Do you want to get amputated?

Updated on: 27 April,2009 06:13 PM IST |
MiD Day Correspondent |

Do you want to get amputated?

Some time ago, an Australian named Openshaw immersed his right leg into a bucket of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) and forced surgeons to amputate it. Doctors say that he suffers from a rare neurological condition called body integrity identity disorder (BIID), which is characterised by a desire to lose a limb.

It is always good to get the definition right and we found that Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) is also known as Amputee Identity Disorder or Apotemnophilia and is classified as the overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs.

What causes this desire for amputation? We visited the official website and found out that 'No one is sure exactly where the desire originates. For most (dealing with this syndrome), the desire arises early in childhood and they will have a fixed concept of the type of amputation they wish by the teenage years.'

We then checked out the ever-helpful Wikipedia, which says that 'The sufferer feels incomplete with four limbs, but is confident that he or she will feel better about this post-amputation. The sufferer knows exactly what part of which limb should be amputated to relieve the suffering. The most common request is an above-the-knee amputation of the left leg.'

We also checked out another site that offered BIID experiences that various people had encountered.

What do the doctors say? We were lucky to find a nice article that gave details of how 'body awareness disorders occur as a result of abnormal activity in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL).' Read it if you are really interested.