Phantom back pain

[weerabt]

Anyone out there dealt with phantom back pain. I have a new client who broke his back (spin severed) a few years ago and is completely paralyzed from t11 down.

He has explained to me that he gets a burning sensation and pain, akin to driving for a long period of time, yet he has absolutely no feeling in this area what so ever.

Your thought’s

Rab

[Merlin]

2 ideas=>
Treat it like any other pain
honour the pain with a message

[Terry]

Anyone out there dealt with phantom back pain. I have a new client who broke his back (spin severed) a few years ago and is completely paralyzed from t11 down.

He has explained to me that he gets a burning sensation and pain, akin to driving for a long period of time, yet he has absolutely no feeling in this area what so ever.

Your thought’s

Rab Rab, help my out here.... You have a client with a problem you have no idea how to treat and you come here to complete strangers who don;t know you or your client for advise?
First question, what does your trainer say you should do, and is he or she willing to oversee your activities. I always offered such assistance to my pupils. Secondly, why do you suppose that we know the cause of your clients problem just because some of us may have had a similar situation before? You see, your post causes me to question your training and knowledge since you seem to think that all clients are a carbon copy of the others, and the same treatment will work for all. That is a sure indication of lack of proper training... Now I don't know anything about you, and have no intention of offering advice which might be abused, sorry you are S.O.L.
What I do know, is that anyone who doesn't know what they are doing in such a case, should not be doing it period....

By the way, there is no such thing as phantom pain, there is always a cause which is not phantom at all. My first job would be to find the cause, and no I have never had such a client....

[Simple Guy]

Rab,

I've not dealt with phantom back pain but have dealt with pain of
paraplegics with massive neurological damage no less than
those with true phantom pain. I handled it as I would any other
pain and would proceed the same way with phantom pain. Btw, I
do wonder how hypnotherapists, if transported back
to the time of Silas Weir Mitchell (a "Dr. Sawbones") in 1871, who
may have coined the "phantom pain" descriptive phrase, would adjust to
the mindset he expressed with, "Thousands of spirit limbs were
haunting as many good soldiers, every now and then tormenting
them." Those were grisly times. Unfortunately, humanity hasn't
progressed much, but hypnotherapy continues to improve.

[Poodle]

is a REAL pain. The brain has not figured out that what was hurting so badly is GONE. It's happens a lot with amputee's who still complain about a missing limb hurting as badly as when it was attached. The mind has not received the message yet.

Install a switch, lever, or whatever you want to sever the connection to the brain. Probably should be done two separate times and with time limits instructing the client how to reestablish the discomfort free state.

I did this a couple of weeks ago in the ER as a man had a trailer house fall over and crush his arm. Even though the Docs had fixed up what was left, it still felt like the house was on the non-existant arm and the pain medication was not working. I guess just lucky I was hanging around the ER that Saturday for 7 hours!

I also met another that had been in an automobile accident and was a parapalegic (sp?). He was numb from waist down in a wheelchair but the pain would not stop in his back where it was numb. This had been after months of PT, OT, etc. I suggested that they contact a hypnotherapist in Colorado as soon as they got home. I know they did. We have very special gifts to use appropriately.

Pood

[skip]

The first thing to realize is that pain is a cultural experience.

There are people who can 'endure' all sorts of trauma to themselves and experience no pain, but who will feel excruciating pain if their hair or fingernails are cut.

You can do this sort of thing with hypnosis too.

Pain isnt the trauma, nor is it the neurons impulse firing, it is the brains interpretation of those 'events', that is pain.

And you can always change your mind.

skip

[Poodle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0QiGj9eOOw&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0QiGj9eOOw&feature=related)
Video 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK2M5GOvpOY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK2M5GOvpOY)

although it doesn't relate to backs.

Pood :)

[Jack]

A neurologist's take: 'The brain is still attempting to contact the area of the body where the injury occurred but does not have the hard wiring to do so. So, it invents a route and send out signals along the route which are returned as an absence of pre-existing nerve endings. Absence is not tolerated by the brain and is interpreted as injury and a closed loop is set up with pain as the driver to persuade the owner to investigate the absence'. Thanks, James.

If this is the case then dismantling the loop would seem to be a possible solution, but it is obvious that the greatest care must be taken and this is not a job for the novice. I have purposefully not included any details of methodology for that precise reason.

Jack

[Poodle]

since you can feel phantom pain you can also feel phantom pleasure. What's nice about this approach is it uses the client's resources to solve, not ours. :cool:

Pood