Woman feels no pain

A Scottish woman feels no pain thanks to her Genes. Along with feeling no pain, she does not suffer from any sort of anxiety, stress, or depression. Doctors realized something was strange when this woman went in to have her hip replaced, she said she had no pain even though the joint had almost completely deteriorated. Doctors then discovered mutations in two of her genes. The two genes that were mutated are FAAH-OUT, which was believed to be a "junk" gene but actually is believed to affect the expression of the FAAH gene. The other mutated gene was a neighboring gene that controls the FAAH enzyme. In mice that done have the FAAH gene, pain is reduced greatly, and their wounds heal very quickly.

While it may not be the best thing to never feel pain, the mutations that this woman had in her FAAH genes had interesting affects from it. She claims she was always very calm and never experienced anxiety. Saying when her car flipped over in an accident, she calmly crawled out of the car and helped the other motorist involved in the accident. More research done on the FAAH gene mutation could result in treatment of anxiety and depression. It could also yield important discoveries on quicker ways to heal wounds. 

Gene Mutation Causes Woman to not Feel Any Pain

A 65 year old woman from Scotland went to a Doctor complaining that she was having issues with her hip. Upon running tests, it was concluded that she suffered from severe joint degeneration (a very painful disease)-but she felt no pain. Dr. Devjit Srivastava, a consultant in Anesthesia and Pain Medicine at NHS hospital in Scotland, diagnosed her to having an insensitivity to pain. The woman also confessed to never being stressed, anxious, or ever needing any painkillers-even after surgery.

The woman was sent to a pain geneticists at the University of Oxford and it was discovered that she had two mutations in her genes: one was a microdeletion is a pseudogene which researchers has described for the first time as FAAH-OUT, and another mutation in the neighboring gene that controls the FAAH enzyme. The FAAH gene is responsible for signaling pain sensation, mood and memory.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190327203450.htm

Researchers believe there are many more people with this mutation in their FAAH gene, but live their lives completely unaware they even have it. By studying these gene mutation more, it can help immensely with people that live in chronic pain, or even patients recovering from surgery. By manipulating the FAAH-OUT gene, Doctors would be able to treat their post-surgery patients without the use of opioids, and decrease their patients healing time. In my opinion, this would be a very interesting research to conduct as the opioid crisis is at its all time high.