Mirror Relief

Posted on April 22, 2008

This one is pretty strange until you think about it awhile.

My maternal Grandfather was an amputee from gangrene and my Dad’s sister was one due to cancer, both losing an entire leg due to their illness. I was too young to remember my Grandfather’s experience but am told it was similar to my aunt’s. I can vividly remember her wincing in great pain when she came to visit as from time to time the pain would hit her.

It’s a process of pain that is hard for most people to accept as real except for those who have it and to them it is very real indeed — and very intense. ‘Phantom pain’ as it is often called, is pain where the limb used to be. Seems impossible to most that there could be pain where there is no limb but that’s exactly what it is for sufferers of this debilitating condition.

One of the problems with this kind of pain is that since there is no physical site or location of the pain, pain medication (even strong narcotics) do little to provide relief.

Doctors aren’t completely sure what goes on in this condition except that there is evidently some sort of mismatched signal from the nerves. There seem to be a couple of sets of neurons involved, one set thinking (perception) that the leg is still there and the other set (motion) realizing they have no work to do and firing randomly thus the two sets confusing the brain with conflicting signals.

Enough of the problem - what about the relief? Well, help is here in the most unlikely and inexpensive of forms, the simple mirror. Using a group of veterans from the Middle East who had lost legs in bombings, doctors set up three groups. One group was to sit and imagine their two legs, one group was to sit with a mirror in front that allowed them to see their leg reflected back and try to move both legs, and the third group sat in front of a covered mirror and tried to move both legs.

The results were amazing. In the mirror group, all had significant improvement in pain levels. In the covered mirror group, only one had a decrease in pain and in the group that just thought about their legs, pain level actually increased for most of them. When they were all moved to the visible mirror approach, 90% had a substantial decrease in pain.

It seems that the mirror reflection confuses the brain into thinking there are still two limbs there and settles the neurons down, reducing their confusion.

You never know where help will come from. Don’t hesitate to try seemingly unconventional ways of dealing with problems — as long as you know there are no risks or potential health repercussions from doing so.