congenital insensitivity, would or would not want?

[chavosaur]

Im going for my bachelors in psychology in the future. i took AP psychology my sophomore year of high school. And it was then that I learned of the rare disorder called congenital insensitivity.

To put this in laymen's terms, this is a disorder within your brain that causes you to not feel pain anymore. At all. ​

Not only pain is not felt, but in some cases you can lose the ability to feel heat, lose the ability to feel pleasure from sexual intercourse, or even lose your entire sense of touch. Anyway, the reason why I bring the topic up, is I would like to know weather or not you guys would actually wish to have a disorder like this.​

Now, I know your first thoughts are "Why would I want any kind of disorder in general?" Or "Possibly not feel sexual pleasure? Fuck this thread." However, you have to think of it from certain standpoints. At times, some of us wish we could never feel pain. Never have to hurt, especially if we had cancer or some other kind of disease. And then of course, there is the argument that we use pain to learn, and use pain to know when something is wrong.​

Quite personally, I think from time to time I would love to be able to not feel pain. I sometimes get pretty injured since I am very clumsy, and not feeling any kind if pain would be awesome. But of course, I may never know if something bad had happened to me, and i could let the problem go to long... ​

In short, what do y'all think you would do if given the choice of having this disorder or not?​

If you would like to read up more on CIPA, here is an article on it.​

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/human-biology/cipa.htm

 

[omgpwn666]

I rather be able to feel pain. But only because if I was pooping I want to know when to stop pushing.

 

[Ericthegreat]

I rather be able to feel pain. But only because if I was pooping I want to know when to stop pushing.

Yea this is true.

 

[Gahars]

Not feeling pain sounds cool and all until you've burned your hand to crisp because you didn't realize it was resting on an open flame.

Pain sucks, but it does have a purpose.

 

[pokefloote]

There are a lot of dangers with this. For example, I heard a story once of a young girl who was burning her hands on the stove but couldn't feel it, so she let it continue. It's still damaging the body, whether you feel it or not.

Do not want.

edit: ninja'd (sort of)

 

[tueidj]

The linked article makes no mention that the condition may get worse over time (first loss of pain, then loss of temperature sensitivity, then loss of touch etc.) to the point where the nerve damage becomes severe enough to cause death. The average life expectancy of a CIPA patient is only 25.

 

[omgpwn666]

The linked article makes no mention that the condition may get worse over time (first loss of pain, then loss of temperature sensitivity, then loss of touch etc.) to the point where the nerve damage becomes severe enough to cause death. The average life expectancy of a CIPA patient is only 25.

It's all fun and games 'til you made it creepy.

 

[ouch123]

I'd go with no. Having this disorder sounds a lot like the type of wish you'd be granted by a monkey's paw.

 

[Nathan Drake]

Ya know, this condition and conditions like it aren't brand new. An insensitivity to pain has a myriad of downsides that have already been at least partially referenced (such as burning up your body with scalding liquids, accidentally chewing off parts of your tongue while eating, etc.), and these downsides are the exact reason why we have pain sensors to tell us when we're screwing up. Wanna know when our body naturally shuts down the ability to feel pain? When we're incredibly hurt, but require the ability to get ourselves to safety. That is the only time not feeling pain is truly an upside. Otherwise, never knowing when you may have seriously injured yourself is very, very bad. I think the pain of a few stubbed toes or jammed fingers isn't so bad in comparison to what could happen without the presence of pain.

Slightly off topic: the odds of you still wanting to major in psych in the future are incredibly low. Generally, the average college student swaps majors twice before making a final decision (which may not even be all that final in the long run). If you're basing your current decision off of high school psych, you're definitely going to have to have the college experience to tell you what you want to do. Most colleges consider high school psych, AP or not, to be mostly a joke, not really ever learning anything important or essential past some names and basic facts.

 

[Costello]

Even with no physical pain you would still feel moral/psychological pain, the pain of the mind and the soul... and that's the worst kind of pain.
I'd rather get punched in the stomach or even lose a leg than to have my wife divorce me. You get the idea.



Besides if you want to avoid feeling physical pain you can take morphine or some other kind of medication.

 

[Sicklyboy]

Lack of pleasure from sex? Fuck this thread.

Lol. About two and a half years ago, I dislocated my right kneecap and it didn't go back into place. A hospital trip and a useless shot of morphine later, a doctor was extending my leg for me and pushing my kneecap back to where it should be, from the side of my leg. It hurt like hell. Shit, that was the absolute worst pain I have ever felt in my life. My knee is fucked up to this day. There's seldom a day it doesn't hurt. Yeah, it would be nice if it never happened, but I don't regret it happening. I was horsing around with a friend, and I got hurt. Shit happens. I learned from it, and I learned from the pain. The next time I experience something painful, I have this to base it off of. If it's not as bad, I'll be able to deal with it. If it's worse, I'll be able to deal with it better.

If there is no pain, you've nothing to feel in the first place.

 

[Ubuntuの刀]

I would want not to feel pain. But pain is a signal for us to know when something goes wrong. Maybe we could get a different signal for pain. Instead of it hurting us, we could get a different signal, much like your alarm clock ringing in our ears.

 

[emigre]

If you enjoy BDSM than not being able to feel pain would take away from the experience.

 

[EyeZ]

I wouldn't want that disorder, i don't like to feel pain the same as everybody else, but it's there for a reason, it's natures way of self preservation.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I would want not to feel pain. But pain is a signal for us to know when something goes wrong. Maybe we could get a different signal for pain. Instead of it hurting us, we could get a different signal, much like your alarm clock ringing in our ears.

I think the alarm clock thing would make you want to kill yourself. A minor scratch is pain the same way setting yourself on fire is. I don't want an alarm ringing in my ear every time I get a little pain.

Also am I the only one thinking of The World is Not Enough at the moment?

 

[Depravo]

It sounds like fun until you poo and wee yourself.

 

[haazenpfeffer]

DO NOT WANT

People with this disorder often take habits such as chewing fingertips/fingernails to the extreme... For example, I've seen multiple examples of people with this disorder that keep chewing their hands to the point of serious scarring and bleeding because they cannot feel the pain. Children with this disorder often chew their tongues or their cheeks, because they can't tell that they are doing it. You can't just think about not being able to feel sex; people with this disorder have countless other problems due to their inability to feel. Nobody should ever, EVER want this. If there was some way to ignore pain only, some people might find that nice, but they ignore the simple fact that you can't tell when something is wrong with your body.

 

[Hyro-Sama]

Ironically, this disorder sounds painful.