Phantom Pain

I had a particularly bad bout of phantom pain last night. It’s a very interesting phenomenon, and you would think that being an amputee for ten years would make it stop, but it doesn’t. I think I’m destined to have phantom pain for the rest of my life.

Phantom pain is basically nerve memory and it results in pain or tingling. The weird thing is that I feel it in a foot I no longer have. It’s a little different for everyone, but for me I can really feel my knee and foot. I can also tell that my knee is bent at a ninety degree angle. That really bothered me at first because I felt like my leg was going through the hospital mattress when I was laying on my back. It doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as when I first had my surgery, but it shows up every once and awhile to surprise me. It’s never a dull or aching pain, but is rather sharp and sudden.

I can’t really tell why it happens and I can’t predict a bad day. I do know it happens when I have a fever because all of my nerves are super sensitive, not just the missing ones. Sometimes rubbing or tapping the end of my leg (sort of like reminding it that nothing is there) helps, but nothing was working last night. I ended up taking some Tylenol and went to sleep. I’m really lucky because this is rarely a problem and I hardly ever think about it. Just an interesting fact from the world of amputees.