Yesterday morning at the office I am having a little chat with one of my favorite people on this planet. As we chatted, the question around how my leg was feeling came up. In response to the question I suggested that today I woke-up pain free. This was actually the first day that things actually felt like there might be a chance to get over the nagging injury. As we discussed the injury...I felt the pain in my leg again....at this time during the chat I looked at my favorite person and said "this conversation is making my leg hurt" the reply was "isn't that funny?"...not funny ha!ha!...but funny weird...at least I am hoping that was the case.Was this coincidence and the pain was actually in my leg? or was there some kind of neurological phenomenon at play and my brain was being tricked? I have heard people and I myself say to others after they describe their injury "all this talk about your back is making my back hurt"...how can that be? So you can see where this post is going....
After some digging, here is a phenomenon that kept coming back and may support the claim that there is a neurological phenomenon at play....."The Phantom Limb"....this relates to an amputee. Those that have lost a limb (leg, arm) claim that in some instances they can feel pain in the limb that is missing. Crazy, I know....how can that be?
The theory:
The perception of our limbs are hard-wired (networked) into our brain. The sensations from our limbs become mapped into these brain networks as they develop (memories).
Taking this theory regarding the "Phantom Limb" and applying it to my above experience could explain the pain I felt during my conversation...the question becomes....at that time was it really in my leg or was it in my head based on the premise of what I will call the Phantom Limb theory.
Things that make you go hmmmm.
Based on this theory...the treatment really boils down to re-mapping the brain networks, how the hell would you do that....topic for another day....perhaps not.
True story....during the preparation of the post I found a crazy thing....a band called the Shins that have a song called "The Phantom Limb" here is a link to the youtube video....how weird is that.....my head hurts now.
Dazed and confused. My leg feels fine, I think?
Mikey
