The human body is a complex system. Sometimes health problems are caused by the environment around us, while other times they originate from within with no warning or explanation whatsoever.
In almost any case, a bodily condition will result in pain, and depending on the type of injury, that pain can be minor or excruciating. Here are people's stories of the worst physical pain they've ever experienced:
#1 Tooth Problems
Tooth infection, I pulled some of my hair out. I could see people ending themselves to stop the pain. I don't get why teeth aren't being considered "luxury bones" for insurance purposes. Tooth infections can cause horrible, horrible pain that you just kind of have to deal with if you can't pay a dentist to fix it. One can absolutely end you and yet it's not taken seriously at all from a medical standpoint pretty much until the moment it does.
#2 Easy Fix, Long Struggle
I have an approximately 6" third-degree burn on my arm that became infected; I've had a board go through my bottom lip; I've had broken bones; I've landed on my back after doing a backflip off a 30' bridge. But by far the worst pain for me was an infected tooth.
It was like scorching hot sheet metal being sheared in my jaw. I don't know how else to describe it. I had a metal crown on over a root canal but my tooth had broken not big enough for me to remove the crown, but enough that the inside was exposed.
I'd lay on the floor with my head between my knees and I could feel the infected liquid come out and hit the metal crown. Each drip was almost blackout-inducing. I took a diabetic needle and filled it with the strongest booze I could get and squirt it into the hole to numb it and disinfect it as well as I could. I couldn't afford the dentist in the US. I remember getting the tooth pulled would be ~$600 but I was a super broke college student.
This lasted two years.
I came to Japan and they mostly fixed it—no more pain, in like 45 minutes and it cost ~$30. I cried when I paid. I couldn't believe is gone through so much pain for so long and it was so easy and cheap to fix outside of the US.
#3 Root Canal Horror
I had a root canal treatment once, and for some reason, part of the tooth nerve was in a place it shouldn't be. So the dentist didn't remove all of it. The first few days were just very painful, but after that it became horrific. The dentist couldn't find the problem until after almost two weeks when the infection was gone and I could pinpoint the place where the pain originated (actually, the dentist poked with something in my tooth and I had to say where it hurt most, direct metal-nerve contact wasn't even that bad at that moment).
Painkillers barely did anything. There was only pain. I couldn't eat or sleep or think, it was just continuous, excruciating pain. Basically, the nerve was lying in the open and continuously in contact with disinfecting paste. Whenever a doctor asks me to score the pain for something, I have to remind myself that this tooth pain isn't the norm.
Otherwise, I'd never score above 2 or 3 on a scale from 1 to 10. Some pain can be very uncomfortable, but up to now it never even comes close to this. Even though I passed out from pain twice, it doesn't really compare with the root canal horror.
#4 Never Eliminated
I had one of those horrible pains after a botched filling where the nerve in my tooth got infected. I couldn't find a surgeon to see me for a few weeks, so many days were just spent crying in bed because that's all I could do. The pain was SO bad. My dentist gave me codeine for it and that didn't even touch the pain. She also gave me two numbing shots right on the nerve... my entire face was totally numb, but the tooth pain didn't go down at all. Honestly, life-changing.
#5 Bone Loss
My dad has always had insanely high pain tolerance, he eventually went to the dentist because of a "mild uncomfortableness." He ended up losing almost a cubic inch of bone from his face because of a tooth infection that was rotting it away. He went through surgery and is all good now, but he broke a couple of records for that hospital that day.
#6 Crushed Underneath
I was changing the brake pads on my car and the jack collapsed. The entire car crushed my arm and pinned me to the ground. It was in an apartment complex and there were people outside that heard me yelling for help. A guy and an older lady came and tried lifting the car enough for me to pull my crushed arm out.
The skin was peeling off as I pulled with all my might.
Once I felt some pressure release and just before my arm was out, the car slipped out of the lady's hands and crushed my hand. At this point, I was trying to get her to lift for two more seconds so I could get my arm out. After what felt like an eternity, I finally got it out. I can't describe what having your arm and hands crushed feels like, but it was the most intense pain I've ever felt. I kept going unconscious because of the pain until they hooked me up in the ambulance.
#7 Kidney Stones
Kidney stones. I'm pretty susceptible to them as it runs in my family, so I have to drink A LOT of water. I've got kidney stones two or three times in my life so far. I don't want anymore so I'm extra cautious. The first one was the hardest. It had me doubled over and paramedics had to bring me to the ER. After that, if I feel one coming on, I’ll take 800 mg of Advil and crash on the couch. One time, I had a stone that was stuck for almost a week. I threw up from the pain twice that one.
#8 No Winning
God. I had a filling done with no medicine stuff or a numbing agent. I have not been to the dentist in six years because it was so devastating. It didn’t hurt like crazy, but the panic of feeling things and having to swallow from stress was unbearable enough. It's even more stress when the dentist keeps getting mad that you are swallowing!
#9 Violent Dentist
This happened to me as a little kid. I had four baby teeth that were not coming out on their own. I have a very low pain threshold and the dentist didn't properly numb me. To pull a tooth out, they essentially pry it out. I was shrieking in agony, and this jerk covered my mouth and nose with his big nasty hand, while my mouth filled with blood, and said he wouldn't remove it until I stopped screaming. I couldn't breathe, I was in agony, and I was... maybe eight years old.
#10 Brutal Spasms
I have a condition called Proctalgia Fugax. This is an uncontrollable spasming of the sphincter and can last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half. It always happens in the middle of the night and feels like I've been probed by aliens. They don't know what causes it, but I can go months without an attack and then two or three nights in a week it'll happen. It is freaking brutal.
#11 Intense Cramps
I used to get severe cramps during my time of the month. Like I would have normal cramps, but on top of that have sudden spasms that felt like someone was yanking on my lower intestines. Aside from the pain, it was embarrassing because I’d be sitting in a lecture and halfway jump out of my seat because of the sudden, intense pain. It was the main reason I started taking hormonal birth control, which fortunately stopped all of my symptoms.
#12 What A Nightmare
When I was in sixth grade, I had a botched appendectomy. It had burst during surgery and they didn't get it all cleaned out. After getting home, my lower abdomen was swollen and red for a while so they took me back to the hospital. It had gotten very infected. They had to reopen the wound and leave it open for over a week so they could clean it and fill the wound with gauze six times a day. Sitting up when I had to was bad, but removing the bandage to take out the gauze, spraying the open wound with (what I assume was) antibiotics, and then stuffing new gauze into me was unreal.
#13 Not Something To Ignore
Appendicitis. It wasn't the surgery that was botched, it was the original primary care physician that screwed me over. It had ruptured already when I went to get it checked and she told me that the crippling pain was just constipation. I was 17, so I believed her and told myself for three weeks that I was just being a baby about it with low pain tolerance.
All my high school professors and friends didn't believe me either, except my science teacher who, when I finally fainted and was septic in the middle of the street on lunch, called the ambulance. I was in the hospital for two more weeks after that incident to recover because they couldn't do the surgery until I was more stable. I missed my high school graduation for it. The absolute worst five weeks of my life to date. The surgeon yelled at me for being too "stoic."
#14 Gentle, Please
I had an abscess in my neck which the doctors assumed was mumps. By the time they figured out it wasn't, I needed surgery. They also left the wound open with gauze stuffed inside and holy heck it would hurt when the dressing was changed. Especially removing the sticky outside part of the dressing. Unless my mom was outside the room. If she was nearby, the nurses would take more time and more care. They would also use this solution to get the sticky part instead of just ripping it off. This was back in the '70s; hopefully, things are better these days.
#15 My Tummy Hurts
When I was 9, I was about to go over to a friend's house when suddenly my stomach started hurting me out of nowhere. I had no idea what was going on; it had never happened before and it was absolutely horrible. My mom took me to the doctor and they had no idea what was wrong. Three years later, they finally figured out I had ulcerative colitis, which is a chronic disease that’s not usually fatal, but it does cause bloody stools and major intestinal pain.
Then when they gave me medicine for it. I kept getting really sick, and it wasn’t working. Eventually, I figured out it was the medicine that was making me sick, but no one believed me for like a week. They finally realized that I was part of a very small minority that was allergic to that specific medicine, then I got something else that worked significantly better. My UC has barely been an issue since.
Snappy Goat
#16 A Persistent Issue
I've had intestinal issues since I was a teenager. It has been unbelievably painful. Only one medication worked for me and it's an old one. So, trial and error were involved. At least I got it figured out in my 30s! Also, in the '90s around my area, doctors didn't sedate or give pain meds to patients for sigmoidoscopies. That was pretty horrible. I'm very high risk and I simply refused to have another scope of any kind due to the pain. Finally, then I was medicated.
#17 A Sensitive Area
Cervical biopsy. I’ve shattered an ankle and got right back up to trim four more horses’ hooves (plus the one who crushed my ankle) before driving 2.5 hours back home and investing the mush inside my boot. I’ve broken fingers, metatarsal bones, toes, so many ribs, and have had crushing injuries that left permanent deformations. The first 60 seconds of (my third) cervical biopsy were hands-down 1000x worse than all of it put together and more. I puked, passed out, and have legit PTSD. Never again. I’ll die of cancer first.
#18 Racing Woes
When I was sixteen I was racing around my little course on my RM250. I hit a jump wrong and crashed hard. One of the last things I remember was coming down head first on the end of my handlebars, destroying the visor, and hitting my helmet hard enough it cracked it. While still sliding, the broken brake handle punctured me in the side of my upper leg, just below the waistline, and sliced it open all the way to just above my knee.
Wind knocked out of me I was out for I don't know how long. When this happened, there were people there watching. Other kids in the neighborhood. When I came to catching my breath while simultaneously screaming from pain there was no one there. They all just took off. I tried to get up and move, tried to take a step and just fell. I was bleeding everywhere.
This was before cell phones and was in my family's pasture, far from the house. My only option was to get my bike started. I stood myself up and had to lay across it and get it started using my hand. I can't describe how painful all this was. I made it back home and collapsed. The doctor told me adrenaline is a heck of a thing since I was able to get myself home.
#19 Never Again
One time, not too long ago, winter had just ended and my allergies were getting pretty bad, so I took some Benadryl and went on a boat ride with one of my friends. I had like two cans of soda and a big bottle of water, and after about 15 minutes on the boat, I realized I had to go. I then remembered that when on Benadryl, I can’t go (urinary tract I think) and we were in the middle of nowhere on a boat. We still had about four hours to go.
After a while, it got super freaking bad and it was excruciating pain. We tried to get back but it took a while and I’m very surprised my bladder didn’t leak or I didn’t get a UTI. After I got home, it hurt so bad to pee I had to sit on the toilet for about 30 minutes. After that, I decided to never get into a situation like that ever again.
#20 You Don't Want This
I had costochondritis four months ago. I had pulled a muscle in my chest at work and didn’t notice anything except a slight pain when I breathed every now and then. The next two days, the pain grew increasingly worse and I couldn’t even sleep. I was gasping for air and feeling like I was having a heart attack at age 20. I went to the doctor and they saw me immediately.
They said it’s actually quite common to pull a muscle and inflame the cartilages of the ribs. Although it seems minute, it can be quite painful. I’ve never experienced such pain before. Every tiny bit of air in or out was excruciating. They gave me muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatory medication. Very soon after taking it, I could feel quite the relief in my chest. It hurt to talk, sit up, walk. I was bedridden for two days even with the medication. I could only sleep on my back propped up with a bunch of pillows. It was absolutely awful.
#21 Stomach Scare
When I was 17, I got up thirsty one morning, so I went to the kitchen, filled up a big glass of cold water, and started chugging. After chug #1, I IMMEDIATELY felt something wrong. I felt it go all the way down my throat and into my stomach like a rock. My stomach felt like it was 10 sizes too small, and that one gulp filled it up like 70%.
But the problem was gulps #2 and #3 were already activated and I couldn't stop myself in time. Gulp #2 felt like it stretched my stomach to 120%, and Gulp #3 actually felt like my stomach pouch tore open. I fell to my knees and just stayed for like three minutes analyzing the interior of my body to see if I could feel stomach acid spilling into my body cavity.
Thankfully, it was fine. To this day, I don't do that anymore. I take a sip, and if everything is OK, then I proceed drinking.
#22 The Worst Nerve Pain
Nerve pain in my jaw. I have a damaged branch of my trigeminal nerve that initially took about four months to diagnose. I cannot begin to describe the horror of nerve pain. I had been awake at 2 a.m. wondering if it was possible to die from the pain. It's not possible according to my pain specialist. Really lucky to have great doctors.
#23 Too Excited
When I was 5, my family and I had just arrived at our vacation hotel. I was super psyched since the car ride was like eight hours. I walked up to the pull door, with flip flops on, and flung the door open right on my foot. It pulled my big toenail on my right foot clean off, and it bled for a super long time. Took the better part of a year for it to heal fully.
#24 Yank Out, Pass Out
I got a pretty big kidney stone that was large and infected. Because it was so infected, they couldn’t operate to get it out until they drained it. So I had to wear a catheter for several weeks while taking antibiotics (the exact amount of time is fuzzy, but it seemed like weeks). When they went to pull it out, it had fused in places to my urethra and they still basically yanked it out while I was awake. I passed out from the pain.
#25 A Step Backwards
I'm a former 500-lb human and I had severe spinal stenosis of the L4/L5 L5/S1. It put me in a wheelchair after I had lost a significant amount of weight. I had to eventually undergo back surgery due to the pain. 1800 mg of Gabapentin a day to walk six feet, sit on a stool, take another few steps, and repeat until I could get into the shower to bathe.
Screw all of that pain. Who would have thought I’d lose the weight and be in physically worse shape. I wouldn’t wish that uber sciatica pain on anyone.
#26 Spicy Tolerance
Pepper spray. It felt like someone shoving glass covered with fire into my eyes. The first time is the worst though; after a few exposures, you kind of get used to it. Still very painful, but not I'm-gonna-take-my-eyes-out-with-a-spoon painful. I had a colleague who was completely immune to it. Very surprising, we emptied a full can of Saber Red in his face and he was just like, "Yep, it feels a bit warm, can I go wash it now?"
#27 Full Hostel
I had an ingrown toenail when I was younger that was pretty bad and I had to book day surgery for it. The doctor injected the freezing twice without much success, but we still went ahead with it. The removal of the nail was one thing, but he hacked away at the nail bed to prevent it from growing back in the future and it was awful. I apparently went sheet white as the doctor went full "Hostel" on my toe. I will never leave an ingrown nail untreated for that long.
#28 Migraine Nightmare
Migraines. 10- to 14-hour stints of laying on the bathroom floor hoping for relief from the vomiting and the extreme pressure in my head while slivers of light pierce like needles directly into my brain. I've thought about punching something just to channel pain to another part of my body. The worst part is, at least for me, there hasn't been any medication to really help with the symptoms.
#29 Whatever Works
Those migraines that make you throw up... ugh. I take six Excedrine, put blankets over the windows, put in earplugs, wear an eye mask, and cover my head with ice. Then I try to sleep until it goes away because that's the only thing that works. Sometimes I have it for a couple of days. I get one of those once every three months or so.
#30 Wrestling Injury
It was my sophomore year in wrestling practice that this happened. I was 170 pounds and I was practicing with the 195-pound dudes at the time since it was early in the season and not many people showed up because they didn't have to. I'm not sure how to describe this to non-wrestlers, but he went for a far-side cradle on me and I was resisting (to try and help him nail the cradle better) and this man with all his might bent my head towards my tailbone, effective inverting my spine into a c shape and tensing all my back muscles. I've broken my right arm and two ribs but that was still the most pain I'd ever felt. I could barely walk straight after that.
#31 Good Times
I've had a few gooders, but the worst was blowing out my shoulder while snowboarding. When I opened my eye, it felt like my arm was in front of me, but it was off to an awful angle to the side. The medics were pretending not to panic while I lost feeling and circulation down my arm. It was a trip. I only puked a couple of times. I ended up with a couple of annihilated rotator cuffs and a completely torn bicep. The medications were good and I ended up in rehab shortly after surgery. Ah, those were the days.
#32 Sudden Pain
Around early December, I had developed a constant dull stabbing pain right near my tailbone that made it hard for me to sit, sleep, and even walk. It had gone on for a few weeks... I was at school and getting around campus, riding in cars and buses, and sitting in classes was EXTREMELY difficult for me. Each day I would almost be driven to tears because of how painful it was.
I went to the wellness center on campus and they told me I had some sort of pilonidal cyst that had developed into an abscess right on my tailbone. I was crying myself to sleep for many nights and my thighs were slowly starting to hurt from how much pressure I put on them since I couldn't sit. Thank God for antibiotics.
#33 Trip To The ER
I went to the doctor with pretty extreme pain. They took an X-ray and found my tailbone was fractured. They asked me if I fell or sat down quickly on something hard and I told them I hadn't. Two nights late, the cyst ruptured, so I went to urgent care where they told me to get to the ER. Not only was it the worst pain I've experienced, but that smell is something of nightmares. It's fever sweat mixed with rotting demise. Please, never again.
#34 A Clean Break
I was in a bad car accident where I broke my femur, collapsed my left lung, and broke a toe. My femur broke cleanly in half—that’s how hard the impact was. I was not awake when I was in my car accident. The medical staff had to move me onto another bed. Holy. Heck. Never, ever felt a pain like that. I would never wish that pain on anyone.
#35 The Avocado Incident
I sliced the base of my finger really deep with a serrated blade and had to get stitches at an urgent care. The PA gave me an injection of lidocaine (a local numbing agent) around the gash and then started sewing my finger back together. The lidocaine did nothing and I felt everything... every tug of the stitch, every stab with the needle. It was the worst, most pain I’ve ever felt, and I nearly squeezed all the blood flow out of my boyfriend’s hand. Pro tip! Don’t use a serrated blade to try and stab an avocado pit out.
#36 Beware Of Bright Lights
I have a condition called trigeminal neuralgia. They say there are blood vessels pressing on the base of the trigeminal nerve on the left side of my face, which has stripped away the nerve’s protective coating. My main trigger is light sensitivity, bright lights can cause an attack. But sometimes just touching my face can do the same thing. Sometimes it happens for no discernible reason at all. When I have an attack, it hurts terribly and it lasts for days.
#37 More Than A Headache
I have awful migraines, and the best way I can describe is someone just someone is squeezing and twisting my neck, brain, and eyes while simultaneously putting needles in. I’ve tried everything—medication, water intake, diets, stress-relief sessions—to make it “go away,” but sometimes it hits, and it hits hard. I know life is full of struggle (the old "no pain, no gain" quote comes to mind) and there are worse things to be had, but I can’t help think about how many school days, family events, and friend meets I’ve missed and will miss because of this. I wouldn’t wish migraines on anyone.
#38 Fun Stuff
I had knee surgery above my knee to remove a bone growth that I developed as a teenager. They gave me a nerve block to numb everything in my knee for 48 hours so they could do the surgery without giving me too much discomfort afterward. The surgery was great other than that they had to separate (cut through) my quad muscle to reach the bone growth. When the nerve block wore off the second morning, most of my ability to use my leg was gone and I had to go through a few weeks of physical therapy to learn how to walk and run again.
Well, I was an idiot and I tried to get out of bed, managing to swing my leg over the edge. In the process of doing that, I tore my four-inch long wound open and might have damaged my quad muscle, but wasn't able to get it checked out. The pain was excruciating and felt as though someone had held both sides of the wound and pulled it open as hard as they could. The wound has not healed correctly and you can actually see on my knee where it tore open and where the stitches held. Fun stuff.
#39 Unfortunate Happenings
The anesthesiologist during my childbirth repeatedly missed their injection site because they didn't know I had scoliosis. The feeling was, I can only imagine, what being electrocuted felt like. I screamed so loud nurses from down the hall came to the ward to check out what was going on. Everyone thought the baby was being delivered but no, I was receiving eight to 12 consecutive injections of liquid fire.
We never found out the amount, and I was forced by a group of men to sign papers saying I wouldn't sue for it, while I was still heavily sedated. Freaking nightmare scenario. Another painful time was when I accidentally went #1 down a ground hornet's nest on a job site and took a few stings to the no-no place. I felt that for weeks.
#40 Brother's Injury
When I was in the second grade, I was jumping on my trampoline with my older brother and he tripped me while I was really high in the air. I was near the edge when he tripped me and I fell off, landing straight on my arm. I dislocated my arm and shattered one of my bones. I also cracked the other. I now have nerve damage in my arm.
#41 Sue Her
I was born missing one of my adult teeth so I needed a false tooth to replace it. I had a surgery to insert a titanium rod into my skull and once that had healed, I would have a porcelain tooth attached to it.
Well, I got to my dentist three months after the initial surgery and she got a special screwdriver to start unscrewing the cap. Except she was going the wrong direction. She thought it was stuck, so she pushed harder and I started to feel the flesh in my head pulling, with the sharp pain of bone splintering.
I screamed and tried to push this lady out of my mouth and she looked at me with the most condescending face, saying “It doesn’t hurt that bad, you need to calm down.” And that’s why I’m afraid of dentists.
#42 The Burst
An ovarian cyst exploded while I was underway. It was just a sudden, blinding pain in my side that sent me to my knees. I felt nothing but a tingle of heat after the initial burst. It was absolutely terrifying. At the time, I didn't know what it was because I hadn't been diagnosed with anything. It didn't feel like the right place for an appendix, but as I am not a medical person, better safe than sorry.
As soon as I could stand, I went to the Navy hospital. I got handed some Motrin and was basically shoved out the door. Barely a footnote in my file. It wasn't until years later I had evidence of extreme scarring and damage from that burst. Scary to think that the tingle of heat was me bleeding internally and could have resulted in my demise. I now get a 20% disability for my PCOS because of that incident, screw the Navy.
#43 Like A White-Hot Poker
When I was 20, I was lying in bed one evening and rolled over. As I went to settle in, I felt this agonizingly intense pain on the left side of my chest. Nothing made it better, and any movements made it worse. Breathing was a nightmare. I would have screamed if my diaphragm would have allowed it. So I was laying there feeling like I got impaled with a white-hot poker, my lungs refused to work, and couldn't find a way to make the pain go away. Turned out, it was a torn muscle between two ribs that finally let go. It was in the area right above my heart. Legit thought I was going to die.
#44 Doubling Down
Double-double ear infection. That means both left and right, inner AND outer. It was the worst nine days of my life. I broke down in tears, laying on a metal bench with my head in my hands just waiting for my prescriptions to be filled. Oh yeah, and I lost my job because of it, too. I could have fought my boss on it, but I sincerely considered it a good thing. I had another job the week after symptoms let up. I've worked from home ever since.
#45 The Cut Runs Deep
I was playing on a very old double-sided swing set with my brother and cousins. I was standing in the middle when I slipped and flipped underneath it. When it came down, it sliced off a section of the ankle and I had to be carried inside by my cousins and brother. Overall, not nice—the cut never bled, but to this day over my ankle still get tired faster than the other one.
#46 Funny Story
Fracturing my ankle pretty bad. It was like 1:30 a.m. in January—I was with some friends, and we were sprinting in the snow, tripping on purpose (I don’t know why, dumb idea). So I ran extremely fast, actually slipped and rolled my ankle outwards and it just snapped. I couldn’t put weight on it for like 10 days without it hurting pretty bad. At least the story is funny.
#47 Too Determined
I used to row. I was in the top boat and winning every race I was in. My wrist started to really hurt but I didn’t want to give up my spot in the boat, so I never told my coach and just kept the weight off of it as much as possible for the rest of the season. Pretty much spent the end of every race making our way back to the docks balling my eyes out from the pain. I now have a wrist brace and the pain comes back every so often.
#48 The Worst Of The Worst
The worst headache of my life. I have migraines, but I'd never had anything like this before. We are pretty sure I passed out from the pain. Doctors never found a cause and it hasn't happened again. I've been in pain many times in my life—four dry sockets after wisdom tooth surgery, burst ovarian cysts, motorcycle accident, tongue nearly ripped out in a stupid fall—but nothing compares to that headache.
#49 Take The Meds, Man
I had surgery on my wrist and afterward, it was in plaster to keep it in place before I was to be fitted with a splint. I had it on for a day at home and it didn't hurt, so I didn't think to take the painkillers they gave me. Then they cut the plaster off me when I went to get the splint and I was VERY painfully reminded that my wrist had been peeled open and rearranged a couple of days ago and I REALLY should have taken those painkillers.
#50 Sheer Pain
I had a migraine a few days after getting a concussion from the airbags in my door. I woke up with a headache and it didn’t get better when taking Tylenol. The headache started to get worse so I tried to nap it off (about an hour after waking up in the morning). I woke up with the pain horrible and couldn’t lay still. The pain got so bad I started to vomit about every 10 minutes. My sister drove me to the hospital to check for bruising or bleeding in the brain. Luckily, I had neither of those, just the worst migraine of my life.
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