I was just reading through the news on CNN and came across this article. It sounds extremely interesting, and I would've liked to have known about this for the first years after my amputation.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/03/19/mirror.therapy/index.html
I suffered with extremely severe (is there any other kind?) phantom pains for several years. I've passed out, thrown up, made up completely new cuss words, blamed Homer Simpson, and even claimed I was moving to Mexico once. Not that any of that stuff helped, it was mostly involuntary anyway. They were so bad that once, my judgement was clouded from the pain and I pulled out my IV and was hopping towards the 8th floor window in my hospital room, with the intent of jumping, just to make them stop. Lucky for me, a really bad one hit me before I made it to the window and I sorta lost control of my body and fell, giving a nurse time to come into the room and foil my plan. The past few years haven't been that bad, but I'll still get them a couple times a year.
Hopefully this article/therapy will help some folks that are in a similar situation as I was years ago when I was struggling with the pain.
What a great find! Thanks for listing the article.
GaryI've been lucky - only a few minor bouts of phantom pain in the year since the BKA left, which weren't too severe (about 6 on a 1 - 10 scale), but I do have phantom "itches", where the bottom of my left foot itches like crazy, and there is no way I can scratch there. I'll try the mirror therapy to see if that offers some relief.
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