This, I think, is relevant to the idea that suicide is very strongly tied to exhaustion and hopelessness.

Pain and grief, even when they are absolutely horrible, don't appear to be strongly correlated with suicide. Inescapable problems, even when they are not so severe, absolutely do.

Broadly, people seem to turn to suicide either when their circumstances seem unimprovable (chronic pain, inescapable debt, irreparable loss) or when they lose the ability to imagine recovery (acute depression, various forms of psychosis). I think that when considering suicide, experiences like "I've been in that much pain" are basically irrelevant - the operant part is the permanence, not the severity.

I strongly agree! I think part of the reason I (and probably many others) don't see pain as something that would lead to suicide is because I would (and do) simply accept it as a fact and I no longer see it as a problem.

Kind of like being short, or not as smart as the next guy. It's just the way it is. No point worrying about it.

However, if you viewed it as a serious problem and when is it going to be fixed and then... never... yeah, that would be very different.

Notably, a lot of the people I know who report depression-inducing pain have distracting, breakthrough pain.

Even with chronic pain, it's probably not the end of the world when it's "an ache in my knee when I move in this direction" or even "a mild ache in my knee always". But if it's "at random, frequent times, my back hurts too badly to stand or function", that's super hard to ignore or get used to, and I can see being incredibly upset by it. Cluster headaches come to mind as following this sporadic + devastating pattern, and indeed they do cause a fair bit of suicide.

"Can't escape it" and "can't get used to it" are an ugly combination.

Oh and to answer the direct question, I was given strict orders from the doctor to not go off of serious pain meds (something schedule 2, I don't remember what) for 2 weeks out of the heart attack danger. I took them for about a week before forgetting about it.

It was down to just like broken bone painful then so I decided to just deal with it so I could learn how to tolerate severe pain (I was 14 at the time), I figured it would be a useful skill. My parents were a little shocked that I decided to deal with it. I passed the time reading c++ books.

The pain did make me take a lot of breaks and sleep to bring my willpower back.

I still feel it now, but it's more like the feeling of a minor cut on your finger.

Honestly, I think I have the opposite problem. Pain hasn't been sufficient for me to avoid injury. I probably could have avoided many issues if I listened to it a little.

I've also torn three ligaments (complete separation) in my ankle and they hurt more than 1/10th of that every day. Honestly I really don't care about the pain. It bothers people around me much more that I limp severely than it bothers me that I hurt. It's not something I care to think about because when I do then I feel self-pity.

One additional note from my side: if you're able to think about anything else than the pain without the painkillers, then my post above does not relate to you at all.