Ever since he was a child he’d had “incessant,” intrusive thoughts about his left hand’s fourth and fifth fingers, the sensation that they weren’t his, that they didn’t belong to his body. At night, he’d wake from nightmares that his fingers were burning or rotting.
The young Quebec man was so desperate to get rid of his fingers he contemplated building a small, makeshift guillotine. “He couldn’t imagine himself living for the years to come with those fingers,” according to a recently published case report.
Instead, a surgeon at his local hospital agreed to an elective amputation in what is being called the first described case of “digits amputation” for body integrity dysphoria, or BID, a rare and complex condition characterized by an intense desire to amputate a perfectly healthy body part, such as an arm or a leg.
The Quebec case involved an ambidextrous 20-year-old whose attempts at “non-invasive” relief, including cognitive behavioural therapy, Prozac-like antidepressants and exposure therapy, only increased his distress.
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Op was successful. Patient was an adult. ABN
American Buddhist Net 