intense heat and the bees that had only left their hive due to said heat, tried lifting said box, not realizing it was full of books and simultaneously ignoring a lifetime of working around my chronic back issues. I stopped trying to stand once I resembled a fleshy right angle and had to crawl out of the room on my hands and knees. A lovely 40 mph fender bender later that year (I was at a complete stop as were the cars in front of me) made that a delightful addition to my back problems.

Same year, I was making Hasselback potatoes for the first time. I have a seldom used but quite nice food processor, but decided ‘hell, why not use the mandolin?’ About an 1/8" of my right ring fingertip, that’s why not, dumbass! Thankfully it grew back, but the very tip looks like a light burn scar and it’s still somewhat numb and tingly when touched 9 years later.

I was playing soccer on a roof when I was around 5 years old. Backed into the then-knee-high wall and fell, head first, 4 meters onto a cement floor. I miraculously broke my fall by hitting something midway, and managed to survive it with just a cracked shoulder, sprained ankle and a couple of stitches on my forehead.

However, I realized years later that my left collarbone now pops out every time I lift my arm over my head.

Does being indoctrinated by society counts as a long lasting Injury?

I slipped going down a slope on a hiking trail, but didn’t let go of the tree I was using for balance. This caused my chest and shoulder muscles to hyper extend.

Now I have slap tears in both shoulders and arthritis in my sternum.

I was really into skiing when I was younger, and would go every weekend with my buddy and his dad. I tried to outrun them, fell, and tumbled. My shoulder was very badly sprained, and I couldn’t use it for like a month. Now from time to time it flares up again, and the pain comes back for a few hours. The shoulder is also much easier to sprain now, every time I fall it’s out of commission for weeks. I went to my doctor, who told me that nothing is broken and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Got WAY TOO drunk at a club, kicked out (which I genuinely accepted with good grace). Walking home, realised I’d forgotten my jacket. Figured I’d just nip in past the bouncer, grab the jacket and leave without bothering anyone. I didn’t nip past. I got bounced. Rebuffed from the club, and pushed backwards I fell over and broke my foot (a Jones fracture). Was in a moon boot for 3 months or so, but now it hurts whenever I walk wrong.

I sneezed about 5 years ago and I haven’t been able to look up and to the right without pain since then. It’s a minor pain, but definitely still there in my neck.

I was about a story and a half high in a magnolia tree when I was about 10, and I had walked out on one branch, holding a smaller branch for balance.

I didn’t realize the one I was standing on was dead, and it snapped at the trunk… The small branch I was holding wasn’t enough to hold my weight, and it snapped too.

The branch I was standing on bounced off the springy ground that was many years worth of shedded leaves, and it hit me in the lower back just before I was about to land on the ground.

It caused a minor fracture in a vertebrate, and caused me a lot of pain at the time, but I didn’t complain because I didn’t want to be “a little girl” (I had two unforgiving older brothers). When I was in 8th grade, I had my first back ache and had x-rays which found the childhood fracture which mishealed due to not being treated.

It still causes me a lot of trouble whenever I’m bent over for long or if I have a back ache.

Both of my hands have some scar tissue which gives me some trouble about 1/11 of the times I do a pinching/clamp kind of grip. Those injuries were from sticking my hands in a dog’s mouth to pry his mouth off of my dog’s throat last year. At first, all my might wasn’t enough, and he chomped the fuck out of my hands.

Then my adrenaline kicked in and I pried his mouth open like it was nothing. I then kind of suplexed and wrestled the dog so mine could be taken to safety. I don’t regret it one bit, but it was definitely a stupid thing to do… but I can still play the piano just fine!

I also came dangerously close to losing an eye from a tooth or nail. It happened so fast I’m not sure what did it. Here are some pictures.