PHANTOM LIMB PAIN

A phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts. Approximately 50 to 80% of amputees experience these phantom sensations in their amputated limb, and the majority of these people report that the sensations are painful. Phantom sensations may also occur after the removal of body parts other than the limbs, e.g. after amputation of the breast, extraction of a tooth (phantom tooth pain) or removal of an eye (phantom eye syndrome). The missing limb often feels shorter and may feel as if it is in a distorted and painful position. An unusual variation involves body parts not part of human anatomy; examples include phantom tails and wings reported by some people. Occasionally, the pain can be made worse by stress, anxiety and weather changes.

A slightly different sensation known as Phantom pains can also occur in people who are born without limbs and people who are paralyzed. Phantom pains occur when the missing limb causes discomfort. It is often described as a burning or similarly strange sensation and can be extremely agonizing for some people, but the exact sensation differs widely for individuals. Other induced sensations include warmth, cold, itching, squeezing, tightness and tingling.

Although not all phantom limbs are painful, patients will sometimes feel as if they are gesturing, feel itches, twitch or even try to pick things up. For example, Ramachandran and Blakeslee describe that some people's representations of their limbs don't actually match what they should be, for example, one patient reported that her phantom arm was about "6 inches too short".

Some people with phantom limbs find that the limb will gesticulate as they talk. (But whether they feel weight of phantom limb while gesticulating is unclear). Given the way that the hands and arms are represented on the motor cortex and language centers, this is not surprising. Some people find that their phantom limb feels and behaves as though it is still there, others find that it begins to take on a life of its own, and doesn't obey their commands.