Don't feel pain when pinched? maybe you have this disease

Try pinching your cheeks. No, try harder. Sick?

You may think that not being able to feel pain is a miracle. There will be no tears, no painkillers, no lingering pain. In fact, not being able to feel pain is a dangerous thing.

Pain, for most of us, is a very unpleasant sensation. But it serves an important purpose of warning us against potentially life-threatening injuries. If you step on a piece of glass or hit your head too hard, the pain begs for mercy orders you to seek medical help immediately. Then, what if you never feel sick?

The inability to feel pain is called CIP (congenital insensitivity to pain). CIP is an extremely rare condition - only about 20 cases have been reported in the scientific literature to date.

What is congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP)?

Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) is a congenital condition that makes a person unable and never to feel pain in any part of their body when injured.

A person who has CIP can feel the different types of touch, sharp-blunt, and hot-cold, but they cannot feel it. For example, they know the drink is hot, but they cannot feel that the boiling water has burned their tongues. Over time, this lack of sensitivity to pain can lead to accumulation of injuries and health problems that can affect life expectancy.

Ashlyn Blocker, a 16 year old teenage girl from Georgia, United States, for example. As a newborn, he was barely making a sound, and by the time his milk teeth started coming out, he had unconsciously chewed most of his tongue. As a child, Blocker burned the skin of his palms on the stove, and went about his usual two days with a broken ankle. He was once attacked and chewed by swarms of fire ants, dipped his hand in boiling water, and injured himself in many other ways, without ever feeling the slightest bit of pain.

Many people who have an inherited insensitivity to pain and pain also have a loss of their sense of smell (anosmia). In some cases, CIP results in the inability of a person to sweat at all. However, living with immunity to physical pain does not make people with CIPA insensitive to emotional pain. They can and will feel emotional stress, such as stress, nervousness, mourning, to bursting with anger, just like other people.

Before knowing what may be the root cause of CIP, it is better for us to first understand the pain process.

Where did the pain come from?

The nervous system determines the countless millions of sensations we feel throughout the body, every day. The nervous system consists of the brain, cranial nerves, spinal cord, spinal cord, and other bodies, such as ganglia and sensory receptors. Nerves are the messenger mode from the body to the spine to the brain. If your finger is cut into paper, the signal receptors at your fingertips send a pain message to your brain, which causes you to react to screaming "Ouch!" or swear harsh words.

Peripheral nerves are important for you to feel pain. These nerves end at receptors that sense touch, pressure, and temperature. Some of them end up at nociceptors, which feel pain. The nociceptors send pain signals in the form of an electric current along the peripheral nerves, which then travel through the spine and reach the brain. Myelin is the sheath around the nerves of the brain that helps conduct electric current - the more myelin, the faster the message reaches the brain.

The nerve fibers that carry pain messages from nociceptors are of two versions (with or without myelin), meaning that pain messages can travel in a fast or slow path. The path that pain messages take depends on the type of pain: severe pain travels in the fast lane, while milder pain goes in the slow lane. This whole process does not happen for people with CIP.

CIP is considered a form of peripheral neuropathy because it affects the peripheral nervous system, which connects the brain and spinal cord to muscles and cells that detect sensations such as touch, smell, and pain. But, studies have found that nerve conduction in people with CIPA works just fine, so there's no evidence that their pain messages get lost.

Several studies have shown decreased function or even absence of nerve fibers - either with or without myelin. Without nerve fibers, the body and brain cannot communicate. Pain messages don't reach the brain because nobody sends them.

What makes a person unable to feel pain at all?

CIP is an autosomal recessive disorder. This means that in order for a person to have CIP, he must receive a copy of the gene from both parents. Each parent must have one copy of the mutated gene on the autosomal chromosome, a chromosome that is not related to gender. Autosomal recessive disorder means that both parents who carry the gene mutation may not show signs and symptoms of the condition.

A number of genes are known to play a role in a person's risk of inheriting CIP. The SCN9A gene is the most common cause. This gene is involved in the transmission of electrical signals in nerves. Other research suggests that it may be a mutation in the TRKA (NTRK1) gene, which controls nerve growth.

In rare cases, CIP can be caused by a mutation in the PMRD12 gene. The PRDM12 gene plays a key role in modifying a protein called chromatin which is supposed to bind to the DNA of the chromosome and act as a control switch to activate or deactivate other genes on the chromosome. Chromatin plays a very large role in the formation of nerve cells, so this mutation in the PRDM12 gene could explain why pain-detecting nerves may not form properly in people who cannot feel pain.