Did you know there are people who quite literally cannot feel pain?
These people have an extremely rare and intriguing condition called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, or CIP for short.
Just how rare is CIP? Well, it’s so rare that only a couple dozen people in the entire world have it!
You’re probably thinking those folks are extremely lucky, but as it turns out most of them would likely disagree.
While it’s true that people with CIP can experience things like childbirth and even major surgeries without the need for any kind of anesthetic, the downsides to CIP almost always end up outweighing the benefits.
And it’s easy to understand why…
Remember the first time you first touched a really hot object when you were a child?
The immediate reaction of pulling away because of the pain was probably the only thing that prevented you from sustaining a life-changing burn.
Or how about those times when you bite your tongue and it stays sore for three days? That’s never a pleasant experience, is it?
Now imagine this: Some children with CIP have literally bitten their tongues completely off because they didn’t realize what was happening because there was no pain sensation to warn them.
And unfortunately, the downsides of not being able to feel pain are just as serious for adults.
For proof, just ask anyone who has ever wandered into a bees’ nest or felt chest pains from a heart attack how they would have fared had that initial pain not warned them that something was wrong.
While the inability to feel pain would be a huge blessing to someone with cancer or some other horribly painful disease, most of the people that have CIP wish they didn’t.
So the next time you stub your toe or bite your tongue, just think how lucky you are to be able to feel that mind-numbing pain!
While it’s never fun to experience such an unpleasant sensation, things would likely end up a lot worse if your body was incapable of feeling it.
To finish up, check out the short video below from UCLA Health. It discusses the importance of trying to manage chronic pain without the use of harmful narcotics.
Note: As always, you can watch the video at full screen by clicking the “square” icon that will pop up in the lower-right corner of the video after it begins playing.