Apotemnophilia: Puns Ensue

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you've never stared at one of your limbs and wished it would make like a rocket and take off.

But what happens when you catch the old phantomus limbus? After the years of fantasizing and inevitable fetishization of the removal of your own limbs, you finally get that hateful mobility-monger off of you, but you remain haunted by it's ghost!! Like some kind of fucking foot-shaped Casper the Friendly Ghost, your new phantom limb itches, cramps, and sweats just like it used to, with the grave exception that you can't itch it, adjust it, or put a sweat-band on it.

That's when you visit Doctor Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a neuroscientist who famously helped an amputee get rid of most of his phantom limb. When the good doctor was done, his dear patient had only phantom fingerlets attached to his shoulder.

One of my favorite podcasts, Radio Lab did an excellent piece on this doctor's revolutionary therapy in which he used a mirror to trick the brain into uncramping a phantom limb. Skip to 18:18 to hear the full, totally awesome story.