The woman who can’t feel pain or experience anxiety
Many many decades ago I read about the rare people who don’t feel pain, and learned that it’s a dangerous condition. They tend to hurt themselves and not be aware of it, so they can be in a lot of trouble and not know it. It seems that pain has a very clear function, although sometimes it can keep giving us the signal long after the danger is passed, and lead to the horror of chronic pain.
Here’s an article about a woman who at 71 has never felt pain in her entire life. The genetic mutation she has that causes this is a newly-discovered one, and doctors are studying it to learn if there’s anything about it they can apply to the rest of us who feel pain. One of the most curious aspects of her particular situation is that, although she does injure herself quite a bit (I first wrote “hurt herself” rather than “injure herself,” but then I changed it because the word “hurt” didn’t seem quite right), she heals pretty quickly and ordinarily without scars. Another is that she has literally never felt anxious, and doctors believe this might be physiologically caused.
It would seem to be a wonderful thing to not be able to feel pain. But many years ago, when I was quite young, I read that lepers used to sometimes lose digits in their extremities not because the disease made their fingers or toes fall off, but because they lost sensation there and didn’t know they were injuring themselves. Just now I wondered whether this was some myth I’d heard, or whether it was actually the case, and I found this:
Leprosy attacks the nerves in the cooler parts of the body, particularly those that relate to the hands, feet and face. The result is a loss of sensation in these areas meaning a person is at much greater risk of injury as they cannot feel pain. A stone in a shoe may go unnoticed or a burn while cooking with the resulting injury and infection sometimes severe enough to cause the bone to ‘shorten’. The feet of a leprosy-affected person are prone to ulcers and, if not treated properly, can lead to amputation.
Pain may not seem like a friend, not by a longshot. But to a certain degree it is necessary and protective.
I imagine something similar is true for anxiety, which tells us to be wary of potential danger and to try to avoid it—although, like pain, anxiety can sometimes get out of hand.
the rare people who don’t feel pain, and learned that it’s a dangerous condition.
This is why diabetics with neuropathy lose feet. They suffer repeated trauma and don’t realize it. My brother-in-law, who is a type II diabetic, once nailed his foot to the floor. He had no pain but, when he tried to move, his foot and shoe had a nail through them.
I once testified in a medical malpractice trial in New York City. A parolee was shot by his parol officer for reasons I never learned. The bullet injured the artery to his leg below the knee and was repaired by the surgeons in a city hospital but they did not notice that he developed swelling of his calf post op. This is called “Compartment Syndrome” and in his case resulted in a numb foot. Within a year, his foot had to be amputated at the knee for repeated injuries similar to diabetic ulcers.
The trial was in the Bronx Supreme Court building described in “Bonfire of the Vanities” and is a story in itself.
My son is suffering from extreme anxiety at the moment related to what seems to be sleep apnea – he doesn’t snore and isn’t overweight, he just… stops inhaling as he’s falling asleep (and sometimes had nights when he wakes up multiple times because he’s not inhaled and eventually has to gasp for breath). The combination of serious sleep deprivation, fear of falling asleep because he’s literally afraid he could die, frustration at this situation’s lack of resolution, and the prospect that he may have a condition that can’t even be treated have him so anxious that he can barely function. I’m having a hard time coming up with benefits of anxiety at the moment… even though in better times I would have been in total agreement with you, Neo.
Jamie:
That’s what I meant when I write that anxiety can sometimes get out of hand. Then it’s a big big problem.
My son had sleep apnea when he was little, and when he was three it was determined he needed to have his adenoids out. They were the cause, and removing them fixed the problem. But it was dreadful while it lasted. I assume you’ve had him evaluated for various conditions like that?
There was a wonderful episode of the TV show “House” about a 16 year old girl who survived a car crash, entered an ER, and tried to con the doc. that she was in pain when she wasn’t. Doctor House discovers that she has CIPA, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (A = ?) and then she has to endure endless poking, prodding, and testing.
Season 3, Episode 14 called “Insensitive.” The conclusion is amazing.
And of course there is Lawrence of Arabia on pain “the trick is not minding that it hurts..”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvQViPBAvPk.
And then there are theologians and atheists to argue why a just and loving God allows pain in this world; sometimes it is good for you?
Neo, he’s in college across the country – I only just found out (now that he’s with us for part of spring break) that this has been an ongoing issue for months. I’ve told him in no uncertain terms that as soon as he gets back (he leaves tomorrow), he WILL find a doctor, not just the clinic, and get fully evaluated.
When he’d tell me he “wasn’t sleeping” over the winter, I assumed he was exaggerating the severity of the problem, since he’s always had both some insomnia and a good deal of low-level anxiety (the former much like me, the latter much like his dad). During all the years of his childhood and teens, I was more or less pro-anxiety because, as I told him often, it gave him something to “push against,” to become more resilient.
It wasn’t until now that I’ve been able to see that he’s being accurate: the anxiety he’s feeling now is nearly debilitating, and the lack of decent sleep leaves him with almost no internal resources to cope with it. I’m holding the line with him out loud, continuing to tell him all of this is making him stronger and more able to roll with life’s punches, but privately I’m one step from frantic with worry. Luckily he’s actually done with classes as of last week, just waiting for his first job to start, and so has literally nothing to do but deal with this.
Jamie:
I didn’t realize he was basically grown up. I can imagine how worried you must be! He does need a full workup, because this can be a serious problem but it is also often fixable, as far as I know, or at least there are things that can help. Good luck to you and to him!!!
Jamie:
I don’t know whether this article is relevant, but it might be.
Pain is simply a message from the body, that consists of a spectrum, from mild discomfort to something really wrong. It’s a biological feedback mechanism. All animal life possess it, as it’s also a survival mechanism.
As for God allowing humanity to experience emotional and intellectual pain, the alternative is to be a robot without free will.
Years ago I worked with two preteen children who had familial dysautonomia, a genetic disorder of the nervous system that causes, among many terrible symptoms, decreased sensitivity to pain and temperature. These children didn’t learn to be careful from experiencing pain the way most kids do, so they often got bruises, bumps or cuts, or even burned themselves, without knowing it had happened or learning to avoid it next time. They also had balance and coordination problems, so if they weren’t protected they fell frequently — which led, of course, to more injuries. We had to keep them pretty much wrapped in cotton wool and inspect their extremities regularly, which they hated as they were of an age to want to take risks and experiment with independence. I was pretty young at the time and it had never previously occurred to me that not feeling pain could be a bad thing. I remember being startled to realize what a serious disability it actually was.
Thank you for the link, Neo! Very informative article that’s given me some questions my son needs to ask the doc.
For those into crime fiction, Lisa Gardner’s “Fear Nothing” revolves around a person who can feel no pain and who is, ironically, a pain therapist.
This is a different phenomenon from – ‘is not’ – neuropathy, loss of sensation in leprosy, or numbness in diabetes.
Cases such as this woman do not appear to have lost normal sensation. Their nervous system appears to be working. They exhibit normal manual skills, which require sensation in the hand, etc. The have normal tactile perception.
It’s certainly possible that there is some novel underlying biology at work, but it is also certainly possible that – some of – these case are not biology.