Gabby Gingras is a typical 10-year-old girl, has a rare nerve disorder, where she can’t feel any kind of a pain in her body. This disorder made the nerve ending to stop sending signals towards the brain.
Due to this, she could hurt herself, she could break her leg, and she could scratch her eye. At the age of 17, she ate plastic toys which scratched her mouth until blood leaked from her mouth, she doesn’t know about the scratch in her mouth. In another day, she chewed her fingers without knowing the injury happened. Thus, gabby had injured her over and over.
She broke several teeth by chewing stones and other toys. She also broke her jaw. Gabby wears her glasses 24 hours a day to prevent hurting herself.
Her parents also used Velcro braces in her hands, to keep the arm straight, not to bend her arm to touch the face, mouth or any other parts.
Many neurologists analyzed her and found the disorder named Hereditary sensory autonomic neuropathy (HSAN). Because, her brain lost the capability to recognize the pain signals from the nerve tissues.
HSAN can be cured only through gene therapy, where healthy genes would replace the mutated ones that cause the disease. But it has some side effects which affect her body a lot in this little age.
To know more:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MedicalMysteries/story?id=3679532&page=1#.T9BwslLXi_I