With most special characters in languages and, in this case, SQL, there is a way to escape them (which means have the character count for what it really is instead of the special meaning).

In mySQL, if you want to search for the % character, which means match anything and normally returns the entire table if that is all that is in the where clause, you would need to do this:

SELECT * FROM yourtable WHERE troublecolumn='%\%%'

That means find any number of characters, then a literal % and then any number of characters. This allows the literal % to be at the front, in the middle, or at the end of the searched column.

This same principal can be applied to the other special characters, like # for example:

SELECT * FROM yourtable WHERE troublecolumn='%\#%'

Enjoy!