A 39-year old woman, in England, was born with a condition that prevents her from experiencing physical pain. While that might sound like a godsend to many with chronic pain, this Londoner—who wishes to remain anonymous—will tell you that a completely pain-free life is no laughing matter.
Physical pain, of course, is a design of nature to help us understand danger. You touch the hot stove and burn your hand and you will quickly learn not to do that again. Similarly, if you step outside your house and it is so cold you get frostbite, you will know better next time to wear thick gloves and several layers of clothing.
If you have this gene mutation which blocks an ion channel called Nav1.7, though, you will not have many of these sensations. This condition, blocks the channel that carries sodium ions across the nerve membrane; this allows for the transmission of pain signals.
This understanding allowed doctors to engineer mice with the same genetic defect which they now believe could be the beginning of the end of chronic pain for many.
“After a decade of rather disappointing drug trials, we now have confirmation that Nav1.7 really is a key element in human pain,” explains lead study author John Wood. Earlier studies had indicated that the Nav1.7 sodium channel is, in fact, important for pain pathway signaling but the drugs they had developed before were not strong enough.”
Wood goes on to say, “The secret ingredient turned out to be good old-fashioned opioid peptides, and we have now filed a patent for combining low dose opioids with Nav1.7 blockers. This should replicate the painlessness experienced by people with rare mutations, and we have already successfully tested this approach in unmodified mice.”
