system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If a limb gets medically amputated, do you feel soreness around the area of the limb, or do you feel nothing at all?
gpt
You obviously feel soreness in the days following the operation at the site of the amputation, but many patients also experience "phantom limb." Sometimes this is simply the sensation that the limb is still there, but often times it is an extremely painful sensation. It may be sharp pangs of pain or the sensation that the limb is contorted in an odd position and you're unable to get it out of that position. It is usually at its worst soon after the operation and may improve with time.

Medications have not been particularly successful in treating the pain. One method of treatment that is sometimes effective is called the Mirror Box. Patients place their normal limb into one side of the box and then what's left of the amputated limb in the other side of the box. When looking into the box, you see your intact limb and then a mirror reflection of that same limb in the area where you expect the amputated limb to be. It's thought that this experience may help rewire patient's somatosensory cortex (part of the brain that is important in movement and sensation) and therefore relieve pain.