the.com/phantom pain
The brain still senses a missing limb, sometimes as real and persistent pain.
means The sensation that a lost or amputated body part still hurts, still itches, or is still there — a pain the body swears is real even though the limb is gone.
from From Greek 'phantasma' (an appearance, a ghostly image) plus 'pain,' which traces back through Old French to Latin 'poena,' meaning punishment. The medical term dates to 19th-century writing on amputees, including Silas Weir Mitchell's Civil War-era studies of soldiers who kept feeling limbs that were no longer there — so the phrase literally means a punishment delivered by a ghost.
- affects
- up to 80 percent of amputees
- brain cause
- cortex remaps, missing limb still wired in
- treatment
- mirror box tricks eyes into relief
- timing
- can start days or decades later