I’m sorry to hear about your amputation and the pain surrounding it. For many people who have lost a limb, the pain comes from sensitivity of nerve endings around the amputation site. There may also not be enough padding over the bone. Some patients may not be able to wear a prosthetic limb.
In some cases, the amputee is able to undergo another surgery to help repair the amputation site. Bone may be removed, or tissue added to the area. Although this may help, there are always risks with every surgery, and patients may have scarring, infection, and pain from the surgery.
A new therapy to help patients with issues about their amputation site is being studied. It uses a person’s fat tissue to build up new fat tissue around an amputation site. The fat is typically taken from the thighs or belly using small tubes, and it is then administered to the amputation site. Stem cells may be concentrated in the area, so that the stem cells can promote healing of the tissue. The benefits of this treatment are that it is minimally invasive, can be repeated, and allows the patient to have other surgical procedures at the amputation site, if necessary.
Thus far, results from the therapy are promising. However, this is still in the research phase, and is not a treatment offered by doctors at this time. If it does become an approved treatment, your insurance company should cover it, but may refuse, claiming it is an experimental treatment and therefore not covered under the terms of your policy.
If you are an amputee and you believe your insurance company is acting in bad faith, call me, Amputation Attorney Conal Doyle at 310-385-0567. I am also an amputee as well as an attorney, and I enjoy helping clients fight their insurance companies for benefits to which they are entitled. Call today to learn more.