Children can regrow severed fingertips! (human regeneration)

I’ve been reading a really interesting book on the possibilities of human regeneration and the electrical system in the body when I came upon the most remarkable claim: apparently, small children are able to regenerate severed fingertips, right down to the first distal knuckle, on their own.

This was discovered accidentally in the seventies when a child went to the hospital for a severed fingertip. The doctor treated the injured finger for infection but, forgot to send the child along for surgery to seal up the end of the finger. What could have been a costly medical error turned out to be a Godsend for that child; over the next month, the finger grew back, much in the same way as a salamander will regrow lost limbs.

However, by pure accident Cynthia Illingworth at the Sheffield Children's Hospital noticed that in some children the finger would grow back. Just by doing nothing and letting the body heal itself, by 1974 Illingworth had documented hundreds of cases of regenerated fingers in children.

The criteria for this to happen are that just the tip of the finger be lost – the region from the fingernail down to the very first joint – and that the child be under eleven years of age. If the finger is sliced below the first joint then regeneration does not take place. If the skin is stitched back over the cut the finger will also not grow back. Also, the younger the child the quicker is the regrowth.

Trendwagon

The finger belongs to a 8-year-old girl, showing complete regeneration of amputated finger tip. Finger print is missing, but in modern police states that may be an extra chance to get a little privacy from the Big Brother.

Get Default


This miraculous discovery was covered in Time Magazine in 1975

Medicine: The Regenerative Finger

When a child's fingertip is sliced off or smashed in a car door, most doctors sew up the wound or attempt to reconstruct the digit. But the best treatment for such injuries may be none at all. Writing in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, Dr. Cynthia Illingworth of the Children's Hospital in Sheffield, England, reports that until the child is age eleven or so, a fingertip that is not damaged below the first joint will often regenerate spontaneously if left alone.

Time

So, you would think that leaving the severed fingertip alone to heal would be the normal course of treatment for such injuries but, medicine has decided to go in another direction.

Fingertip Amputations In Young Children

Doctors treat fingertip amputations somewhat differently in children younger than 6 years of age. After thoroughly cleaning and preparing an amputated fingertip, the surgeon may reattach it to the finger. The fingertip may continue to grow relatively normally, even if bone was exposed. This is especially possible in children younger than 2 years of age.

Outcome

Full recovery from a fingertip injury may take several months. After the injury heals, mild to severe pain and sensitivity to cold may continue for a year or may even be permanent.

Ortho Info

Children with Severed Fingers
Children are more likely to heal an amputated digit, and more likely to have good function of a replanted finger. Therefore, every effort is made to reattached severed fingers, especially in young patients.

Results of Reattaching A Severed Finger

Modern surgical techniques have allowed doctors to reattach fingers with high rates of success. In fact, about 90% of reattached fingers are successful--meaning the finger is viable. That's the good news. The bad news is that most reattached fingers have only about 50% of normal motion, many have significant deficits of sensation, and many have difficulty with cold tolerance. Often that's better than not having the finger, but not always. It's very important to only reattach fingers in appropriate situations, and not reattach the finger when a poor outcome is likely.

Orthopedics

I can understand that the window of opportunity to reattach severed limbs is limited and that modern doctors feel they must rush to save the severed fingers but, if allowing the fingertips of children to regrow on their own produces flawless healing with no complications, you would think it should be the preferred method, rather than a medical oddity that has been ignored by the medical establishment for decades.

Some believe that human regeneration was too far-fetched for the medical establishment to swallow.

A small number of physicians took up this technique but further research was not funded. The term 'stem cell' is now in common use and this regeneration is the amazing ability of cells to not only differentiate from being a stem cell to one specific type, such as bone or cartilage or blood, but the ability for some cells to dedifferentiate from a specific type back into stem cells and then transform themselves into a different cell type. In the 1970's this was considered heretical, but even today the non-invasive techniques pioneered by Becker have been left to rot.

Trendwagon

Of course, it’s also possible the medical profession sees no profit in allowing the body to do all their work for them. They would rather that a family pay big money for expensive microsurgery and have a partially functioning fingertip than allow nature to take its course which results in a fully functional fingertip with no medical intervention other than protection against infection while the finger heals itself.

I guess I'm not so special afterall

I accidentally whacked the end of my finger off twice, in two separate incidents and it grew back. It all fits into the conditions in your article.

A third incident I sliced it to the bone between the 1st and 2nd joint and still have that scar.

Your article explains some things I always wondered "why"? Thanks!

PS - catnip eh? Okay, that article was worth a mousie full of catnip. Have at it.

reply to post by FortAnthem

well i can speak from personal experience on this 1 . when i was 8 years old i decided it was a good idea to stick my finger on the crank wheel of a exercise bike,while my sister pedaled. not sure what i was trying to accomplish but i was 8 .anyways it took some time but my finger tip about 2/3 down the nail grew back without stitches being placed in it .never did find the missing peice, i think my dumb ass dog ate it.

My brother had his fingers trapped down a grid as a child and the tips grew back, crazy they still look a little weird though hahaha like E.T's lmao

Originally posted by Trexter Ziam
I guess I'm not so special afterall

I accidentally whacked the end of my finger off twice, in two separate incidents and it grew back. It all fits into the conditions in your article.

A third incident I sliced it to the bone between the 1st and 2nd joint and still have that scar.

Your article explains some things I always wondered "why"? Thanks!

PS - catnip eh? Okay, that article was worth a mousie full of catnip. Have at it.

edit on 21/8/2012 by Trexter Ziam because: (no reason given)

Don't worry; if you cut off your finger three times, you are still special.

Its good to hear that so many have experienced the miracle of human regeneration.

It makes me wonder though; how many of those who regrew their fingers did so because their parents lacked health insurance to get the fingers cared for "properly" in a hospital where the ends would likely have been reattached or had the tips sewn over by surgeons?

Did not having health insurance result in a better outcome in these cases?

reply to post by FortAnthem


We had health insurance. Mom just wasn't going to use it on me personally. Besides, I had more chores to do. Very long, story.

Well, I did lose a toenail when I was in middle school and it grew back.

Prob not the same thing.

reply to post by VaterOrlaag


Fingernail regeneration is pretty common. I lost the nail on my pinky finger a few years ago (I was in my mid 30's) and it freaked me out. I went to the doctor's office (of course, I waited 'till it fell off to go ) and they said it would grow back on its own. It took a while but, it came back and I didn't even have any problems with it becoming ingrown or anything. It was like it knew exactly what it was supposed to do all on its own.

From what I've read, a child's fingertip will regrow skin, nerves, blood vessels, tendons and even bone perfectly if it is left alone. Pretty damn incredible if you ask me.

Makes my little fingernail seem kinda petty by comparison.

with a little massaging, this can be replicated in adults:

www.abovetopsecret.com...


of course, it's very unfortunate that most surgical procedures revolve around cutting off an sewing things shut, because that way, you can gimp even a salamander, which would otherwise be able to regrow its heart, if need be. people could have reached a better understanding just by observing, it seems.

first, do not harm...