Isaac Brown, Feels No Pain

Isaac Brown is a 5-year-old boy from Iowa
who suffers from a rare genetic condition
which makes him immune to pain, but not
to the effects of his frequent injuries.
Painful falls, deep cuts and other agonizing
injuries that normally make children scream
at the top of their lungs and cry out for
their parents, don’t determine any kind of
reaction from little Isaac. Even after he
broke his pelvis by falling from playground
equipment, he calmly acknowledged that
something was wrong, but he didn’t feel
pain.
Isaac was born with a conprivate part
insensitivity to pain (CIP) and, according to
his parents, the first years of his life years
were especially hard as the boy “would just
drop to the ground and smack his face on
the table. He thought the fall was fun.”
Unaware of the damage he was doing to his
body, he also put his hands on a working
oven burner and one time cut himself with
sharp pieces from a mug he had broken.
His parents sought medical help but were
disappointed to find that his condition was
untreatable.
The only advice medics were able to give
the couple was to teach Isaac to recognize
pain. He now knows that bleeding is bad
but he is still unable to understand that
there are different levels of pain which vary
in intensity. While he understands that his
father accidentally stepping on him is
painful, he doesn’t recognize that a cat
brushing against him, while it might be
unpleasant to some, should not hurt.
Unfortunately, Isaac’s response in both of
these situations is the same “Ow” that his
parents thought him to say.
However, when he broke his pelvic bone at
the playground, the boy became aware that
something was wrong, but wasn’t quite
sure what. “He thought his ankle hurt,” his
mother says. Because of this, she believes
that “He does feel [something], but the
pain has to be 20 to 30 times greater to
what we would feel.” Apart from his
inability to feel pain, Isaac also suffers from
Anhidrosis – a rare condition that affects
fewer than 100 people in the United States,
which renders him unable to control his
temperature or feel hot or cold. In the
summer, when the temperatures are sky-
high, he is forced to stay indoors or wear a
cooling vest to help him lower his body’s
temperature.
Because CIP is so rare, medics don’t know
what causes it or what to advise parents
with children who suffer from it. In an
attempt to learn how to take better care of
their son, Mr and Mrs Brown have also
sought help online and found “The Gift of
Pain”, a Facebook group created by
desperate parents looking to give their kids
the chance to a normal life. As members of
this group, the parents of Ashlyn Blocker –
a 13-year-old girl with the same disorder
who has been featured in numerous news
pieces when she was a bit younger, have
set up a gathering called “Camp Painless
but Hopeful.” Any family burdened with CIP
can attend and learn more about the
condition as well as ways of preventing
their kids from unknowingly hurting
themselves. Although Isaac has been kept
quite safe by his parents without resorting
to extreme measures, “other kids have had
all their teeth removed because they would
self-mutilate, bite their tongues, chew their
fingers off,” Mr Brown says.
http://www.informationng.com/2013/10/
isaac-brown-the-five-year-old-boy-who-
feels-no-pain.html

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