Plague Doctor

“A person should be able to distinguish their body, which parts belong to the body, which do not... but this leg, something is wrong... it is not true, I don't feel it exists, I don't think it belongs to me. ”

This is not the speech of a group of patients suddenly appearing in Eastern State today, but the description of their symptoms by a somatic dementia patient more than 30 years ago.

Somatic dementia, a rare neurological syndrome, is almost contrary to "phantom limb disorder" - more than 80% of amputees still feel their lost limbs long after the wound has healed. Some may even be accompanied by "phantom limb pain," where the patient feels the amputated limb is still present and where the pain occurs.

The existence of these conditions demonstrates from the side that the nervous system directly constrains the ability of humans to perceive their own bodies.

It's not the body itself, it's the nervous system that determines how many limbs and limbs a person feels.

However, what exactly is the mechanism of this nervous system? How do these things work in the human brain?

For a long time, the medical community has been trying to develop a clear understanding, but there has been a lack of scientific understanding.

Now, Gu Jun is also unable to explain to patients and colleagues what is happening.

This quarantine ward on the ninth floor of the Psychological Building, based at the Eastern State Department of Astronomical Medicine, already houses 37 separate wards each with a "handicap” patient, whose painful cries continue to come out, ringing in the corridor, and some tortured and delusional words gradually emerge.

Less than a day ago, 37 patients were seen in hospitals in Dongzhou, and perhaps many more were still unconfirmed and had not received medical attention.

They exhibited the same symptoms, all of which were unwarranted pain in the upper right limb, rapid loss of recognition within 3-8 hours, aggravated pain, multiple vascular blood flow obstruction in the limb, and relief with thrombolytics, but the patient's pain was even worse. Additionally, from the moment of loss of recognition, the patient was eager to remove the affected limb by amputation.

Heterotrophy seeks amputation, a symptom very similar to another very rare paranoid disorder:

Physical integrity identity disorder, BodyIntegrityIdentityDisorder.

People who unfortunately lose a limb because of an accident always miss their physical fitness, but BIID sufferers, on the contrary, always yearn for a limb to be amputated - it's not their own, they're not born without it, or they suddenly don't want it, it doesn't matter if it's called disability or not, they think it's normal to get rid of the limb to achieve a truly complete self in order to be happy.

Usually the affected limb is one of the extremities, and sometimes there are two, three, or even four situations.

In order to achieve this goal, and doctors disagree with amputations, patients with BIID tend to engage in self-mutilation that is not common in people with somatic disorder, such as car crashes, freezing their legs to necrosis with ice water, or even self-amputation, all of which have occurred.

This mental illness has not been recognized and named for a long time. Its pathology is still a mystery. Whether it is a mental illness caused solely by external factors or by brain dysfunction caused by nervous system disorders is only hypothetical.

Currently, the most effective treatment for BIID, the best way to relieve the patient's pain and improve the patient's quality of life, is to amputate the patient's limbs.

Gu Jun came outside one of the wards, and several of the team next to him stopped and looked at the patient through the glass window.

The patient is Zhou Yibao, 21 years old, a third year student at Jehua University, the earliest patient to see a doctor for an anomaly found so far.

At that time, Li Rui Quan, the emergency doctor who visited Zhou Yibao, detected the abnormality and informed the hospital to report it to the Sky Machinery Bureau immediately. After that, things quickly evolved. The Dongzhou Sky Machinery Bureau received reports from several hospitals. After sending personnel to determine the abnormality, the patients were turned over for isolation and treatment.

Why them? What pathogenesis? What do these men, women and children have in common? Is ectopia contagious?

The Department of Medicine is still trying to figure out these issues.

And for treatment, the Department of Medicine can't come up with much, and even if the BIID does originate from a neurological abnormality, no neurological abnormality has been demonstrated anywhere.

So the thirst-quenching lobectomy, neurological damage, it doesn't apply —— and instead of destroying the brain and causing unknown and irreversible damage, it's better to amputate the limbs, after all, lose one hand and have a high quality of life, and to install prostheses.

For common BIIDs, cognitive behavior therapy, aversion therapy and other psychotherapy are commonly used, but not very effective.

The psychiatric group has tried these methods on the anorexic patients, and some patients have been given sedatives. Zhou Yibao is one of them, however, the patients have not been able to calm down, but have become more intense.

This is a situation that resembles a constant itchy pain in the lesion's skin area in patients with Squamous Disease.

Patients with anorexia are tormented by their own repellent reaction to the anorexia.

Of course Gu Jun knows that this is not an ordinary BIID, it is not something that happens naturally, it is that negative choice power, black goat cub...

After thinking about it, Gu Jun opened the door to the ward at a time of confusion.

Time, his own right hand, had an unnamed shock jump, like something sensed.

“Ah...” Zhou Yibao, a patient whose whole body was fixed to the hospital bed, saw this group of medical personnel in protective clothing walking in, and he immediately yelled more excitedly. His eyes were filled with blood silk. “Amputation, cut off this hand, it's not mine, it's not mine...”

The patient's right upper limb is particularly reinforced because to facilitate blood circulation, the area bound is small, with iron cuffs on the upper arm, elbow and small arm.

This not only prevents uncontrolled hands, but also prevents self-mutilation by the patient, whose back position was previously handled by stabbing with a pen.

Gu Jun looked at the other hand wrapped in white gauze. There seemed to be a hallucination flashing in front of him. It looked like he was dissecting the giant amputation of the black goat's cub by the anatomical table. He stood at the anatomical table like someone else...

At this time, the patient's opposite hand pulled and hit the iron cuffs loudly, several of them as if they were about to break.

“Cut it off, cut it off...” The patient became more insane at once.

Gu Jun squeezed his right hand, like he did at the edge of Shidong Mountain. He suppressed the mysterious movement.

Uncle Egg and a few others beside him were helpless, and the routine procedures for handling abnormal forces went by without success.

However, the medical department does not have much time. Patients are affected by painful stimuli, heart rate, blood pressure and other indicators are in dangerous areas. The results of multiple organs such as the liver and kidneys are not optimistic, and the anticoagulant effect of dissolution of the affected limbs is constantly decreasing. If this continues, patients will be sent to the rescue room at any time.

“Jun, do we have to think about amputating the limbs?” Uncle Egg whispered.

Not the solution, the experimental treatment, maybe the patient still has phantom limb pain after amputation, maybe extremity disease removal.

They, the SkyMachine Doctors, many clinicians, too, often fail to cure the patient, but they can strive to keep the patient alive and better...

Gu Jun took a deep breath and hasn't spoken a word for a long time. There seemed to be a strange noise in his ear.

You will have plenty of surgery opportunities, surgery, will you still have surgery...

“I recommend trying an artificial coma on the patient first.” Gu Jun said, "There is a demon who doesn't know where it is and can't do it according to the demon, otherwise there will never be a good result," and I want to observe a right upper limb amputation for other causes. ”