told him that labor would be painful. But, with the passing of the hours, nothing bothered him, even without the epidural.” I felt that my body was changing, but don’t hurt me”recalled the woman, Jo Cameron, who now has 71 years. He said it was like “tingling”. Then I would say women pregnant: “don’t worry, it is not as bad as they say”.
It was not until recently – more than four decades later – he knew that her friends are not exaggerated. Rather, there was something different in the way that her body was experiencing pain: actually not felt it.
Since you don’t feel pain, Cameron Burns quite frequently. The scars tend to disappear with ease, he said, another thing that scientists plan to investigate. Photo New York Times.
Some scientists believe to finally understand why it is so. In an article published on March 28 in The British Journal of Anaesthesia, researchers attributed the lack of physical pain in the life of Cameron to a mutation of a gene that had not previously identified. They say they hope that the discovery may contribute at any time to the development of a new treatment for pain. They believe that this mutation could also be linked to the reason that Cameron has felt little anxiety or fear their lifetime and why your body heals quickly.
“Never we have known a patient like her,” said John Wood, head of the Group of Molecular nociception of University College London.
For almost a hundred years, scientists have been documenting of individuals who feel little or no pain case studies. But the genetic mutation that appears to be responsible for that Cameron has virtually never felt pain had not been identified previously. The study emerged in the middle of important developments in the sharp debate over how to treat the pain in a responsible manner. On Thursday, New York State presented one of the most forceful demands to date against the Sackler family, owner of Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the opioid OxyContin.Fue one further reminder that we need less addictive alternatives to deal with chronic pain, said Stephen G. Waxman, neurologist at Yale and author of Chasing Men on Fire: The Story of the Search for a Pain Gene. Waxman did not participate in the recent article, but also studies to people with rare mutations that alter the mode of feeling pain.
Each of these mutations tells us something and tells us one gene in particular as a possible target for new and more effective against the pain medicines,”said.
The sequence of events that led scientists to investigate the genes of Cameron began five years ago. She lived a happy and ordinary life on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland, with her husband, he explained. After a surgical intervention in the hand, a doctor seemed perplexed that he did not feel pain or would like pain relievers.” I can assure you that I don’t need anything”, recalled Cameron who told him to Devjit Srivastava, consultant in anaesthesia and pain medicine at a hospital in the national health service in the North of Scotland and one of the authors of the article.
A few follow-up questions revealed that Cameron was unusual. When he was 65, he needed a hip replacement. As he never felt pain, not he realized something was wrong until the bones were already severely worn. The cuts, burns and fractures nor hurt. In fact, sometimes not he realized that it was something wrong but that it perceived the smell of burning flesh or when your spouse told him that he had up to blood. He also claimed that eat red pepper only left him “a nice luminosity”. Srivastava referred it to the Group of Molecular nociception of University College of London, a team that focuses on genetics to understand the biology of pain and touch. They had some tracks for your case. In recent decades, scientists have identified dozens of people processing pain in unusual ways. But when James Cox, senior Professor of that group and one of the authors of the new article, inspected their genetic profile, not like other people who also felt pain. Finally, he found what it sought in a gene that scientists call FAAH-OUT. We all have this gene. But in Cameron, “the patient presents a suppression of the front part of the gene,” he said, and added that some additional blood tests confirmed this hypothesis.
Cameron said he was surprised by the interest in his case. Until his conversation with Srivastava, the pain was not something thought. Perhaps because, while it burned or cut frequently, their wounds rarely let him one scar, another aspect that scientists believe is linked to the mutation. Several articles has written about parents of children with similar conditions. Many live in fear of that, to not feel pain, their children will not learn to avoid situations that might hurt them. Cameron said that his parents never worried about that. She thinks that that may be due to that it inherited the mutation of his father.
I remember that he needed pain killers”, said. “I think that it is why not I thought it was strange.
Unfortunately, since he died before the discovery, not know if it was a carrier of the mutation. His mother does not have it. His daughter either. His son “has the same microsupresion in FAAH-OUT, but does not have another mutation that causes a reduced role of FAAH,” explained Cox.En other words, your child shares with it a little, but not all of his insensitivity to pain. Also intrigue scientists the extraordinarily low level of anxiety which has Cameron. In a questionnaire on anxiety disorders, he obtained a zero of a total of 21. You don’t remember to have felt never depressed or scared.
“I am very happy,” he said.
In retrospect, sees how his genetic disposition can have helped in his professional career. After years as a primary school teacher, were trained to work with people suffering from serious mental disabilities. Erratic and aggressive behavior never has affected him, he said. However, although having this mutation seems a dream, it has its drawbacks. One is that it is very forgetful, so it is prone to losing your keys or forget what to say while he speaks. Another is that he has never felt “bursts of adrenaline” that speak others, he said.
Jo Cameron, of 71 years, has a genetic mutation. Photo: New York Times.
The researchers said that they will now concentrate on trying to better understand how FAAH-OUT to design a gene therapy or some other medical procedure to relieve pain based on it. To make a discovery like this becomes a real treatment against pain or anxiety, it is necessary to take many steps, many years of work and invest many millions of dollars. It is rare for a product to emerge. But not impossible, said Waxman. A person with an unusual genetic constitution can give form to the medicine of the future, he said, and by way of reminder referred to drugs with Statins.” Largely developed as a result of the discovery of families incredibly rare that all had heart attacks to the myocardium to twenties”, he said. Yet it is too early to tell if Cameron mutation or some other individual that will determine the future of painkillers.” But I am confident that the lessons that we are learning from the genes that have to do with pain will lead to the creation of a completely new type of painkillers”. In this note:
