Of all the sensations we can feel, pain shouts the loudest. A tender touch, a delicious taste or a beautiful sound—these are all silenced instantly by a stab of pain. It makes the most noise because it has the most urgent job to do, to protect you from harm. Without pain in our lives how would we know to pull our hand back quickly from a fire, or rest an ankle while it heals?
For the rare few born with a congenital insensitivity to pain, their lack of suffering is more than outweighed by the constant peril of injury, simply because they don’t have the pain-sharpened sense to keep out of harm’s way.
As a sufferer of chronic pain following a double-ankle break 14 years ago, I’m aware that pain has an important survival advantage, but only when pain is sending us signals that require action—and these signals can go wrong. Phantom limb pain is very
