I'm going with the opposite phenomenon with this one.
Disclaimer: TLDR if you have the attention span of a toddler. Short, two sentence version at the bottom:
My appendix burst around December 29th of 2019. I didn't know that it had burst as it felt like a garden variety stomach ache to me at first. Pain level is a strong 3.
Early in the day on Dec. 31 I was fairly certain it was more than just an upset stomach and I slept for about 15 hours. I wasn't about to head to the ER the day before my deductible reset, so I decide to hold out for another day and see how everything is going. My wife disagrees strongly with my plan(this comes into play later, and probably for the rest of my life).
pain level is a 5.
January 1st everything feels a little better and I actually attempt to eat something, which promptly runs right through me. Pain levels are almost 0.
January 2 pain shoots back up but still nothing worse than a 5 or 6. I finally relent and head to the walk-in clinic. I list my symptoms and head over to sit in the waiting area and fill out the forms they gave me. Before I even get settled in, somebody comes out from the back(not sure if it was a nurse or doctor) and tells me to get to the ER.
I head to the ER and repeat the "Hello, I've had a stomach ache for a few days..." story and they get me to a triage room in fairly short order. 5 minutes later the doctor on call comes in and says " You're appendix is burst, but I have to prove it before we can line up a surgery". From there I drink the chalky stuff and they get me a quick MRI and I'm scheduled for surgery about an hour later.
Fast forward until anesthesia wears off and the surgeon tells me I definitely should have come in earlier and that there was a ton of poison in my system that could have killed me(the wife was in the room for this and displayed what I consider to be remarkable restraint to not blurt out "I TOLD YOU SO!" right then and there). Pain levels post surgery are higher than they ever were pre surgery.
Short version: A burst appendix doesn't hurt that bad at all for something that can and will kill you if untreated. Hitting your finger with a hammer in sub zero temps is 10 times worse.
