The gain of feeling no pain

YOU might not believe this, but there is a woman in Scotland who feels no pain and never complains. No, it’s not me.

Her chemical imbalance means that she is also always in a good mood, which means she is definitely not me and neither is she Lorraine Kelly, who admitted last week in a tax hearing that her super-cheery on-screen persona was fake. (Can I just pause here to mention that Lorraine has also just revealed that she never takes off her bra, not even when she goes to bed, which is even more shocking.)

Jo Cameron is the remarkable woman whose unusual gene mutations stop pain signals reaching her brain. For 71-year-old Jo, childbirth was a breeze; she only needed aspirin for a painful operation; she walked away from a serious car accident, and she munches on scotch bonnet peppers as if they were plums. When she was a little girl, she didn’t even notice she had broken her arm roller-skating.

It makes you strong, but it also makes you weak. She had no indication that her hip was crumbling, or that osteoarthritis had pushed a thumb bone into her palm.

Experts believe her condition is only found once in every several million people and she is now helping medical experts explore the parameters of pain management, especially for those who suffer chronic pain after surgery. In a way, I’m glad that she discovered this at a late age — one can only imagine what medical science might have wanted her to do earlier.

What a remarkable story. She has never felt pain in her life, but I bet she still runs screaming from the room when someone mentions Brexit. Or Lorraine’s bra.