If you’re a Grey’s Anatomy fan, you might remember a little girl named Megan from Season 3, whose rare genetic disorder kept her from feeling pain. Like Megan, Jo Cameron, a 71-year-old Scottish woman, went her whole life thinking this lack of pain was normal until recently when she was diagnosed with a genetic disorder that prevents her from feeling the pain of all types and helps with enhanced wound-healing.
Having never felt pain from a spicy Scotch Bonnet chili contest, nor from breaking a bone, burning her flesh or childbirth, which she related to the feeling of a tickle, Cameron went her whole life thinking her tolerance for pain was normal. She explains how often times she’ll lean across her burner when cooking, only to accidentally burn her arm and not realize it until she smells burning flesh; “Being a Vegan we don’t smell very much burning flesh,” she jokes (BBC). It wasn’t until age 65 when she insisted that she didn’t need painkillers for an arthritis operation in her hand did doctors realize Cameron’s unusual pain tolerance.
Cameron began seeing Dr. James Cox, Senior Lecturer at University College London’s Molecular Nociception Group, to have her genetic code studied. The team studies genetic relation to pain and touch and hopes to find ways to implement their findings into modern medical care. After much testing, Dr. James Cox found that Cameron’s genetic disorder was due to a gene called FAAH-OUT. The FAAH gene is involved with “endocannabinoid signaling central to pain sensation, mood, and memory” (Eurekalert). While everyone has this gene, a rare mutation to Cameron’s FAAH-OUT gene causes her pain tolerance to be much higher.
Physical pain isn’t the only type of pain that her genetic disease prevents her from feeling, but also mental pain such as fear and anxiety. When speaking about her disease, Cameron says “it means I don’t feel pain, but also it means I am very happy, I don’t get depressed or feel downhearted about things, which can be very annoying when you live with me.” While this may be the case, Cameron credits her genetic disposition for greatly helping with her work, explaining that after being a primary school teacher, she started working with severe mental disabilities because aggressive behavior never startled her.
The implications? Scientists hope to be able to continue to study FAAH-OUT and use their findings to design more effective gene therapy and pain intervention for both physical pain and anxiety treatments.
Cameron says she came forward with her genetic disposition because she wanted people to know that “it’s possible even in your seventies, or even in your eighties to be a part of something that can help other people, age doesn’t matter about helping people” (BBC).