A Scottish woman is one of the few in the world to suffer from a rare genetic mutation that causes her to feel no physical or mental pain.
Jo Cameron, 75, realized she was different after undergoing hand surgery nearly a decade ago. Before the surgery, her doctor warned her that she was likely to feel pain after the surgery, but she reassured him that painkillers weren’t necessary, the National Post reported.
“When he found out I didn’t want to [d’antidouleurs]”He looked at my medical history and immediately realized that I had never asked for it,” the lady told the BBC.
At this point, her anesthesiologist sent her to pain geneticists at London UCL and Oxford University for evaluation.
After six years of research, experts found genetic mutations that caused this freedom from pain.
Cameron “saw stress and observed the suffering it causes,” but never felt feelings of anger, anxiety, grief, anxiety, or fear, the lady told the New Yorker.
She hadn’t even felt any pain during the delivery and recalled that the feeling “was just weird, but she wasn’t in pain.” In fact, it was quite comfortable.”
Congenital insensitivity to pain (CDI) is usually caused by neuropathy, which is an interruption in the transmission of pain sensations along nerve fibers.
Without these receptors, people with congenital neuropathy are at risk of early death from serious injury.
For example, Cameron only recognizes his burning skin by the smell of burned flesh, which often leads to his arms being burned by the stove.