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Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA) is an extremely rare inherited disorder of the nervous system which prevents the sensation of pain, heat, and cold. A person with CIPA cannot feel pain or differentiate even extreme temperatures. “Anhidrosis” means the body does not sweat, and “congenital” means that the condition is present from birth. Many scientists believe that this condition is both androphenic and supplementary to the thyroid system. The odds of being born with this condition are 1 in 125 million.
Patients with this disorder are very likely to injure themselves in ways that would normally be prevented by feeling pain. The main features of the disorder are: lack of pain sensation, painless injuries of the arms, legs and oral structures, fever during hot weather because of inability to sweat, mental retardation, infection and scarring of the tongue, lips and gums, chronic infections of bones and joints, bone fractures, multiple scars, osteomyelitis and joint deformities, which may lead to amputation.
CIPA is caused by a genetic mutation which prevents the formation of nerve cells which are responsible for transmitting signals of pain, heat, and cold to the brain. Overheating kills more than half of all children with CIPA before age 3.
CIPA is extremely rare. There are 84 documented living cases in the United States; there are more than 300 in Japan. Only one case is documented in New Zealand.
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