By How do people who had their limb amputated suffer from phantom limb pain? Find out how it affects people by reading this now post!
According to the Amputee Coalition, there are around 2 million people in the country who are living with limb loss. They also report that there are 185,000 amputations that take place in the country each year.
For the majority of people who have a limb amputated they will go on to experience what is referred to as phantom limb pain. Being that phantom limb pain is not completely understood yet, it makes treating it difficult.
The good news is that there is hope, with neural base treatments providing pain relief in research studies.
The National Institutes of Health reports that phantom limb is the sensation that one feels after losing a limb.
The person may feel as if the limb is still there, feeling such sensations as pain, tingling, numbness, like the missing limb is still there, or hot or coldness in the missing limb.
Many people who experience phantom limb pain get pains that are sharp, shooting, aching, burning, or cramping. It’s a situation that can be frustrating, leaving many people scrambling for help to address chronic pain.
There have been two research studies this year that have found that non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques can successfully help those who suffer from phantom limb pain.
In the November 2018 issue of the journal Annals of Neurology, researchers put NIBS to the test to see if it helped patients with their phantom limb pain.
In their double-blind study, they influenced the missing hand signal processing, having amputees perform hand movements during transcranial direct current stimulation. They monitored brain activity during and after the NIBS.
They reported that a single session of NIBS significantly relieved phantom limb pain, with those effects lasting for a week.
In a study that was published in the journal Clinical Neurophysiology in May 2018, researchers looked at NIBS, using cerebellar direct current stimulation (tDCS) for treating phantom limb pain.
The study had eight patients undergo tDCS who were all at least 18 and had a lower limb amputation. The results they reported were that the tDCS significantly reduced both painful and non-painful phantom limb sensations.
Those who suffer from phantom limb pain may want to discuss NIBS with their doctor to see if they could benefit from the treatment.
Sources:
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Amputee Coalition. Limb Loss Statistics. https://www.amputee-coalition.org/resources/limb-loss-statistics/
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National Institutes of Health. Phantom Limb Pain. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000050.htm
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Annals of Neurology. The neural basis of induced phantom limb pain relief. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30383312
Clinical Neurophysiology. NIBS: Cerebellar direct current stimulation (tDCS) for the treatment of phantom limb pain. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388245718308836
