Today, I came across a news article about a man in the UK who had amputated his hand with a home made guillotine. Why you ask? Well, the man had apparently been in a motorcycle accident about16 years ago. Yes, the man comes from the UK where health care should be (I assume) reasonably good. Doctors reportedly were not willing to cut off the limb because it was supposedly functioning.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/2014/03/29/13/48/man-cuts-off-hand-with-backyard-guillotine
In the above link, you would read about "the Phantom Limb". So, what is the Phantom Limb? Basically, in Wikipedia's definition, the Phantom Limb is defined as "the sensation that an amputated or missing limb (even an organ, like the appendix) is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts".
Please also read the following if you are interested:
Basically, the phantom limb can experience pain and non-pain sensations. I assume that the man in the news would have experienced significant pain which he was struggling to soothe. Having a limb that is not really there but is experiencing pain can make it difficult to soothe the pain. Let's just say that your hand (that is indeed there) is hurting. What do you do to manage that pain? You can rub it, soothe it, massage it etc. However, what do you do if the hand is not there? Okay, the model answer is not always to amputate it.
The question is why do people who had lost a part of their body actually still experience things as if it is there? Well, you probably have heard of "your mind if playing tricks on you". In this case, your mind is helping you to make sense of the world by, yes, playing tricks on you.
Pain is a funny thing because the origin of pain is really in your mind. Maybe when I next have time, I can explain more about the origin of pain being in the mind.
Thank you for reading.
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