Imagine feeling like you have glass shards running through your blood, and imagine your doctors don’t believe how much pain you’re in.

Then, imagine you’re in a different body, incapable of feeling any pain at all.

Then, in body number three, you inflict pain on yourself so you can rate it. For science.

Pain is a mystery in so many ways, but the way we evaluate it, make sense of it, and how we recognize it in other people, can change how we understand it.

Today: From sickle cell, to CIP (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain), to the Schmidt Pain Index, hear three snapshots of pain.

GUESTS:

• Amy Mason-Cooley is a sickle cell patient and founder of “Cruising With Sickle Cell”, a group that brings together sickle cell patients and their friends and families, doctors, and advocates
• Dr. Andrew Meltzer is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, and the Director of Clinical Research at George Washington University. His team studied racial and ethnic disparities in the management of acute pain in U.S. emergency departments
• Steve Pete is a Kelso, Washington resident who lives with Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, or, C.I.P.
• Dr. Justin Schmidt is an entomologist and author of The Sting of the Wild: The Story of the Man Who Got Stung for Science. He is also the creator of the Schmidt Sting Pain Index

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