Hi Helen,
I don't know if you or your father-in-law are open to energetic therapies, but thought I would share this thought provoking article. Apparently, energetic techniques can be effective for some people.
I hope your father-in-law can find something that will help.
Best,
Wayne
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Unbearable Phantom Pain
By Donna Eden
From her book Energy Medicine (pg. 38-9)
A good-looking man who had lost both of his legs in Vietnam was brought to me in a wheelchair. No one had been able to help with the pain at the end of where his right foot had been. He vividly recalled the scene of stepping on a land mine and watching the bones and flesh of his right foot explode into pieces. The pain he now had was massive. The sensations were so similar to the original shock that he *could never get relief from the traumatic memories. The relentless pain also led to terrible nightmares. His left foot *wasn’t as painful. It sometimes itched, but it was a mild discomfort compared with the area of his right foot.
As he sat there with his friend, he cried and said, “The pain is so excruciating, and the way it keeps me tied to my past is so bad, that I sometimes think of taking a gun to my head.” I *could see the energy still there in both of his absent legs, and I *could feel it with my hands. I followed the energy along his absent legs to the end of where his feet had been. It was palpable. My hand began to hurt terribly. I asked him if my hand was in the area of the worst pain, and it was. The most painful areas were at the sides of his feet, which happen to be at the end of bladder meridian. I said to him, “This may sound crazy to you, but I believe I can hold some points in midair where your feet were and help you.”
I moved my hands to the ends of his legs, where his feet had been, and held the points on bladder meridian. As the two men watched these strange conjurings, it must have seemed to them that I was just holding air. But I was not! I felt and saw the meridian lines as strongly as if his legs were still there. At first it was painful for him to have me touch the area of his absent right foot. After a couple of minutes, he reported that not only was the foot being relieved of the pain, but another chronic pain in his back, just above his waist, was also lifting. Interestingly, that area is also governed by the bladder meridian.
His kidney and liver meridians were also involved, and I held those points as well. Kidney meridian governs fear, and holding these points opened a powerful catharsis. Fear and terrors buried deep inside, which had kept him locked up emotionally, just plummeted out of him. He cried and cried. I held on to the points until the emotions had worked their way through him. As the fear subsided, he became euphoric. By the time I had finished holding his liver points, he was pain free. I showed the friend, who lived with him, how to hold points and which points to hold. The man and his friend never returned, but on my invitation they called me about once a month. The friend told me that after the session, the man began to lift out of his deep depression. While the phantom pain would return *every now and then, they knew how to deal with it.
