Phantom Limbs: Sensations When There Should be None Essay

Over the years scientists have noted many complaints of a strange form of pain called phantom limb pain. This pain is strange because it is located in an appendage that no longer exists. By many of the amputees the pain is described as totally unbearable. Phantom limb pain has even driven some victims crazy. For the amputee population this is a very real problem that definitely needs to be solved.

Kathy, a 20-year-old woman, awakens one morning to a tingling, numb sensation covering both of her feet. This has happened to her a number of times throughout the year. In the past, when experiencing this sensation, within a couple of days to a week the numbness would subside, and so she is not too concerned. About a week later, she

Numbness and tingling of the limbs are also common symptoms. Since Multiple Sclerosis targets the central nervous system, no signals are dispatched down the spine creating numbness is multiple parts of the body. Healthline Editorial Team, George Krucik, MD, MBA Early Signs of Multiple Sclerosis, January 25, 2013, states that “the spinal column (the body’s message center), it can send conflicting signals around the body. Sometimes, no signals are sent, which results in the most common symptom, numbness.”

With these sensations the person feels the urge to move their legs, at rest it is

The phantom limb pain the woman is experiencing is described as a painful condition of the amputated limb after the stump has completely healed. It is a chronic pain that occurs in more than 80% of amputees especially those who suffered pain in the limb before the amputation. Theories suggest that phantom limb pain results from redevelopment or hyperactivity of cut peripheral nerves, scar tissue or neuroma formation in the cut peripheral nerves, spinal cord deafferentation, and alterations in the thalamus and cortex. More so, the CNS integration, which involves reorganization and plastic modifications of the somatosensory cortex, effects the receptors in perceiving the pain of the amputated limb despite of the limb itself being absent. In addition,

Phantom Limb Pain (PLP) is a serious condition that occurs when a person who has lost a part of their body though amputation, trauma (brachial plexus), or loss of nervous connections in an appendage, perceives that the limb is still there and experiences sensations coming from this area. It was first described in 1866 by S. Weir Mitchell, an American neurologist, through a short story published in Atlantic Monthly. While Mitchell may then have wondered if this was specific to wounded Civil War soldiers, it has since been established as quite common (1). Over 70% of amputees report phantom limb pain for years after amputation (2). Several theories have been proposed regarding PLP, although there is still much to be

The earliest hypothesis regarding the cause of phantom limbs and pain was that of neuromas. These were thought to be nodules comprised of remaining nerves located at the end of the stump. These neuromas presumably continued to generate impulses that traveled up the spinal cord to portions of the thalamus and somatosensory domains of the cortex. As a result, treatment involved cutting the nerves just above the neuroma in an attempt to interrupt signaling at each somatosensory level (5). This and other related theories were deemed unsatisfactory because of the fact the phantom pain always returned, indicating that there was a more complex reason.

Unfortunately, she would never feel the same. Madeleine J was blind and had cerebral palsy, so it was basically a disease that prevented her from using her hands for most of her life. With a little help though, she was able to fully gain full sensation to her hands again. Mrs. S, revealing a large change to the right hemisphere of her brain caused by a stroke, would no longer realize the existence of her left side of her body.

I felt as if I was paralyzed, I felt that if I moved it would be real. I just had this blank look on my face. I had no reaction at first and I wanted to deny it, all of it. I kept saying to myself, no it is a lie, they made a mistake. To my complete horror I was wrong.

Chapter three, The Disembodied Lady, tells the story of a women named Christina who loses her entire sense of proprioception, otherwise known as “sixth sense”. At the age of twenty-seven, she was hospitalized to have her gallbladder removed. The day before her surgery, Christina had a nightmare that she could not stop her body from flailing about and hardly felt anything. Later the next day, all the symptoms came true from her dream. She said that she couldn’t feel her body and even feeling disembodied from it. Oliver Sacks examined Christina and found that she lost all proprioception and was diagnosed with polyneuritis. She had no sense of familiarity with her body, though could feel superficial sensations like wind on her body. To compensate, she’d used her senses to regain a sense of her body like using her vision to control how she moves and hearing to vocalize her tone and volume. She had to relearn basic behaviors, making her question her question her sense of connection to her own body. Even after years of working around proprioception, she still felt disembodied from her own body. In the Postscript, Sacks mentions other patient who lost their proprioception due to taking large amounts of vitamin B6.

Modern prosthetic limbs have become very advanced in the last decade. They now have the ability to grip objects, have running limbs, and many more wonderful things. Although these prosthetics are great, they are lacking some key extras that amputees would relish. What amputees really want is their sense of feeling back. They want to reach out with their prosthetic limb and be able to tell if the stove is on or off. They want to be able to press the gas of an automobile. This sense, that all non-amputees take for granted, would be a great place to start the improvement of the perfect prosthetic limb. To accomplish such a daunting task, engineers must figure out an alternative source that could interact with the amputees still intact nerve endings. This way they can use their still functioning nerves to communicate with their pseudo-nerve and have the ability to move their prosthesis around with complete control of it and its sense of touch. I believe this has not

Sacks discussed the ideas behind the phantom limb and how they affected many peoples live. The most interesting story was about a sailor that accidentally cut off his index finger. For forty years he thought he would poke himself in the eye whenever he moved his hand to his face. One day he lost the feeling in his entire hand including his phantom finger and his problem was cured (Sacks 66-67). Up to 70 percent of amputees confirmed that they still feel or still thought a missing limb was there. They often feel that they can reach out and grab something. Some won't sleep in a certain way because they feel the missing limb between them and the mattress. The sensations felt stem from the activity of the sensory axons

An extensive matrix of neurons in the brain gives us the sense of our own bodies and body parts. Pain results when this matrix produces an abnormal pattern of activity, as a result of memories, emotions, expectations or signals from various brain centres and not just from signals from peripheral nerves. Because of the lack of sensory stimulation or a person’s efforts to move a nonexistent limb, abnormal patterns may arise, resulting in phantom pain.

Phantom limb pain is a painful sensation experienced in a body part which is no longer part of the body, often due to amputation.(3) Individuals also reported that tingling as well as various types of pain have occurred, and these sensations may eventually disappear or may persist as cramping, shooting, burning or crushing

been by a paralyzed inability to except the painful sense of loss (Jamil, 2009). The pretense of