In a video published on Instagram, Dr Alexandre Mensier, visceral surgeon specializing in the digestive tract (@thefrench_chirurgien) offers his ranking of the “worst pains”. The medical answer is less clear-cut: these lists do not say which pain is objectively the worst, they mainly show that pain is experienced differently depending on the person.
A viral ranking, not a scientific scale
Everyone has already compared pain, told “the worst” or heard someone minimize what they felt. Among the worst tortures, Dr. Alexandre Mensier cites in particular childbirth without an epidural, renal colic, hepatic colic, cluster headaches, then ends with a humorous fall on “the common cold in men”.
But on a medical level, there is no universal classification of pain. The international definition of pain emphasizes its personal character: it is linked to a sensory experience, but also emotional. In other words, two people can have a comparable injury or crisis and not describe it, nor tolerate it, in the same way.
This is why viral charts should be read as stories, not evidence. They can highlight pain deemed to be very intense, but they do not allow us to say that “everyone” will feel the same thing, nor in the same order.
What the mentioned pains really say
Several examples given in the video correspond to pain known to be particularly violent. Renal colic, a sudden pain linked to kidney stones, is described by the account as pain starting from the back and going down to the genitals. This description is consistent with what is classically observed: acute pain, often sudden, which can radiate towards the groinmost often linked to a stone in the ureter.
The account also mentions hepatic colic caused by gallstones, which he compares to a stab “from the front”. Here again, the interest of the example is not to place this pain in a fixed rank, but to recall that certain abdominal crises strongly mark those who experience them.
Another example: cluster headache, sometimes called suicide disease. It corresponds to very intense attacks, often located on one side of the face or around the eye. However, it is necessary to be precise: significant psychological suffering may be associated with this diseaseand suicidal ideation may be reported in some patients, but this does not mean that it automatically leads to suicide.
Why no two people feel the same pain
The feeling of pain depends on many elements: the cause of the pain, its intensity, its duration, fatigue, stress, past experiences, the support received, the fear of what is happening, but also the words used to explain it. Context matters as much as the signal sent by the body.
This is especially true for childbirth. It can be experienced as major pain, especially without analgesia, but its intensity and impact vary greatly depending on the woman, the support, the analgesic options available and the progress of the birth. Systematically qualifying it as the “worst pain” would therefore be too simplistic.
The right question is not just “which pain is worse?”, but “what does this pain mean, and should we act?”. A
severe, unusual, persistent sharp pain
or associated with fever, malaise, severe vomiting, pregnancy or inability to urinate requires a urgent medical advice. Without trying to rank yourself on an imaginary scale: pain that worries you deserves to be taken seriously.