from the sticks-and-stones-may-break-my-bones-but-nothing-seems-to-hurt-me dept.
At 71, She's Never Felt Pain or Anxiety. Now Scientists Know Why.
She'd been told that childbirth was going to be painful. But as the hours wore on, nothing bothered her — even without an epidural.
"I could feel that my body was changing, but it didn't hurt me," recalled the woman, Jo Cameron, who is now 71. She likened it to "a tickle." Later, she would tell prospective mothers, "Don't worry, it's not as bad as people say it is."
It was only recently — more than four decades later — that she learned her friends were not exaggerating.
Rather, there was something different about the way her body experienced pain: For the most part, it didn't.
Scientists believe they now understand why. In a paper published Thursday in The British Journal of Anaesthesia, researchers attributed Ms. Cameron's virtually pain-free life to a mutation in a previously unidentified gene. The hope, they say, is that the finding could eventually contribute to the development of a novel pain treatment. They believe this mutation may also be connected to why Ms. Cameron has felt little anxiety or fear throughout her life and why her body heals quickly.
"We've never come across a patient like this," said John Wood, the head of the Molecular Nociception Group at University College London.
[...] Dr. Srivastava referred her to University College London's Molecular Nociception Group, a team focused on genetic approaches to understanding the biology of pain and touch. They had some clues for her. In recent decades, scientists have identified dozens of other people who process pain in unusual ways. But when Dr. James Cox, a senior lecturer with that group and another author of the new paper, inspected her genetic profile, it did not resemble that of others known to live without pain.
Eventually he found what he was looking for on a gene the scientists call FAAH-OUT. All of us have this gene. But in Ms. Cameron's, "the patient has a deletion that removes the front of the gene," he said. Additional blood work confirmed this hypothesis, he said.
No pain, no gain?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @03:25PM (5 children)
If no pain from menstruation or childbirth, I think we have to reject her from womanhood. After all, without pain she has never truly experienced those things and only has a bathroom rapist's understanding of them.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 31 2019, @03:34PM (3 children)
*yawn*
From my understanding, some women suffer horribly from both menstruation, and from childbirth. Other women, not so much. So, should we classify women, and put them in groups or classes, based on how much they suffer? How 'bout you name all those classes for us. That should be entertaining.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by krishnoid on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:06PM (2 children)
100: "Living without pain and fear" (course fees:
retroviral therapylab costs: $200)101: "Living your fullest life and gaslighting guys who complain about pain or fear" (prerequisites: 100)
201: "Street fighting techniques to get back at those guys who bullied you in school"
etc.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:27PM
Whoops, scanned too quickly and came up with the wrong kind of "class". Ah well.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 01 2019, @01:19AM
There, there, show me on the dollie where the mean lady refused to touch you, no matter how "nice" you were to her...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @04:22PM
Wow, you're kind of desperate aren't you? Grasping at straws, trying to diminish any woman in any way possible?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday March 31 2019, @03:37PM (2 children)
For making supersoldiers. Just need to add genes for massive muscle growth and unthinking loyalty.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @04:28PM
So, CRISPR her with a pit bull?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday March 31 2019, @08:13PM
Too much work. Just send the guys in for the hand-to-hand stuff [youtube.com], and add the genes for sharpshooting and artillery calculations.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 31 2019, @03:39PM (5 children)
From TFA
It seems like th.....
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 31 2019, @04:04PM (3 children)
Damn, I didn't realize that RandomFactor was one of those mutant thingies! At least he/she isn't one of the lizard people.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 31 2019, @05:49PM (2 children)
Lizard People" [vox.com]
So, is it a preponderance thing, or just missing one or two would clear me?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 31 2019, @06:40PM (1 child)
Nahhh, it's only that you can't be a mutant human AND a lizard person. Unless, you're a hybrid? :^)
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Sunday March 31 2019, @06:58PM
I find your logic sstrangely compelling.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 31 2019, @10:32PM
I've heard about this kind of thing years ago. And it's a big deal because she was a kid once and it's a bad thing for kids to feel no pain. People born with the mutation, while young, need constant supervision because there's no rate-limiter for them getting scraped up and skinning their knees down to the bone etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @03:54PM (3 children)
Promoting Elsevier is a no no these days...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @04:24PM (2 children)
Linking to != promoting. Just ask any file sharing or news site.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:04PM (1 child)
Link the company site [algordanza.com] then.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Sunday March 31 2019, @09:10PM
Oh, fuck, wrong story.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @10:32PM
We have pain for a reason, if you dont feel it at all you can easily severely hurt yourself.
Its not an advantage.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Sunday March 31 2019, @11:14PM (1 child)
Pain and anxiety are feedback. I would think without either life would be very odd, and in some ways disturbing.
Sounds like a great genetic modification if your goal is to build useful, disposable tools in human form. I must be getting old. This future rushing at us scares me a little.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @06:38AM
And this future scares me a lot. I've been working for almost 10 years now on finding a way out, because neither politically or socially are things going to improve. But it appears more people are with them, rather than with me, no matter how much they dislike the status quo.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31 2019, @11:39PM (3 children)
Comign up with a better way to dope the populace? Anxiety, fear, pain, these are all natural and useful tools. Turn these off and you create psychopaths.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 01 2019, @02:17AM (2 children)
So was this woman a psychopath? Doesn't sound like it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 01 2019, @11:00PM (1 child)
You wouldn't know from this write-up. In psychopathy (which operates on a spectrum) there is a disconnect with empathy. This sort of malady would create that type of disconnect where pain and anxiety are unrelatable. Tylenol was interestingly found to inhibit emotional pain as well. Depending on the pathways effected by this mutation, and some non-conservative painting by numbers, it's conceivable this would alleviate even emotional pain, further destroying an individual's capacity to empathize.
https://dept.wofford.edu/neuroscience/NeuroSeminar/psfSpring2013/DeWall.pdf [wofford.edu]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 02 2019, @03:08AM
Could != would. We have the actual example of the woman thinking that birthing pain was no big deal, because it was no big deal for her. That might have caused some problems. But that is a far cry from lack of empathy. Of course, the story is too limited to give us an idea of whether she had trouble empathizing or sympathizing with other people.
Depending on the degree of disconnect. But it is worth noting here that empathy is not that laudable an ability precisely because of those sociopaths who can fake emotional pain pretty well. Get too empathic, feeling the emotions that the sociopath is faking, then you become a gullible tool.