I wonder how healthy this actually is. Isn’t pain a signal the brain uses to alert you about a detected problem? Just eliminating the sensation of pain could mean your body would be unable to signal an issue that needs to be resolved.
But the ability to actively shut off pain once you've acknowledged the problem, or at least numb it down to it not being completely debilitating, could be useful.
However, I can also see how it could be abused to say "ah, it's not that bad" and not have the problem resolved. In my case, it could lead to permanent kidney damage.
It'd be one thing if I had a pre-existing chronic pain condition for which I'd already had such an implant installed, but even in that case I'd have to have enough access to ongoing care to have someone I could call and say "this hurts in a way that's new." The implant itself would need the same kind of management as does a pacemaker or ICD, I imagine. So it seems not tremendously likely that the scenario you describe would play out in practice.
(In any case, I'm good enough at withstanding pain that I waited two full days before deciding it was time to go to the ER, and even at that raised the mild suspicion of the doctor who attended me on the basis of how I wasn't screaming, vomiting, swearing, or otherwise showing much of anything beyond being pale and dehydrated. If it hadn't been for CT results unquestionably showing the calculus, I might've had some trouble with being misidentified as a drug seeker. So I'm not super sure the implant poses much more of a risk for inadvertent self-harm, you know? If I'd been in a worse way than I was, I could well have lost a kidney entirely through sheer stubbornness, no brain implant required.)
That's not what this implant does though. It's all automatic within a few seconds which implies that you'd never be able to discern life threatening pain from stubbing your toe. It seems you'd receive an extremely short lived pain signal (if any) and then it'd be gone.
You'd have to give manual control to the individual for your suggestion to work and that comes with its own issues of "abuse"
>Once it detects an electrical signal that suggests “pain found,” it sends the information to the “sleeper agent,” a computer chip implanted in the front part of the brain. The chip then automatically triggers a light beam to stimulate the region, activating neurons that can override pain signals.
> An inability to feel pain and temperature often leads to repeated severe injuries. Unintentional self-injury is common in people with CIPA, typically by biting the tongue, lips, or fingers, which may lead to spontaneous amputation of the affected area. In addition, people with CIPA heal slowly from skin and bone injuries. Repeated trauma can lead to chronic bone infections (osteomyelitis) or a condition called Charcot joints, in which the bones and tissue surrounding joints are destroyed.
1: https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/congenital-insens...
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passIt's a controversial topic, many believe that some of the pain your brain generates is for a problem it thinks you have, but don't. Usually this comes up in the context of back pain.
When you start reading up on certain types of chronic pain, there are quite a few "Doctors cannot find any physical problem causing the pain." Usually no treatment works for these people, as there is no problem to solve, except perhaps a brain anomaly.
Of course, disabling all pain would be a bad idea.