No Pain -- and Without a Warning System

Dec.13, 2006— -- Dr. Joshua Prager was amazed when he saw the pain-defying performer known as Zamora.

"He stuck a spike through his face -- through his mouth and it went right through his chin," said Prager, director of the Center for the Rehabilitation of Pain Syndromes at the University of California at Los Angeles. "It was fascinating."

Zamora, whose real name is Tim Cridland, specializes in sword swallowing, fire walking, sleeping on beds of nails and other feats that bring him none of the wrenching pain you might expect. Zamora claims his sideshow tricks are a feat of his mind, but he might be one of the rare people born without the ability to feel pain.

Scientists now might be a step closer to unraveling the mystery behind Zamora's sideshow and closer to finding a way to help the rest of us live life without the sort of pain we don't need.

It sounds nice, doesn't it? A life without aches and pain? But pain can be useful -- and life without it can be dangerous.

Pain warns us when a hot pan handle is threatening to burn our skin, or when the nail scissors have slipped and cut our tender fingertips. Gabby Gingras, who has the rare condition where she is insensitive to pain, was 5 years old when she appeared on ABC News' "Good Morning America" last December. Her parents revealed how scary life becomes when someone -- especially a child -- lacks the ability to feel pain.

"Pain teaches, pain protects, pain can save you from a lot of bad things in life," said Trish Gringas, Gabby's mother.

Without pain, Gabby was without that protection.

"By the time Gabby was 2½, she had been hospitalized and been injured multiple times," said Gringas.

So while taking away pain can be good sometimes, taking it away completely also takes away our self-defenses. Pain protects us from inflicting serious pain upon ourselves in the first place and from further hurting ourselves so that we can heal. But new research may unlock a way for us to keep the pain we need and live without the pain we don't need.