A MAN WHO DOESN'T FEEL PAIN.

The 33-year-old also shattered his arm so badly he initially didn’t even realise he was hurt until he saw the bones poking out. While his injuries sound horrific, and no doubt are, Mr Pete has no idea he has even injured himself because he can’t feel pain.

The American suffers from congenital analgesia or congenital insensitivity to pain. While this has obvious plus sides, there are a lot more disadvantages than people realise.

“I’ve had so many injuries over the years that it’s hard to recall,” he told news.com.au from his home in Kelso, Washington State.

“I’ve broken so many bones. One time in the playground at school I was on the swing set going back and forth.”

“I jumped off the swing, landed incorrectly and my bones shattered in my right arm.”

“I didn’t feel it but there was bone sticking out, which was a pretty good indication I’d injured myself.”

Mr Pete, whose brother Chris also suffers with the same condition, said he was a baby when his parents realised something was seriously wrong after he chewed off part of his tongue, and he underwent a series of tests. But it wasn't until 2011 that he was given the genetic tests which confirmed he and Chris had
genetic mutations of the SCN9A gene, which causes the insensitivity to pain.
The condition also means he is unable to smell.

“There’ve been times when I’ve cut my feet open and have walked around without knowing,”

he said. “I actually sliced my pinky finger open just the other day making dinner and didn’t notice. My brother-in-law had to tell me — I looked and there was blood all over the place.”

Mr Pete’s story features on Insight tonight on SBS which examines pain and how our bodies deal with it.

He said because he has had so many injuries his body is constantly trying to heal itself and it was something he “just has to deal with”.

Mr Pete also said while his brain is unable to process the pain his body struggles to process the discomfort of trying to heal.

“For the most part I deal with the effects of all my previous injuries — I have a bad left knee, I have two fractured vertebrae, I have back issues at the moment, I have issues with my right hip,”

he said. “It’s not pain I deal with, it’s extreme discomfort. If I’m lying in bed at night I’m sensing my body trying to constantly heal itself. It’s getting worse and worse — I only get three to four hours sleep so it has psychological effect on me.”

“I try to remain positive. It’s difficult when you don’t feel pain because you’re always going through this underlying feeling of your body trying to heal itself so you’re lacking energy a lot, you don’t feel in the best of moods.”

Mr Pete is joined on the show by guests
including Melbourne man Ryan Kagan who lost his hand but can still feel pain from his non-existent hand, Australian cricketer Ryan Harris and South Australian Professor and pain expert
Lorimer Moseley.

Mr Kagan, who works in professional services, lost his hand in an accident 12 years ago* but experiences what is known as phantom limb syndrome.

He told news.com.au he still feels like his missing hand is clasped around a Coke bottle, which he was holding at the time of the accident and it feels painful and itchy despite it obviously not being there.

The 32-year-old said he is not only able to feel light sensation such as tickling, but a researcher once stabbed him where his right hand was and he felt the searing pain.

“I may be missing a body part, but to me it still feels like it's intact,” he said.

“To some degree I can always feel it’s there and when it’s not hurting it (missing hand) feels like it’s floating.”

He said experts couldn’t give him a definite answer to why this occurred but that one theory was that his brain literally thinks his hand is still there so continues to send pain messages to his
body.

“Over time I’ve just learnt to drown the pain out,” he said.

“I don’t take pain killers, I feel I can try and control it to some extent as it gets worse when I’m stressed or worked up.”

The worst pain he gets is when it’s cold.
“It feels as if my hand is being plunged into a  bucket of ice, which is impossible because it’s not there,” he said.

Professor of clinical neuroscience and pain expert Lorimer Moseley also appears on The show and said the notion of pain and what we felt was complicated.

“I think the most powerful shift that we can undergo in our own sense of what pain is, is to let go this of idea of a pain being sent to your brain because that doesn’t happen,” he tells Insight.

“There’s no such thing a pain message.”

Speaking to news.com.au , Prof Moseley said it was entirely possible for someone like Mr Kagan to feel pain because his brain has learned the
skill needed to protect his body.

He also said pain was the body’s way of
warning us something wasn’t right and was a natural defence mechanism.

“We need pain receptors because we need to protect ourselves,” he said.

“If something is unpleasant, we quickly learn to avoid that situation in future.”

Australian bowler Ryan Harris also appears on the show. Harris, who has dealt with chronic knee injuries for most of his cricketing career and has also
suffered a broken angle and a broken foot will tell the show that pain is a constant companion of a fast bowler.

“I’d love to meet a bowler who’d walk out onto the field pain free, I don’t think I’ve met one yet.”

Commonwealth Games gold medallist boxer Shelley Watts on the other hand reveals she doesn’t feel pain when getting punched in the face.

Dr David Martin is Senior Sports physiologist at the Australian Institute of Sport and runs training camps for his athletes. He said there’s a pain barrier which resets each time you break it, and athletes have better pain tolerance than others.

He tells Insight : “With elite athletes, winners are grinners, it’s amazing what (pain) they can cope with, (but) when that dream is over the pain is
almost unbearable.”