A Medical Case of Congenital analgesia (When People Don't Feel Pain)

Pain is one sense that helps us know that there is something wrong with our body which could become damaging. We all might not like pain but we are always grateful for the ability to feel pain because it helps us with survival. While almost everyone you know can sense pain, not everyone are born equally like in the case I will be discussing today on this post.

This is the case of a family with a kid who didn't feel pain. The baby had bitten his tongue and didn't feel anything even when the parents where rushing him to the hospital. The doctor decided to test flames underneath the feet of the infant and even when he was having blisters , he didn't react to the heat and this led the doctor to conclude that 6 months old Steven Pete. This was the year 1981, and although the condition existed, there was no genetic testing, and since it is very rare, there was no treatment for it. The doctor came to a conclusion that he had a congenital insensitivity to pain an condition known as Congenital analgesia.

While the condition was known, the cause was not known because medical science hadn't improve to the level where the root cause could be found. Theories suggests that the boy did not have the pain receptors nerves that would detect harmful stimuli and send signals tot the brain which is interpreted as pain.

You would expect that someone who do not experience pain will be prone to bone fractures and injury when they are growing up and this was what Steven went through. Just like Steven, his brother Chris who was born when he was 4 years old suffered from the same condition. You would expect that since the both children suffered from Congenital analgesia, it might be genetic but both parents didn't suffer from the condition.

People with this condition rarely passes adolescence and these people are so uncommon because only a small number of people suffer from this condition. The condition is rare because very few children with the condition go pass adolescent and this is according to Dr. Ingo Kurth who worked on the condition at the Institute of Human Genetics in Germany.

People who suffer from this condition do not know or understand how dangerous certain activities and circumstances are and as such hurt themselves. Such example is the case of a Pakistani boy who suffered from Congenital analgesia and would walk on hot coals and perform various dangerous stunts because he didn't feel pains. It was in the middle of doing dangerous activities like jumping off the roof that led to his death in 2006, at the age of 14.

For the Pete's, they had to care for their children so they do not hurt themselves but as you would expect, they cannot be too careful and so the neighbors reported the children for child abuse and the Steven was taken away from them because they not believe that people could live without any feeling any pain thereby causing them to inflict pain on themselves because they didn't know. The state care released him to his parents 2 months after he broke his leg while under the care of the agency without feeling pain that he broke his leg.

While growing up these two didn't have the best lives as they had lots of injuries including broken ribs, legs, and so on. His brother lost his life as a result of numerous accident that kept him to a wheelchair and since the government weren't going to give him support as a disable since someone who doesn't feel pain wasn't disable, he lived miserable and committed suicide.

What is the cause of this condition that can make someone not to feel pains. There was a time when he was skating and he fell seriously, causing his bones to tear out of his skin and he didn't notice until people told him and he was unable to walk. In the bid to find the cause of his condition his parent decided to go for the necessary test since this time, genetic testing was a thing.

With genetic testing where the nucleotide of the two children were sequenced one after the other, it was found that there was a mutation in the SCN9A genes which is the gene that signals the formation of protein in the nerve ending of receptors for pain, temperature, and acidity.

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^{Post Reference}

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^{https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1Q3r7NqHqDQLgDPb7jXFy5Z/the-man-who-cant-feel-pain
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sepsis/symptoms-causes/syc-20351214
https://obroudy.medium.com/the-man-who-feels-no-pain-7670520c5506
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/6335
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18713585
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/dec/14/health.pakistan
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/pain-receptor}

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^{Image Reference}

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^{Image 1 || Flickr || Knieschmerzen knee pain
Image 2 || Deviant Art || Grief And Pain 006
Image 3 || Wikimedia Commons || Wrist pain}