“Doctor, my leg hurts terribly. Can acupuncture help?”
A woman in her 60’s sat in a wheelchair, her left leg gone from the knee down.
“Every night in bed the space where my leg used to be feels like someone has it in a burning vice grip and is squeezing on it. This has been going on for years. The pain is excruciating.”
“Uh, I’ve never worked with someone with an amputated limb, so I’m not sure,” I replied. “I suppose I could put a few acupuncture needles into your stump, you know, where the pain is? I would be worth trying, I think.”
The woman returned later that afternoon to try acupuncture on her amputated leg. I had not learned about this is medical school and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I simply put about six needles into her knee-stump. She didn’t feel any pain from the needles during her session.
The next day she returned to my clinic. She had tears in her eyes.
“Dr. Falk, guess what? Last night the pain did return, but it was much less intense, maybe a 3 out of 10, rather than a 10 out of 10. And the pain only lasted about 10 minutes, rather than all night. I can’t believe it.”
“Really? Wow, I’m so happy to hear that. Let’s keep working on it,” I said.
I repeated the same treatment as before. Three days later she called me to say the second treatment was also very helpful. Her pain had decreased and the duration of the pain much shorter.
For various reasons I was not able to see her for more than two sessions, so I don’t know how long the benefits lasted. But I learned something:
First, phantom limb pain is real; the pain is subjectively real to the person experiencing it. Second, it was clear to me that acupuncture is a modality that could be very helpful in healing such pain. I don’t really understand how it worked, but it did. That is all that matters.