BRUCE’S MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT AND GUNSHOT WOUNDS
Bruce was riding his motor bike along the heavily treed banks of a river and failed to see a large tree branch which caught his shoulder. The immediate result was of a tearing pain at the base of his neck followed almost instantaneously by total paralysis of the affected arm. A moment later the motorcycle hit another tree, head-on, causing an immediate loss of consciousness. His paralysed arm was removed and he had been given a number of neurosurgical procedures aimed at controlling his constant almost unbearable pain. Ten years after when he came to the pain clinic he was still suffering constant pain. Fortunately he had an almost miraculous response to TENS therapy and a small dose of Rivotril.
Gunshot wounds, too, fall into the violent trauma category. Damage to peripheral nerves in the arms or legs by such wounds is accompanied by excruciating pain, persisting long after the tissues have healed. These pains may also occur spontaneously for no apparent reason, as in the neuralgia following shingles. The pain has been described by victims as ‘burning’, ‘cramping’ or ‘shooting’. Sometimes the pain is triggered by such an unlikely event as a gentle touch or even a puff of wind! Spontaneous attacks of pain may take minutes or hours to subside. Many occur daily for years after the injury.
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