United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

hey, cbr9 here, just wondering if anyone else can tap on their chin and feel it in the effected tbpi hand. cause i can, just sumpin else which is kinda funky about my ltbpi.
L8r.
Denny, Vancouver.

it's cortical remapping denny, i'm still getting it now after 23 yrs. Some of us longtermers once compared notes, there are several places on our face and body where we can get the sensation in the bpi hand when we touch it.
Cortical remapping is where a part of the brain no longer used for some reason such as nerve injury, amputation, (in our case the part of the brain dealing with the sensory input of the hand) gets 'taken over' by an adjacent part of the brain. The part next to the hand sensory input area covrs the face...so after the 'face' bit takes over the 'hand' bit, you get sensation in your hand when you touch your face. A Dr Ramachandran ?(I think) noticed this after a bpi patient reported pain in the (in his case amputated)bpi hand while he was shaving. He hooked the guy up to a brain activity scan and saw that the remapping had taken place, the scan showed activity in the part of the brain known to correspond to hand sensation when the face was touched.
I find that if I touch my chin (you have to search around a bit to find the right place) I feel touch in the bpi hand, but if I pinch my chin it actually hurts in the bpi hand more than it hurts the chin.....and it carries on hurting too, you get all the electric shock type pains firing up......wish I hadn't done it now! :0)

Hahaha cool i tap my chin and get the feeling in my forearm just beside my elbo. WOW this BPI's are pritty cool well not like its good to have one but when we get one we have no choice but to live with it and i think you learn to see the funny part in them sometimes but then other times am sure am not the only one that sits and says why me.

Kevin