Childbirth, burns and missing teeth: Meet the woman who feels no pain

A pensioner who feels no pain or fear could open the door to a new generation of pain-relief and anxiety medications after scientists discovered the genetic mutations that make her so rare.

For decades Jo Cameron has been cheerfully bumping, burning and bruising herself in all manner of mishap, yet she never stopped to ask why her injuries did not hurt.

She gave birth to both her children without once resorting to drugs; she laughs off offers of anaesthetic during dental work, and when she burns herself while cooking on the Rayburn in her Scottish Highlands home, often the first she knows about it is the smell of her own burning flesh.

uk.news.yahoo.com...

Amazing.

Of course, feeling pain is important because it signals when something may be wrong. Also, fear is important because sometimes you can sense a dangerous situation but she managed to live a long life without these 2 things. Here's more:

Now 71, Mrs Cameron, who lives with her husband Jim near Loch Ness, has become the focus of intense research by scientists eager to establish if her sky-high pain threshold can be traced to the same location in her genome as her fearless and optimistic qualities.

Led by University College London (UCL), the team has now alighted on two mutations - dubbed FAAH-OUT - of a gene known to play a role in endocannabinoid signalling, which is central to pain sensation, mood and memory.

Further tests revealed that Mrs Cameron’s 41-year-old son, Jeremy, also has an unusual mutation to his FAAH gene, although neither the mutation nor his relatively high pain threshold are as pronounced as those of his mother.

“It makes a lot of sense and puts everything into perspective,” she said.

“I’ve always been covered in bumps and burns and bruises.

“I used to think I was just clumsy, but now I know I’m not. I just don’t get the pain signals that others learn from.”

uk.news.yahoo.com...

I would want to know, how often has she been sick and is she aging like she's in her 70's or is she healthier than most women her age.

This could really be helpful especially if you can modify and control this mutation and enter it into other people's genome. I'm thinking people with anxiety or depression could be helped by this.

It's odd because she seems to feel love but what if a family member is sick, does she cry but she feels no fear and pain? That would be crazy. If you had a pain/fear button that you could turn on and off in certain situations, that would be cool but to be without fear and pain would be strange but that's a subjective opinion. She may be fine with it and her subjective experience may be just the opposite where she says I can't imagine living like most humans with so much fear and pain.

a reply to: neoholographic

This was just on Jeremy Vine. Fascinating. I especially like the fact she feels no emotional pain. I cant stomach seeing knee injuries as it brings bad memories. So this could erase that.

We are amazing creatures.

a reply to: neoholographic

Female parts are many times stronger than man parts.

your joking ? Female and male parts have about the same strength > why is it women believe child birth is the most painful thing possible anyway ?? If it really was you would think they would never have more then one child .

12 years agaio I had a eye injury i stabed my eye with the dull end of a knife splitting the eye ball its self in two .
First let me say the pain made me unable to even move and after stitches took a month for the pain to stop .
Then it went down hill from there the doc said we can do a Corina transplant so you can see out of that eye again .
and says 85 % chance of site with glasses minim worst case you just end up back to not seeing from the eye .

So back under the Knife i went . well was the doc ever Wrong I rejected the cornea .
For teh next 9 months as my body rejected the cornea all i had was intense pain every day every mint it keept getting worse and worse as my eye slowly discingrated looking like a zombay decaying .

Finly beged the doc take out the eye . which finly ended the pain .

so ladys Immange the Most intense part of child birth in cress it twice then have it for 9 months WITH NO let up even for the mints between contractions .

O there is one worse pain 3rd degree burns over a big part of your body .
I read a quote once ( Dont let me die in the fire no man will enter heaven if that happens as he will die with a curse on his lips .

your joking ? Female and male parts have about the same strength > why is it women believe child birth is the most painful thing possible anyway ?? If it really was you would think they would never have more then one child .

12 years agaio I had a eye injury i stabed my eye with the dull end of a knife splitting the eye ball its self in two .
First let me say the pain made me unable to even move and after stitches took a month for the pain to stop .
Then it went down hill from there the doc said we can do a Corina transplant so you can see out of that eye again .
and says 85 % chance of site with glasses minim worst case you just end up back to not seeing from the eye .

So back under the Knife i went . well was the doc ever Wrong I rejected the cornea .
For teh next 9 months as my body rejected the cornea all i had was intense pain every day every mint it keept getting worse and worse as my eye slowly discingrated looking like a zombay decaying .

Finly beged the doc take out the eye . which finly ended the pain .

so ladys Immange the Most intense part of child birth in cress it twice then have it for 9 months WITH NO let up even for the mints between contractions .

O there is one worse pain 3rd degree burns over a big part of your body .
I read a quote once ( Dont let me die in the fire no man will enter heaven if that happens as he will die with a curse on his lips .

Isnt it called cipa?

Not the most common thing but people with cipa cant feel pain.

Sounds awesome but its not.

Have to wear diapers cause you cant feel when you have to go to the batheoom.

Little babies have to wear gloves at night cause they scratch their eyes up and dont know it.

Rough stuff

The same thing that controls pain, also controls pleasure in the body, nerves. I would presume that this lack of feeling works both ways — meaning that she most likely lacks feeling sexual pleasure, as well as pain. Bummer dude

Anxiety and fear are not the same thing.

People with similar conditions are all fascinating. Human experience is a useful topic to study in science....we just don't seem to do much of it.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: neoholographic

Female parts are many times stronger than man parts.

Oh bullcrap, when it this ridiculous brown-nosing going to end. Twats (not clitorises) have less nerve endings than penises, they're sense-deadened by default, not stronger.

originally posted by: Nyiah

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: neoholographic

Female parts are many times stronger than man parts.

Oh bullcrap, when it this ridiculous brown-nosing going to end. Twats (not clitorises) have less nerve endings than penises, they're sense-deadened by default, not stronger.

Not mine 😜

A woman at my work endef up with an eye that was infected. Essentially now even after stitches and sjrgery she is still blind in that eye. There was a good chance of her eye seeing again. Very good chance. I even made a joke about it going bad. I feel terrible about it because of that slim chance, and it did go bad. Not the absolute worst because the absolute worst would have been sympathetic eye syndrome where the good eye also goes blind. But 3 years later... she still is currently on a plan where at the moment she works about 3 days out of 5. Still has pain in her eye. Couldnt think of a worse thing. The surgery waa meant to mean a 95% chance of seeing out of that eye again.

The stitches started leaking fluid. And after trying to get the stitches out, they also started the eye leaking again. Had to re-stitch.

I feel so sorry for her