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Broken Bones

Breaking a bone is painful. While not all broken bones are the same, some, like a compound fracture of a femur, will knock you off your feet for some time. In addition to needing to wear a large cast for a long period of time, compound fractures may also require surgery to place hardware, like pins and screws, into your body.

The location of the break and how you use that part of the body can also determine how painful it is. A broken rib might ache every time you take a breath, whereas a pinky-finger fracture might be fairly well stabilized and not as painful once it's in a splint or cast.

Some broken bones require weeks or months of treatment and years of residual pain. Childbirth, on the other hand, only lasts several hours, and even very long labor rarely lasts more than a weekend.﻿﻿