Jo Cameron was in her mid-60s when her pain insensitivity was diagnosed by Dr. Devjit Srivastava, a consultant in anesthesia and pain medicine who was overseeing her care at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, Scotland, where she underwent a usually very painful operation for osteoarthritis of the hand. Srivastava was shocked when Cameron reported feeling no pain before or after surgery and didn't need any painkillers other than acetaminophen on the day of her operation.
Cameron had recently been diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the hip, which she also reported as painless, and had her hip replaced, again taking only acetaminophen on the day of and after her surgery. She had a long history of other painless injuries and operations for which she never needed painkillers. So Srivastava referred her to pain geneticists in England at University College London and the University of Oxford.