Self-surgery
Encyclopedia
Self-surgery is the act of performing a surgical procedure
on oneself. It can be a rare manifestation of a psychological disorder, an attempt to avoid embarrassment or legal action, or an act taken in extreme circumstances out of necessity.
.
There does occur a rare phenomenon of attempted repair of injury caused during masturbation
or similar activity that would be embarrassing if revealed. One notable example of this is a case report by Morton (1991):
This patient had used a piece of machinery for stimulation on the lunch hour at his machine shop job, when the other employees had left the building. His left scrotum
had been caught in the machine. He was thrown several feet away and when he awoke, he stapled the wound closed and resumed work.
Boston Corbett
, the soldier who killed Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth
, had performed self-surgery earlier in life. He castrated
himself with a pair of scissors in order to avoid the temptation of prostitutes. Afterwards he went to a prayer meeting and ate a meal before going for medical treatment.
was the sole physician on duty at the U.S. National Science Foundation Amundsen–Scott Antarctic research station in 1999 when she found a lump on her breast. She was forced to biopsy the lump herself. Her experience made international news and was the basis for her autobiography, Ice Bound. The lump was found to be cancerous, so she self-administered chemotherapeutic agents. She remained cancer-free for several years but died in 2009 after her cancer reappeared and spread to her brain.
involves drilling a hole in the skull. One of the most famous instances of self-trepanation is that of Amanda Feilding
.
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
on oneself. It can be a rare manifestation of a psychological disorder, an attempt to avoid embarrassment or legal action, or an act taken in extreme circumstances out of necessity.
Genital
These surgeries are generally the least life threatening. Typically, most of those who try this are male, who attempt various procedures such as an orchiectomy, removal of one or both testicles. A small number of persons with male genitalia resort to self-surgery in an attempt to control their sexual urges or due to gender identity disorderGender identity disorder
Gender identity disorder is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe persons who experience significant gender dysphoria . It describes the symptoms related to transsexualism, as well as less severe manifestations of gender dysphoria...
.
There does occur a rare phenomenon of attempted repair of injury caused during masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
or similar activity that would be embarrassing if revealed. One notable example of this is a case report by Morton (1991):
One morning I was called to the emergency room by the head ER nurse. She directed me to a patient who had refused to describe his problem other than to say "he needed a doctor who took care of men's troubles" ... the patient permitted me to remove his trousers, shorts, and two or three yards of foul-smelling stained gauze wrapped about his scrotumScrotumIn some male mammals the scrotum is a dual-chambered protuberance of skin and muscle containing the testicles and divided by a septum. It is an extension of the perineum, and is located between the penis and anus. In humans and some other mammals, the base of the scrotum becomes covered with curly...
, which was swollen to twice the size of a grapefruit and extremely tender.
... amid the matted hair, edematous skin, and various exudates, I saw some half-buried dark linear objects and asked the patient what they were. Several days earlier, he replied, he had injured himself in the machine shop where he worked, and had closed the laceration himself with a heavy-duty stapling gunStaple gunA staple gun or powered stapler is a hand-held machine used to drive heavy metal staples into wood, plastic, or masonry. Staple guns are used for many different applications and to affix a variety of materials, including insulation, house wrap, roofing, wiring, carpeting, upholstery, and hobby and...
... eight rusty staples were retrieved.
This patient had used a piece of machinery for stimulation on the lunch hour at his machine shop job, when the other employees had left the building. His left scrotum
Scrotum
In some male mammals the scrotum is a dual-chambered protuberance of skin and muscle containing the testicles and divided by a septum. It is an extension of the perineum, and is located between the penis and anus. In humans and some other mammals, the base of the scrotum becomes covered with curly...
had been caught in the machine. He was thrown several feet away and when he awoke, he stapled the wound closed and resumed work.
Boston Corbett
Boston Corbett
Thomas P. "Boston" Corbett was the Union Army soldier who shot and killed Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. He disappeared after 1888, but circumstantial evidence suggests that he died in the Great Hinckley Fire in 1894, although this remains impossible to substantiate.-Early...
, the soldier who killed Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...
, had performed self-surgery earlier in life. He castrated
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
himself with a pair of scissors in order to avoid the temptation of prostitutes. Afterwards he went to a prayer meeting and ate a meal before going for medical treatment.
Abdominal
Abdominal self-surgery is extremely rare. A few well-publicized cases have found their way into the medical literature.- On February 15, 1921, Dr. Evan O'Neill KaneEvan O'Neill KaneEvan O'Neill Kane was a surgeon working in Pennsylvania, United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is most well known for removing his own appendix under local anaesthetic in 1921 at the age of 60...
carried out his own appendectomy in an attempt to prove the efficacy of local anaesthesia for such operations. He is believed to have been the first surgeon to have done so. In 1932, he performed an even more risky self-operation of repairing his inguinal herniaInguinal herniaAn inguinal hernia is a protrusion of abdominal-cavity contents through the inguinal canal. They are very common , and their repair is one of the most frequently performed surgical operations....
at the age of 70.
- On April 30, 1961, Dr. Leonid RogozovLeonid RogozovLeonid Ivanovich Rogozov was a Russian general practitioner who took part in the sixth Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1960-1961. He was the only doctor stationed at the Novolazarevskaya Station and, while there, developed peritonitis, which meant he had to perform an appendectomy on himself, a...
removed his own infected appendixVermiform appendixThe appendix is a blind-ended tube connected to the cecum , from which it develops embryologically. The cecum is a pouchlike structure of the colon...
at the SovietSoviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
Novolazarevskaja Research Station in Antarctica, as he was the only physician on staff. The operation lasted one hour and 45 minutes. Rogozov later reported on the surgery in the Information Bulletin of the Soviet Antarctic Expedition.
- A male student who had already performed a self-castration was the subject of a 1979 case report by Kalin. The student, some time after his self-castration, also attempted to reduce the activity of his adrenal glandAdrenal glandIn mammals, the adrenal glands are endocrine glands that sit atop the kidneys; in humans, the right suprarenal gland is triangular shaped, while the left suprarenal gland is semilunar shaped...
s with an injection of bovine serum albuminBovine serum albuminBovine serum albumin is a serum albumin protein derived from cows. It is often used as a protein concentration standard....
, luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone and Freund's adjuvantFreund's adjuvantFreund's adjuvant is a solution of antigen emulsified in mineral oil and used as an immunopotentiator . The complete form, Freund's Complete Adjuvant, is composed of inactivated and dried mycobacteria , whereas the incomplete form lacks the mycobacterial components...
. When this produced an abscessAbscessAn abscess is a collection of pus that has accumulated in a cavity formed by the tissue in which the pus resides due to an infectious process or other foreign materials...
at the injection site, he resorted to self-surgery. His psychiatrist reported:
- In 2000, a MexicanMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
woman, Inés RamírezInés RamírezInés Ramírez Pérez is a Mexican woman from the state of Oaxaca who gained media attention after performing a successful Caesarean section on herself in 2000, making her the only person known to have done so successfully.-History:...
, was forced to resort to self-surgery – a Caesarean sectionCaesarean sectionA Caesarean section, is a surgical procedure in which one or more incisions are made through a mother's abdomen and uterus to deliver one or more babies, or, rarely, to remove a dead fetus...
– because of lack of medical assistance during a difficult labour: "She took three small glasses of hard liquor and, using a kitchen knife, sliced her abdomen in 3 attempts ... cut the uterus itself longitudinally, and delivered a male infant. Both mother and child reportedly survived and are now well."
Medically supervised
Dr. Jerri NielsenJerri Nielsen
Dr. Jerri Lin Nielsen was an American physician with extensive ER experience, who in 1998 was hired to spend a year at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, as the station's only doctor....
was the sole physician on duty at the U.S. National Science Foundation Amundsen–Scott Antarctic research station in 1999 when she found a lump on her breast. She was forced to biopsy the lump herself. Her experience made international news and was the basis for her autobiography, Ice Bound. The lump was found to be cancerous, so she self-administered chemotherapeutic agents. She remained cancer-free for several years but died in 2009 after her cancer reappeared and spread to her brain.
Self-trepanation
TrepanationTrepanation
Trepanning, also known as trephination, trephining or making a burr hole, is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases. It may also refer to any "burr" hole created...
involves drilling a hole in the skull. One of the most famous instances of self-trepanation is that of Amanda Feilding
Amanda Feilding
Amanda Charteris, Countess of Wemyss and March, , is a British artist, scientist and drug policy reformer. She is scientific director and founder of the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust...
.
Amputation of trapped limbs
- In 1993, Donald Wyman amputated his leg with his pocketknife after it was pinned by a tree http://www.network54.com/Forum/3897/message/1052516175/ http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20106019,00.html.
- In 1993, Bill Jeracki was fishing near St. Mary's Glacier in Colorado, when a boulder pinned his left leg. Snow was forecast and without a jacket or pack, Jeracki didn't believe he would survive the night. Fashioning a tourniquet out of his flannel shirt and using his bait knife, he cut his leg off http://www.thehardway.com/stories/survival.htm at the knee joint, using hemostats from his fishing kit to clamp the bleeding arteries.
- In 2002, Doug Goodale cut off his own arm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2346951.stm at the elbow in order to survive an accident at sea.
- Aron RalstonAron RalstonAron Lee Ralston is an American mountain climber and inspirational public speaker. He is widely known for having survived a 2003 canyoneering accident in Utah in which he was forced to amputate his own right arm with a dull pocketknife in order to free himself from a dislodged boulder.The incident...
, a former student at Carnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
was on a canyoneering trip in 2003 in Blue John Canyon (near Moab, UtahMoab, UtahMoab is a city in Grand County, in eastern Utah, in the western United States. The population was 4,779 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat and largest city in Grand County. Moab hosts a large number of tourists every year, mostly visitors to the nearby Arches and Canyonlands National Parks...
), when a boulder fell and pinned his right forearmForearm-See also:*Forearm flexors*Forearm muscles...
down, crushing it. First he tried to chip away the rock around his hand with his pocket knife, but gave up the attempt after two days. Next he tried to lift and move the boulder with a simple pulley system made with rope and gear, but that failed too. On the sixth day a dehydrated and delirious Ralston had a vision of himself as a one-armed man playing with his future son. He bowed his arm against the chockstone and snapped the radiusRadius (bone)The radius is one of the two large bones of the forearm, the other being the ulna. It extends from the lateral side of the elbow to the thumb side of the wrist and runs parallel to the ulna, which exceeds it in length and size. It is a long bone, prism-shaped and slightly curved longitudinally...
and ulnaUlnaThe ulna is one of the two long bones in the forearm, the other being the radius. It is prismatic in form and runs parallel to the radius, which is shorter and smaller. In anatomical position The ulna is one of the two long bones in the forearm, the other being the radius. It is prismatic in form...
bones. Using the dull blade on his multiuse tool, he cut the soft tissueSoft tissueIn anatomy, the term soft tissue refers to tissues that connect, support, or surround other structures and organs of the body, not being bone. Soft tissue includes tendons, ligaments, fascia, skin, fibrous tissues, fat, and synovial membranes , and muscles, nerves and blood vessels .It is sometimes...
around the break. He then used the tool's pliers to tear at the tougher tendons. He was careful not to sever the arteries before attaching an improvised tourniquet. After he cut the main bundle of nerves, leading to agonizing pain, he cut through the last piece of skin and was free. In bad physical shape, and having lost more than a litre of blood, he managed to rappel 60 yards down and hike another 8 miles, when he ran into a Dutch family who offered help and guided him to a rescue helicopter which happened to be nearby looking for Ralston and took him to a hospital.
- In 2003, an Australian coal miner trapped three kilometres underground by an overturned tractor cut off his own arm http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/200806412361086 with a box-cutting knife. The 44-year-old man, who was not identified by police, was working late at the Hunter Valley mine when the tractor tipped over, crushing his arm and trapping him.
Further reading
- Michell J (1984). Eccentric Lives & Peculiar Notions ISBN 0-15-127358-8. This book has been reprinted (2002, ISBN 0-15-127358-8) and apparently has the same information as the earlier edition.
- Google Answers: SELF SURGERY ON ARMS