There is a rare condition where people believe a part of their body is not their own and desire it to be amputated. The lack of effective treatment for the disorder is such that some doctors are even considering whether amputation of a healthy limb might indeed be the proper way to tackle it, according to an article in the Health and Family supplement of the Irish Times on Monday.
According to the article, the condition was initially believed to be entirely of psychological origin, but the patients are not delusional, they do not suffer from psychosis and usually present with a normal mental status. Psychological therapy and anti-psychotic drugs do not help the condition. Some doctors believe it to have a physiological or neurological cause while others think it is of psychiatric origin.
A study on more than 100 BIID patients revealed that the disorder starts early in life, usually in childhood, and that the majority of those affected (about 90 per cent) are men.
While it usually presents as a desire to amputate one limb, it sometimes appears as a desire for paralysis, or to become deaf or blind.
As for what can be done to treat the disorder, so far nothing seems to have worked such that, the article says, some doctors are openly talking about the possibility of amputation as a treatment.
However, it continues, ”for many doctors, there is no way they would agree to the amputation of a healthy limb.”
