This message has been deleted.

Excellent explanation, mswoc! One scene I found especially striking was when Clarence Williams III helps Gary Sinise into the bathtub, and you get a good look at Wallace's atrophied legs and a sense of his weakness and pain. Obviously they had to use some kind of prosthetic there.
And what is it with Gary Sinise and legs, anyway? He seems to lose the use of them (or lose them entirely) in many of his films.

he had muscle spasms which is very common for paralysis. and it is not unusual for them to feel pain around the point of vertebral or nerve damage because some of those nerves still transmit some sensation
in an interview after the movie came out his kids said he never had muscle spasms but was in intense pain constantly, something that was often reported in the press for the rest of his life