It is a pain in my "ass"

So regular readers of this blog know I am a BKA, below knee amputee of my left leg. It occurred 5 ½ years ago. I make due the best I can mostly but every once in a while something happens and it leaves me muttering under my breath. Yesterday was one of those days.

After the amputation, my surgeon talked about the issue of phantom pain occurring in the majority of amputees. Its range is from very mild discomfort to intense, debilitating pain. I have met people all along that gamut. However, a minority of people do not experience any phantom pain at all. While recovering in a rehab facility, I met several BKA’s who shared their experiences. This included some discussion about phantom pain. When I met my prosthetist for the first time while he was fitting me for my new leg, he talked about phantom pain occurrence. Finally I follow a blog by a woman who lost a leg and Peggy talks about phantom pain. She discussed it in her blog here, here, and here. This was something that did not concern me. Until yesterday.

I had experienced itching on my missing foot, on a number of occasions. I even successfully stopped it once by scratching the titanium portion of the artificial limb about where it felt the itch was. However these were mild, painless exercises. About two years ago I began to experience what I can only describe as a twitch or spasm in my missing leg. I happened maybe 3-4 times across about a year, lasting anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour or so. Last summer, twice within the period of a month and three times across the summer, I experienced this twitching for 4-8 hours. Twice it kept me from being able to sleep and once, when I was experiencing some unrelated back pain, it exacerbated the back pain to the point that I went to the doctor to get some muscle relaxers. Since the end of the summer, I had experienced it one more time, several hours worth. These spasms are short, not painful, repetitive and generally a nuisance. That is until yesterday.

Over night I had experienced one or two spasms that woke me but were not too painful. By the time I had arrived in work, they were occurring about every 5 minutes or so and were increasingly uncomfortable. By noon, they were becoming downright painful, the first time I would say that it had shifted to this point. This continued until I got home without diminishing. This was pain, real pain and I did not like it. I took a long hot shower and mrsfabp massaged my stump for a while. Eventually, after about 9-10 hours, the spasms subsided.
You know, generally I do not complain about my lot in life. I just try to deal with each day as it comes along. But this really sucked. A lot. I am hoping against hope it was a one time deal. We shall see.

One of the established uses of medical marijuana is for nerve pain. Maybe there is a silver lining to this cloud…