Mirror therapy, an inexpensive treatment for
phantom limb pain may help the many amputees who suffer from PLP.
While
phantom limb pain is a well-recognized phenomenon [5], clinical experience has suggested that the augmentation of
phantom limb pain with visceral stimulation is an issue for many military personnel with amputation (visceral stimulation being the sensation of the bowel or bladder either filling or evacuating).
Psychiatrist-turned-computer-modeler Manfred Spitzer of Heidelberg University in Germany used neural modeling to tackle the enigma of
phantom limb pain.
Phantom limb pain is any sensation in the amputated part of the arm that is perceived as painful [36,54].
A randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover trial demonstrated that salmon calcitonin, administered in the immediate postoperative period, was highly effective in the treatment of
phantom limb pain (18).
Specifically the researchers included claims coded as diabetic neuropathy; postherpetic neuralgia; back and neck pain with neuropathic involvement; cancer with neuropathic involvement; causalgia, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, and related disorders; HIV/AIDS with neuropathic involvement;
phantom limb pain; trigeminal neuralgia; atypical face pain; or other disorders of the peripheral nervous system associated with neuropathic pain.
A similar distortion occurs in the brains of patients who suffer
phantom limb pain following amputation.
The presence or absence of 15 comorbid conditions, including arthritis, migraine, chronic back pain,
phantom limb pain, residual limb pain, traumatic brain injury (TBI), depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), was assessed by self-report.
Persistent dose escalations, seen in 36 patients, were explained by these same conditions plus respiratory failure, malignancy, postoperative back pain, and
phantom limb pain.
None of the four soldiers had major problems with phantom pain after amputation, and any episodes of
phantom limb pain were brief and mild.
Phantom limb pain in amputees during the first 12 months following limb amputation, after preoperative lumbar epidural blockade.
They also found that the result was the same whether the subjects were looking at their actual hand or a mirror image-the latter using a technique previously used to reduce
phantom limb pain in amputees.