Can i keep my amputated leg

It is essential you are actively involved in your rehabilitation. Your rehabilitation team may also be able to direct you to others who have experienced an amputation so you can get a first-hand account from someone who has been where you are. Emotionally, it is very normal to be scared, shocked, angry, or overwhelmed. There is no wrong way to act in this scenario.

When amputating a limb, the surgeon will also remove any damaged tissue, leaving as much healthy tissue as possible. They may also remove any pieces of crushed bone and then smooth out any uneven areas of the remaining bone. Smoothing out the bone will allow tissue and muscles to adequately cover it, and the surgeon may even stitch the muscles to the bone to help strengthen the area.

The first day after the surgery is often the hardest as you process that what was previously just theoretical is now a reality. The wound will be dressed in bandages and compressions socks, and possibly also elevated or put in a stint, to help reduce swelling, which is very likely after surgery. Ensuring swelling stays down and the residual limb — the part of the limb still attached to the body — shrinks is a priority during this time.

Proper healing will make it easier to fit a prosthetic limb later on. The nurses and physiotherapists will be the professionals you see the most immediately after the surgery since you will likely be receiving oxygen from a machine and getting fluids from an IV drip.

You may also have a urinary catheter attached to avoid you needing to get up to use the bathroom since the wound will need to be kept stable.

Rehabilitation will begin within a few days, but it will mostly be very simple and gentle stretching exercises to help you maintain the range of motion in all your other limbs.

The physiotherapist will likely also guide you through some exercises to prevent blood clots from forming. As it was before surgery, it is still important that you communicate any discomfort or concerns to your rehabilitation team.

This includes any pressure points in the bandages or any pain in the residual limb. The wound itself will take anywhere from four to eight weeks to heal fully, but you will likely only remain in the hospital for up to 14 days. The lengthy stay in the hospital is to allow doctors to monitor your healing and keep an eye on any conditions that may interfere with proper healing, such as diabetes or hardening arteries. They will also prescribe painkillers and other medications to prevent infections.

What is the recovery after amputation like? Well, the short answer is that it's long and can last years. The long answer is that amputation is not just the physical loss of a limb — it is also the readjustment of a person's very way of living and requires relearning how to do many things that were once second nature. If you plan on getting a prosthesis, it may be months before you are fitted for your artificial limb, which makes physical therapy one of the most important parts of your recovery.

A part of rehabilitation is strengthening the muscles in your remaining limbs, and another part is helping you work towards independence. In the beginning, physical therapy will be difficult and frustrating, but just remember that it is the first step to getting back on your feet — figuratively and maybe even literally.

Your therapist will not expect you to strain yourself on the first day. Instead, you will start with gentle movements that will gradually become more active and strenuous. You will learn how to exercise the muscles in the other parts of your body, which will be used more than they were before the surgery. When you have been discharged from the hospital, an occupational therapist may visit your home to see if it needs any adjustments to accommodate your change in mobility.

For example, you may need to have a ramp installed. You will continue to see more of the hospital in the weeks after since you will need to return to change your bandages and let the doctor see how your wound is healing and how you are adjusting to your new life at home. You may end up returning to have sutures removed, after which you will start wearing a compression sock on your residual limb to help it shrink even more.

The shrinkage is necessary because it molds the stump, which helps it fit the prosthesis easily and more comfortably. The stump will be a healing wound and, like any other healing wound, it needs to have adequate care to speed up healing and prevent infections. It is best to avoid submerging the stump in water, such as if you take a bath. Like with any major surgery, there are risks of complications involved with amputations. These can include:.

The need for further surgery is also a potential, especially if there is pain, such as from nerves that have thickened, or if more tissue needs to be removed. Once you are discharged from the hospital, you will need to learn how to do everyday activities with your revised body. Your rehabilitation team will be able to provide you with the appropriate mobility devices as well as living aids to help you ease back into your everyday life.

These devices will be crucial as you get used to embarking on your usual household tasks and activities with your residual limb, and they are designed to help amputees become more independent. Both physical and emotional recovery is something you will be doing from the time of your surgery on, but while physical recovery likely has an end date, emotional recovery can be ongoing.

Physical recovery includes physiotherapy, which you will likely have to do three to five times a week. As we mentioned before, physical therapy may seem like a chore, but it is one of the most critical parts of recovery since it helps the body adapt to its new normal. Physiotherapy exercises are designed to help you learn how to redistribute your weight and balance with missing lower limbs or exercise your other limbs, which will be used more often, without injuring them.

These exercises are designed to help a person return to their regular routine by relearning how to do everyday activities. The exercises help you strengthen muscles to be able to better control limbs. Similarly, rehabilitation will also help you learn to live without the limb that has been amputated, which will decrease the chances of developing phantom limb syndrome.

Learning to care for the existing limbs — especially if the amputation was a result of a disease, like diabetes — and actively taking better care of the existing limbs to keep them from coming to harm are also necessary lessons during physical recovery. Once you are fit for a prosthetic limb, you will learn how to move with an artificial limb and get used to living life with it. You will also learn how to care for your prosthesis.

There are no wrong feelings when it comes to amputation, which is why emotional recovery is as important as physical recovery. The psychological impact of an amputation can run the gamut of emotions, with grief and bereavement being some of the most common emotions. The grief is sometimes strong enough to be likened to the death of a loved one. How other people view your body may also have changed, and coping with that is another significant factor.

Negative thoughts are extremely common and very much normal during this time, and they can be as mild as temporary frustration or sadness to suicidal ideation. Your rehabilitation team should be on top of these thoughts and, once you are discharged from the hospital, you may be directed to counseling or therapy to help you deal with these feelings constructively.

Feelings of negativity are more likely to be present if the amputation was done suddenly — such as after an accident or similar trauma. Without the opportunity to get used to the reality of what amputation means, it can be incredibly difficult to cope with it in the aftermath. Sometimes, there is an inability or unwillingness to accept the amputation as reality.

Some people may refuse to accept that they will need to alter their lifestyles because of the amputation and may refuse help. Other times, post-traumatic stress disorder is possible, especially when the amputation is the result of severe trauma. Possible the most common psychological side effect of amputation is phantom limb syndrome, which is when you believe you can feel the limb that has been amputated.

While most amputees feel like they can sense the amputated limb, not all of them feel pain in it. The phantom sensation comes from the spinal cord and the brain. Phantom pain, on the other hand, is still a bit of a mystery.

Theories about the cause of phantom limb pain suggest it has something to do with the brain's reorganization after amputation. When a limb is amputated, the communication between the neurons in certain nerves and the brain is broken. Eventually, those neurons are reactivated and begin communicating with the brain again by responding to input from the nerves that remain.

Sometimes, putting pressure on the residual limb is the trigger for this communication, causing the amputee to feel phantom pain.

Both phantom pain and phantom sensation are common occurrences and tend to affect older amputees. It can develop immediately after amputation or even weeks, months or years later.

Stress, anxiety and fear are all potential triggers for phantom pain, and the pain itself can range from sensations of aching and cramping to burning or shock. Many people find that they no longer experience phantom pain once they have a prosthesis, but some home remedies can help alleviate phantom pain, including:. Approximately two or three weeks after the surgery, you will be fit for a prosthetic limb.

The wound has to have healed well enough to begin the fitting — which involves making a cast of the residual limb. It can take upwards of six weeks if the wound is not healed properly or is taking longer to heal. A prosthesis generally has seven parts :. Once it is healed, the prosthetist will take a mold of your residual limb using plaster or 3D imaging, which be then be altered to better fit the residual limb. A socket will be created to fit the stump comfortably, and a temporary, diagnostic prosthesis will be attached to it.

The socket fit is crucial since that part will be right up against the stump and needs to be extremely comfortable for both comfort and safety. The temporary limb is used to make adjustments based on your individual needs. The temporary limb helps test various combinations of components to adjust comfort, stability, functions and efficiency.

Contact your care team for advice if you think you may be developing a skin infection. After having a leg or foot amputated, it's very important to avoid injuring your remaining "good" leg and foot, particularly if your amputation was needed because of diabetes. Your remaining leg and foot may also be at risk. Avoid wearing poorly fitting footwear and ensure that an appropriately trained healthcare professional, such as a podiatrist, is involved in the care of your remaining foot.

You should also be offered a regular review of your foot by a foot care team. Find out more about diabetes and foot care. Like any type of operation, an amputation carries a risk of complications. It also carries a risk of additional problems directly related to the loss of a limb. There are a number of factors that influence the risk of complications from amputation, such as your age, the type of amputation you've had, and your general health.

The risk of serious complications is lower in planned amputations than in emergency amputations. In some cases, further surgery may be needed to correct problems that develop or to help relieve pain.

For example, if neuromas thickened nerve tissue are thought to be causing pain, the affected cluster of nerves may need to be removed. Many people who have an amputation experience some degree of stump pain or "phantom limb" pain. Stump pain can have many different causes, including rubbing or sores where the stump touches a prosthetic limb, nerve damage during surgery and the development of neuromas. Phantom limb sensations are sensations that seem to be coming from the amputated limb.

Occasionally, these can be painful phantom limb pain. The term "phantom" does not mean the sensations are imaginary. Phantom limb pain is a real phenomenon, which has been confirmed using brain imaging scans to study how nerve signals are transmitted to the brain. The symptoms of phantom limb pain can range from mild to severe. Some people have described brief "flashes" of mild pain, similar to an electric shock, that last for a few seconds. Others have described constant severe pain.

Stump and phantom limb pain will usually improve over time, but treatments are available to help relieve the symptoms. There are several non-invasive techniques that may help relieve pain in some people.

They include:. Research has shown that people who spend 40 minutes a day imagining using the part of their limb that was amputated, such as stretching out their "fingers" or bunching up their "toes", experience a reduction in pain symptoms. This may be related to the central theory of phantom limb pain. Researchers think the brain looks to receive feedback from an amputated limb, and these mental exercises may provide an effective substitute for this missing feedback.

Another technique, known as mirror visual feedback, involves using a mirror to create a reflection of the other limb. Some people find that exercising and moving their other limb can help relieve phantom pain. The loss of a limb can have a considerable psychological impact. Many people who've had an amputation report emotions such as grief and bereavement, similar to experiencing the death of a loved one.

Coming to terms with the psychological impact of an amputation is therefore often as important as coping with the physical demands. Having an amputation can have a considerable psychological impact for three main reasons:. Negative thoughts and emotions are common after an amputation. This is particularly true in people who've had an emergency amputation because they don't have time to mentally prepare for the effects of surgery.

Common emotions and thoughts experienced by people after an amputation include:. People who've had an amputation as a result of trauma particularly members of the armed forces also have an increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD.

Talk to your care team about your thoughts and feelings, particularly if you're feeling depressed or suicidal. You may need additional treatment, such as antidepressants or counselling , to improve your ability to cope after having an amputation. Being told you need to have a limb amputated can be a devastating and frightening experience. Adjusting to life after an amputation can be challenging, but many people enjoy a good quality of life once they have managed to adapt.

There are a number of charities that can provide advice and support for people living with amputations, which include:. Page last reviewed: 12 August Next review due: 09 August Why amputation may be needed An amputation may be needed if: you have a severe infection in your limb your limb has been affected by gangrene often as a result of peripheral arterial disease there's serious trauma to your limb, such as a crush or blast wound your limb is deformed and has limited movement and function Assessment before surgery Unless you need to have an emergency amputation, you'll be fully assessed before surgery to identify the most suitable type of amputation and any factors that may affect your rehabilitation.

How amputations are done Amputations can be done under general anaesthetic where you're unconscious or using either an epidural anaesthetic or spinal anaesthetic both of which numb the lower half of the body. Recovering after an amputation After surgery, you'll usually be given oxygen through a mask and fluids through a drip for the first few days while you recover in a ward. Compression garments You'll notice swelling oedema of the stump after surgery.

Rehabilitation Physical rehabilitation is an important part of the recovery process. They refused. Even before that incident. Sure, you could be eccentric and have it pickled in formalin in a sealed container, but Just be normal and give it up, let them take care of it like they have done multiple thousands of time before.

Then get to physical rehab, You got things to do! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. January 23, Karl Smallwood 5 comments. Ron G. What do hospitals do with limbs of people they amputate?

Like, if I have a limb amputated, can I ask for it back? What can you do with an amputated limb? Answers Articles Featured Facts Misc. I believe the quoted item about the cremation in Britain is out of date. Sean Fodera January 24, pm. StBernardnot January 27, am. DocTom February 1, pm. Brian Henegar February 16, pm.