Rare genetic mutation: this 75-year-old woman feels no pain

UPGRADE DAY

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 from others after undergoing hand surgery almost 10 years ago. Before the operation, her doctor had warned her that she was likely to experience pain after her surgery, but she assured him that painkillers were not necessary, reported the “National Post”.

“When he found out I didn’t want [painkillers], he looked at my medical history and immediately noticed that I had never asked for any before,” the lady told “BBC

It was then that her anesthetist sent her to pain geneticists at UCL London and the University of Oxford for testing.< /p>

After six years of research, experts found genetic mutations that caused this absence of pain.

Cameron had “seen stress and observed the suffering it causes,” but had never experienced emotions of rage, fear, grief, anxiety or fear, according to what the lady reported to the “New Yorker”.

She never even experienced pain during her childbirth, recalling that the feeling was “just weird, but she didn’t experience any pain. It was even quite pleasant.”

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 dying young from serious injury.

For example, Cameron only recognizes his burning skin by the smell of burnt flesh, which often leads him to burn his arms on the oven.