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This may reduce pain immediately following surgery and reduce the risk of lasting phantom limb pain. Residual limb pain can be caused by an abnormal growth on damaged nerve endings (neuroma) that often results in painful nerve activity.īecause the risk of developing phantom pain is higher for people who have experienced pain in the limb before amputation, some doctors recommend regional anesthesia (spinal or epidural) in the hours or days leading up to amputation. People who have persistent pain in the remaining part of the limb usually have phantom pain, too. This may be because the brain holds on to the memory of the pain and keeps sending pain signals, even after the limb is removed. Some researchers have found that people who had pain in a limb before amputation are likely to have it afterward. Some factors that may increase your risk of phantom pain include: Not everyone who has an amputation develops phantom pain. A poorly-fitting prosthesis may also cause pain, though this is typically considered a cause of residual limb pain. Because this is yet another version of tangled sensory wires, the result can be pain.Ī number of other factors are believed to contribute to phantom pain, including damaged nerve endings, scar tissue at the site of the amputation and the physical memory of pre-amputation pain in the affected area. So when the cheek is touched, it's as though the missing hand is also being touched. In other words, because the amputated area is no longer able to receive sensory information, the information is referred elsewhere - from a missing hand to a still-present cheek, for example.
Studies also show that after an amputation the brain may remap that part of the body's sensory circuitry to another part of the body. The result can trigger the body's most basic message that something is not right: pain. After an amputation, areas of the spinal cord and brain lose input from the missing limb and adjust to this detachment in unpredictable ways. Many experts believe phantom pain may be at least partially explained as a response to mixed signals from the brain. During imaging scans - such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) - portions of the brain that had been neurologically connected to the nerves of the amputated limb show activity when the person feels phantom pain.
The exact cause of phantom pain is unclear, but it appears to come from the spinal cord and brain. Request an Appointment at Mayo Clinic Causes