Ukrainian soldiers using Botox injections to recover from fighting against Russia

Botox-like injections can help amputees in Ukraine overcome phantom limb pain, a study found. The sensation of pain in a limb that is no longer there is caused by miscommunication with the nervous system. Symptoms include aching, burning or sharp pain.

Injections of botulinum toxin - the active neurotoxin also sold under the brand name Botox - were found to be more effective than standard treatments at relieving short-term phantom pain. Some 160 amputees in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk participated in the research.

After one month, 69% of patients given the injections had achieved a meaningful improvement of at least a 30% drop in pain, compared with only 43% of those receiving standard care.

Dr Roman Smolynets, an anesthesiologist and intensive care specialist at Lviv's Multidisciplinary Clinical Hospital of Emergency and Intensive Care, said the treatment "could be another step toward helping amputees live with less pain and more dignity".

He added that it would be used "as an additional point to comprehensive medical and surgical care, not as a monotherapy".

The botulinum toxin injections are thought to ease pain by blocking nerve signals.

More than 100,000 soldiers and civilians in Ukraine have lost limbs since Russia's full-scale invasion began.

Study co-author Dr Stephen Cohen is a professor of anesthesiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the US and a retired US army colonel.

He said: "As a retired colonel and the father of an infantry soldier who could be deployed in future conflicts and suffered from traumatic brain injury while at the U.S. Military Academy, this research carries special personal meaning for me."

The findings were published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.