Brachial Plexus Block in Phantom Limb Pain: Not Only Interesting, But (Sometimes) with Clinical Benefit

Abstract

Dear Editor, We thank Dr. Neil for his remarks to our case report [1]. We feel that he is right in several points. It is true that we did not provide data of the patients' perioperative management. The patient lost his arm due to an accident on the job. As the following surgery was not done in our hospital, we are not able to give detailed information about the perioperative management. Dr. Neil also criticized that we did not provide information about the current pharmacological therapy of phantom limb pain (PLP), which we will catch up here. The patient reported using the following medication constantly since 2005: pregabalin (150 mg, 1-0-1), amitriptyline 25 (100 mg, 1-0-1), and transdermal fentanyl (25 µg/h, every third day). Concerning PLP, the reported PLP intensity of 7.6 (SD = 0.75) on a visual analog scale (VAS [2]) represented the mean value on a normal day before the axillary …