60-80% of amputees experience phantom pain in the amputated limb

Phantom pain does lessen in time. (Dramatically so for me thankfully).

My belief is the phantom pains are related to the last nerve ‘memory’ experienced. It has been reported that motorbike accident victims like me (brachial plexus lesion is the medical term for the injury) often experience a crushing burning sensation in the hand of the affected arm. One can imagine gripping the handlebars rather intently in the moments before impact!

I was lucky enough to have a small amount of nerve regrowth some two years later, which resulted in the bicep muscle becoming the only working part of my leftarm. I did also have normal sensation of touch to the elbow.

When the regrowth happened the site of my phantom pain instantly moved from my hand to the elbow area, and remained there until the amputation 16 years later. At that stage it was much less a hassle, having instead been replaced by chronic shoulder pain that was equally bothersome and became much worse than the phantom pain was.

When you are the victim of a massive trauma, pain becomes almost part of you during the early periods of healing and it can be weeks or months before you begin to feel normal. You might suddenly realise that sensation still hasn’t disappeared yet.

Some describe phantom pain as tickles and aches, others much worse. The early reports of phantom pains were from soldiers who had a natural tendency to downplay things. I personally only really felt understood by the Doctor at my outpatient clinic. After my arm was amputated just below the shoulder in November 2008 I asked the resident doctor attending at the removal of my stitches (he didn’t know me from a bar of soap) about phantom pain. He looked up at me and said “some people get it, some don’t”. He must of been very busy with his clipboard as he turned and walked away after that. Nice one mate.

Phantom pain is very confronting. For most it’s occurring in a limb that isn’t even there. How do you tell someone that you’re in a bit of bother because it feels like someone has you left hand in a vise when you don’t even have one.

Phantom pain is a bloody stupid name as it already implies it’s not real pain.

A good read on phantom pain here


Phantom pain treatment