Average-Joe

Ghost pain? anyone hear of this? people with amputated limbs, feeling a pain when there is actually nothing there. well in my case I had three bottom back teeth extracted a few months ago, and I was excited to finally be able to drink something cold during a meal. Now this is weird, recently, I'm getting the same pain with no teeth.. it's gotta be mental, cuz I can't explain it.

my wife thinks i'm smokin too much..

Rodney

Never heard of it with teeth, but the whole phantom limb phenomena is very well documented. Some guy with a missing leg that feels his toes itching constantly, things like that.

omega2K4

It is all in your head.

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Nisses

erm, could just be that the dentist left some nerve endings exposed, causing the same problem as before...

And ghost pain is very real, even though it's in a person's head, it can still be remedied and people can get help for it just the same.

1 thing I heard is that a person with ghost pain can actually help reduce the pain by "massaging" with his hands where the missing part should be, under cover of blankets or whatever. Supposedly, it works wonders.

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feelgood

I don't think human body are fully "reprogrammed" when it loses a limb. The nerve system may still send signals to your amputated arm as well your muscle pulling some strings with it. My biology is rough but if I recall, if failure to send a nerve through, pain is a common response to inform the brain that something's wrong.

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MSD

I tcan happen when anything connected to a nerve is removed. A signal somehow gets sent along the nerve pathway that used to be attached to the finger, tooth, leg, whatever, and it feels like it hurts. The signals are sent because the system is "shorted out" like what would happen if you hacked off a chunk of a computer's board and put tinfoil along the edge.

Litespeed

You should check with your dentist to make sure s/he didn't leave any nerve endings exposed. Other than that, don't know what to say... a shrink? Sounds painful.

NeverBorn

Phantom Limb Syndrome, the actuall appendage may be there, but the nerve signals could be blocked/late..

CSflim

When you think about it, ALL pain is actually ghost pain.
The claim that ghost pain is "all in your head" is a trusim.

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Seaver

Phantom limb is real. There was a case where a man was injured in a motorbike accident, in which his fist was cleanched so tight his nails dug into his palm. His arm had to be amputated, and even after amputation his mind kept sending the pain signals because no other signal was being send from it.

After a month he stopped feeling it in his phantom hand but felt like nails digging into his forehead. The unused section of the brain that controled his right hand was starting to be used by the forehead which started extending up, in the place of the hand pain the forehead overtook it.

Doctors used a box of mirrors in which he looked into, put his "phantom" hand into the other side. The mind saw both of his hands, and he "opened" both hands from the clenched position and suddenly his pain that was there for 1.5 years was gone, and never came back.

Yes, the human mind is strange indeed. His mind had to be shown that his hand that wasnt there could be opened and alleve the pain.

cj2112

I lost a finger a few years ago in a table saw accident at work. Every once in a while the tip of that finger will begin to itch. Try having an itch you can't scratch sometime, it's about the most annoying thing in the world. I have found that by scratching the tip of the finger next to it, that i can alleviate some of the problem. Weird huh?