Health Tips

The experience of actually having a limb, when none actually exists, is known as phantom limb. Phantom limbs can be experienced from birth or after some trauma or surgery in which a limb is removed. People with phantom limbs can describe vivid sensory qualities such as heat , pain, itchiness, etc. In fact such is the sensation that people have been known to try and walk on phantoms because they feel so real.

Strange Facts about Phantom Limbs
* Phantom arms feel as though they hang at rest but move when walking.

* Phantom limbs sometimes get stuck in strange positions and appear to cause cramp and pain.

* Artificial limbs can simply enhance phantom limbs – like putting a glove on a hand.

* People with spinal injuries sometimes experience cycling movements with their legs when lying down.

Phantom Limbs & Phantom Pains

When we experience pain it is generally for a purpose. Pain lets us know that something is wrong, it also limits our activity until we recover. Phantom pain, or other phantom sensations appear to have no use so why do they occur at all? One theory is that during fetal development the brain is hard-wired to assume that all arms, legs, feet and hands will be in place.

The brain develops a kind of mental map which doesn’t change in the event of a missing limb. So, when a message is sent to the brain from the end of the nerve, the brain assumes this comes from the end of the limb. Also, depending on where the nerve ends, or was cut, the brain attempts to interpret the message as best it can but this can result in a misinterpretation so people feel their ‘limb’ is in an awkward position or in pain. In one study of leg amputees*, 85% suffered from phantom pains

* Zuurmond WW, van der Zande AH, de Lange JJ. (1996) Phantom pain following leg amputation: retrospective study of incidence, therapy and the effect of preoperative analgesia. Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd. May 18;140(20):1080-3.