United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

I just wondered why after all these years it changed, why has my cortex remapped itself again'??
Anyway here's another piece on PLP, this one makes the association between PLP and total bpi avulsion injuries and there are some great links http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/n ... /Shaw.html You may get PLP if your bpi leaves you with no hand/lower arm sensation/movement at all-as though you had an amputation.
I must show this to my GP who persists in thinking that my pain is in the arm.....sigh....nope that's where my muddled brain says it is, in fact if someone moves my arm when I'm not looking, I still feel the pain in my hand in the place it originally was before it got moved. My brain actually has no perception of where my bpi arm is at all. If I get it amputated, which I hope to do, I wonder where my brain will assume my arm is?

hehe, it'll probably think it is where it always was, silly thing (the brain I mean!)
Marieke

JennyB

There's a great book about phantom pain and the bizarre mysteries that occur when the brain is injured or forced to deal with changing realities. It reads like a neurological who done it, and is really interesting. There's a great section about cortical remapping, like you mentioned you experience sensation in your hand when you touch parts of your face, the book gets into people that have had their feet amputated and the brain remaps the void that was created by the absence sensory input that would come from the missing foot, and... I'll let you read it if you want. Warning, it gets X rated. There are also party tricks you can learn, like making your nose feel like it's as long as your arm, and more. The book is called...

Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran, M.D. (top US neuroscientist at the Salk Institute in San Diego)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/068817 ... F8&s=books

Also, amputees can effect their phantom pain because they have existing nerves in the existing limb part (stump), unless of course they have a full BPI five nerve avulsions first. I've often wondered what kind of pain sensation changes would take place with an amputee that later had a BPI, basically just want to know the real difference between the two pains.

And JennyB, I think your GP needs his head examined, or his license revoked. I'd think he'd put 2 and 2 together, although the fact that you can sometimes feel pain when your arm when it is touched means some nerve made it through. Next time you feel it, have someone touch it when your eyes are closed. That book gets into how different visual input can stimulate sensory response. Good luck.

I saw the tv programme that Ramachandran did called Phantoms in the Brain a few years back, in fact that was what started me off looking into cortical remapping and bpi injuries. I'm just wondering why after 26 years of no skin sensation in my lower arm, touching it now sparks off pain in my hand. Still can't feel it in the arm where I'm touching, tho!

about the GP-it's not just her, I see people on this message board who have been prescribed things for the pain that just won't work with full avulsions, from pain specialists or sometimes from bpi doctors who don't see many cases of full avulsions. It's like nobody gets it about avulsions, even other people with bpi don't get it. Multiple preganglionic avulsions really only occur after high spped high impact injuries, only doctors who mainly treat those kinds of bpi are going to understand. My GP is currently ploughing through Prof Rolfe Birch's book Surgical Disorders of the Peripheral Nerves, she was really interested in borrowing it so at least she is trying!