The Gift Of Pain
Alright, so I didn’t make up that title. I stole it from a book called The Gift of Pain by Dr. Paul Brand and Phillip Yancy. Although that book is written from a Christian viewpoint, you can easily insert any belief system you want into it. The following is not a review of the book — I just nicked the title.
Gift? Why A Gift?
Remember how yesterday when I was dicussing migraine pain that I said, “It could be worse?” In case you wonder how much worse can you get than migraine pain, you can have been born with the capacity to not feel pain at all.
In one sense, that sounds like a gift. However, pain is a warning system that something in the body needs attention. Those who cannot feel pain tend to die young and loose a lot of body parts on the way. Leprosy is one of these diseases where you loose feeling in your extremities. On the one hand, you’re not suffering. On the other hand, you don’t have another hand to do any comparisons with.
Another disorder is CIPA (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain and Anhidrosis), an extremely rare genetic disorder that kills alomost all sensation in your body. You don’t feel any pain — and you don’t feel much in the way of pleasure, either. Another oddity is that you can’t sweat, either. So, you keep getting infected and having to go to the doctor’s. That’s probably more painful than migraines, at least with the doctors I wind up seeing.
Could More Effective Painkillers Be Found In Those WHo Can’t Feel Pain?
The gene for pain seems to have discovered in the corpse of a 14 year old boy from Pakistan who could clearly had CIPA. He made his living with an entertainment fiesta that you do not want to try at home — he punctured himself with knives. How did he die? For some reason, most likely for a bet, he jumped off the roof of a house. Since he didn’t feel any pain, he probably was suprised to discover that he was mortal.
Not only that, but Paris scientists think they can make a new powerful group of anesthetics based on the information in the boy’s genes. Not only is the boy’s genes being used, but the genes of six other Pakistanis who are also afflicted with CIPA.
It is hoped that painkillers can be made using this knowlegde which won’t cause so many side effects like those currently available.
Ahh, brave new world…to be free of migraine pain so we have time to worry about the enviornment and other man-made disaters.
Hmmm…on second thought, maybe I’m better off worrying about the migraine pain…
November 13th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
A few months ago I saw a phenomenal documentary about children who cannot feel pain. It really made me take stock of my pain. And even though I hate it most days, I realized there are much worse things to deal with than my pain.
I wrote about this topic and the film on my blog back in March, so I provided that link below. You should check out the film when you have a chance. I think it’s available on Netflix.
http://somebodyhealme.dianalee.net/2007/03/grass-is-greener.html
November 14th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Looks like I’m behind the times (blush). Thanks for the heads up about the film and for the link.
November 15th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
You’re welcome. Let me know what you think when you’ve had a chance to see it.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:25 am
[...] have had pain at some point in your life, unless you have a terrible medical condition like CIPA (Congenital Insensivity to Pain and Anhidrosis). You must remember what it is like to have pain. Now, you probably have had pain at [...]