I Can't Feel Pain

Hi guys, my name is Nora. I have a very rare genetic condition. When I tell you what it is, you might find it appealing, you might even wish you had it. But once you hear the whole story, you'll know that it's not something to wish for. That's because reaching my age with this condition is considered unusually successful. The former name of my condition is Congenital Insensitivity to pain, it means that I don't feel pain. I don't feel any ache either. For example, if someone stands on my foot I won't feel it, it doesn't hurt if you stick a needle in my arm, I never get headaches, it doesn't hurt if I accidentally cut myself while making food.

When you hear all this, it sounds like a super power but it really isn't like that.

Pain and aches are vital for our health.

Let me tell you about something that happened last year. One evening, I got out of the shower, I realized my skin was all red when I was drying my hair. It turns out that the water was too hot when I was showering. I didn't notice it because I didn't feel any pain. I had second degree burns on my back, my arms and my neck. The next day I had blisters everywhere. If I could feel pain I would have felt that the water was too hot. As you can see feeling pain helps us to protect ourselves, we are too vulnerable without it.

This is a bit embarrassing but let me tell you something interesting. I can't feel it when I have to pee, so I always go to the bathroom at the same time every day, my body is used to it now. If I don't follow the schedule I don't feel anything even when my bladder is about to burst, I can only tell when I start seeing myself. So i set alarm to myself to go to the bathroom. I know it's a bit gross but I wanted to make sure you understand my situation. So if I don't know when I need to pee, does that mean I don't feel hungry? Luckily that's not a problem, hunger and feeling pain is controlled by a different mechanism in the body. So I can feel it when I'm hungry or when I get full when I eating. I feel especially lucky that I can feel fullness. Otherwise I would eat all the time and gain too much weight. The problem I might have in the future is about giving birth, women can tell that they're about to give birth because of the pain that you feel. As you can guess people like me don't feel such pain either. That might sound good to you as well what more do you want? You can give birth without pain, you might say. However a mother has to push in order to give birth, but if you can't feel labor pain from the contractions, you don't know that you need to push. So I probably won't be able to give birth naturally. I'll have to give birth with a C. section. Thats the future though. I actually want to talk more about what I'm going through now, do you know what the most common problem I have in my daily life is, biting inside of my cheek when eating. You don't do it as often as I do, because you know that it will hurt based on your past experiences. I've never felt pain so I don't have that experience. That's why I often bite my cheek or tongue when eating. Sometimes I end up with a mouth full of blood, so i have to stop eating and wash my mouth. That's actually how I was diagnosed. When my teeth first came out, I started eating my tongue. I kept biting it so my mouth was always filled with blood, when my mom told the doctor, he said this wasn't normal at all. They didn't know what was wrong at first because it's such a rare condition. Then they ran some tests. They figured it out when they realize that I don't feel pain. My mom always says that for her, the hardest part was when I was a baby. For example, I would be taking an afternoon nap, then my mom would see that my eyes were all purple when I woke up. Turns out I was pressing too hard when rubbing my eyes. I still have a lot of problems today but at least my parents don't have to deal with that. So many things happened when I was in primary school, you're too young to protect yourself at that age. For example, I really wanted to skate. I begged her but of course my mom didn't get me roller blades. So one day I borrowed my friend's roller blades and went skating. When I came home my left arm was hanging really low. I had fallen on it when I was skating. I didn't feel any pain so I didn't know that it was broken, so I kept on skating as if nothing happened, and fell on it second time. If I remember correctly I broke my arm in six place. It usually takes one month for a broken bone to healing kids, but I have to wear a cast for 4 months. Around that age. Another crazy thing happened. I always used to have bruises all over my body. And the bandage on my arm, my leg and even my head. One of the neighbors noticed that. She watched me for a while. She thought that there must be violence in my home for me to have so many bruises and call the cops. 2 social workers came to our home. My parents showed the doctor's report so everything was okay. It's kind of tragic, but we laughed about it whenever we talk about it. I mentioned all the downsides, are there any benefits to not feeling any pain? Maybe but I've never explored them. Remember when it was super trendy T. the world's spiciest pepper on YouTube. Those videos got millions of views and people made a lot of money from that. If I wanted to, I could eat the spiciest pepper in the galaxy. I could have been a guest on a YouTube channel without telling anyone about my condition. I could even started my own channel after I got famous as guest. I could have made a ton of money. I am just joking. Don't let this video fool you. I don't really like being in front of the camera. Anyway I don't want to make money out of something that makes my life really hard. I read somewhere that a guy India makes living because on this condition. He performs on the street. Sticking skeewer in his body. Walking on fire and letting cars drive over his feet. Even though he doesn't feel pain, these are all really risky. He could easily harm himself.

People like me livev' life of danger. Why make more dangerous with stunts like this? Unfortunately people with my condition have a short lifespan. I've already told you so many things, so now you're aware of it too. At any time, I could go to any one of hundreds of issues, like a heart attack. Heart attacks have some signs. If you feel chest pain,you know that you need to go to a hospital straight away. So the doctors can intervene before you have a heart attack. I wouldn't be able to do that. I wouldn't feel any chest pains so I would only know that I was having a heart attack once it actually began. But there is one thing about my condition that I am grateful for. I don't have to go through the period's 'pain. My mom has terrible period pain. Her pains begin days before her period and they continue for days. If I could feel pain, I am pretty sure I would suffer like my mom. Thankfully I don't have to worry about that. The other thing that I really like, is that I don't ever get itchy. Some people with this condition, dont feel itchenes either. I'm one of those people. I've never scratched an itch to this day. No matter how many mosquitoes bite me, i don't itch. Even if the bitten area get red or swollen, I never feel like scratching at. It's funny though because mosquitoes Love Me. If there are 10 people in a room, I'm the one they bite. If I could feel itching, then I'd be in big trouble. I think this is how the negative parts kind of get balanced. The more I tell you about the advantages of my condition the more I remember. Like I don't even sweat, even when it's really hot. What does that have to do with pain? You might wonder. You are right, but for some reason people with this condition don't sweat, so I don't have to think if I smell bad. I have never spent money on deodorant in my life.

My doctor has been following my condition for years now. One day he said, the only pain you'll ever go through, is heartbreak. But I haven't fallen in Love yet. I know it's really stupid but I dream of falling in love with someone and I want that person to leave me, so that I can experience heartbreak like my doctor said. I read about online and many people say that heartbreak feels like physical pain. This is the only chance I have to experience pain. Who knows, maybe I will eventually experience that. Lastly, I must talk about this. Is there a cure for this condition? Sadly no. But we do know the reasons and circumstances under which it seen. So it might be possible to find a cure. However, only a few people in the world have the condition. the exact number isn't known, but it's probably less than 500. For pharmaceutical companies, fewer patience means less money, so nobody puts a side plane and financial resources to find the cure you know the cure to many conditions is done through scientific research. It takes years for that research to become medicine, maybe they'll find something in the future but there's nothing now. Thank you for listening to me now you know my entire story. Now tell me, would you like to be in my position. Please tell me in the comments what you think. If you want to watch interesting stories about people. Subscribe to this channel. If you have an interesting story, email it to em, my emal address is linked in the description box, bye.