# Thumb attached to Stomach **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 4, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086 "2005-01-04T21:35:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/1 "2005-01-04T21:35:05Z")
I remember an episode of COPS in which the police nab a suspect hiding in the shower. When attempting to handcuff him, the officer was dumbfounded to find the perp’s thumb surgically attached to his belly. What would be the medical necessity for such a procedure? ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/2 "2005-01-04T21:55:00Z")
I knew a young man once who blew his hand up with some explosives, his fingers were destroyed and his thumb was mangled and reattached. THey sewed it to his stomach to maintain proper blood flow into and out of the thumb while it healed. ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/3 "2005-01-04T21:58:57Z")
Keep the thumb tissue alive while the real spot that they’re going to eventually graft it on to heals enough for the procedure? Like if your thumb not only got severed, but the thumb stump was shredded, so first you have to wait for the shredded stump to heal enough to put the thumb back on. That’s the only non-erotic reason I can think of. \ ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/4 "2005-01-04T22:00:25Z")
Hooray! simu-post! ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/5 "2005-01-04T22:04:25Z")
> [@Pullet](#): > > That’s the only non-erotic reason I can think of. Wait. There’s an erotic reason to have your thumb attached to your belly? ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/6 "2005-01-04T22:07:40Z")
My brother had this done to him, except not the thumb, his index finger. It was badly mangled in an industrial accident. There was more tissue loss than bone loss, and it won’t heal with the bone sticking up out of the tissue. Rather than sacrifice another inch of bone, they grafted it to his abdomen until it healed enough to, I guess you’d call it whittle it out. This was about twenty-five years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/7 "2005-01-04T22:23:28Z")
I think I’ll get in trouble with the moderators if I draw a picture of the erotic things you could do with a digit on your belly. I’m sure someone out there has tried it, though. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/8 "2005-01-04T22:27:12Z")
Some medical texts refer to this as a “Napolean Procedure”. (trivia time)😉 ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/9 "2005-01-04T22:56:39Z")
Holy crap, the things you learn on this board! ---
**Author:** ![Jpeg\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4bbf92/32.png) [@Jpeg\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jpeg_Jones)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2005, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/10 "2005-01-04T23:20:17Z")
So how long does it typically take? Months? Years? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/11 "2005-01-05T00:19:48Z")
> [@tremorviolet](#): > > Wait. There’s an erotic reason to have your thumb attached to your belly? Oh c’mon! Don’t try to pretend the idea of a flaccid, inert digit stitched to your abdomen isn’t making you really horny right now. ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/12 "2005-01-05T07:18:24Z")
Warning. This might creep you out if you don’t like stories of buzz saws, meat carrots, belly hair and strange medical procedures. My friend chopped off his thumb at the lower knuckle with an electric Skilsaw. They gathered up the thumb piece and rushed man and stub to the hospital. They sewed it back on and placed a handful of leaches to the tip in hopes it would be ok -ugly, but ok (he said he didn’t really mind the surgical leeches. He thought they were kind of cool. That is until he woke one morning to find one had migrated to his ass). The reattached thumb was too mangeled and died on his hand. They cut the old thumb off and attached his hand to his belly. I think there was a time between lopping off the stinky black thumb and turning him into “I’m a little tea pot”,. but I don’t really remember. I suppose it isn’t important to the story. However, this might be a good place to add this. When I asked him what it feels like to chop off a thumb with a Skilsaw, he said it really didn’t hurt like you would expect it to. It felt like someone smacked his hand with a baseball bat. In fact, the Skilsaw threw his arm behind him when it caught the thumb. The thumb itself flew off in a different direction. The only real evidence his thumb had been cut off (besides the four fingers on one hand and a thumb on the floor) was the B-Movie style blood spray on the wall behind him. Anyway, perhaps a month or so later after the meat had settled down, they unattached the hand as well as a section of his belly meat which was shaped into a thumbish appendage. This gave them some extra meat to work with. In all his nifty belly meat thumb was about twice as wide as a thumb and perhaps twice as long. We called it the meat carrot because it came to a point at the end. I thought it looked more like a meat parsnip myself. Down near the lower knuckle was a bunch of his belly hair. It was also kind of floppy because it was all meat and fat tissue - no bone or muscle. After it healed, then the fun started. They took his second toe (what I call the index toe) out of his foot. They didn’t just chop off the toe, they removed the entire thing up his foot. They took the muscle, bone, everything. Then sewed the bugger back up creating a nice 4 digit cartoon foot. They filleted his meat carrot open and inserted toe. They bolted bones and stitched muscles together. Most the belly meat - perhaps 60-70% - was removed during this process. After the first operation he was left with a toe where his thumb was and a funky ring of hairy belly meat about 1 inch wide where the toe thumb meets the hand. It stayed like this for some time. 9 months perhaps. I do remember his belly meat ring got sunburned in the summer (while the rest of the hand was fine) and he joked about having to shave his thumb from time to time. Over the course of several operations the belly meat ring got trimmed down and now only a thin scar remains. His toe thumb took several years to function normally but now it works great. He’s rather pleased with it and is always happy to show it off. In fact, it works and looks so good you might never even notice. The only real give away is the tiny toe thumb nail. The size of the new digit is about the same as his other thumb. So, there you go. After all this, how about some trivia? Q: What do you think my friends physical therapy routine was to get his toe thumb working and in shape? A: Playing Nintendo and Sega for at least an hour a day. It’s true. Doctors orders. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/13 "2005-01-05T07:23:41Z")
That is quite possibly the coolest thing I have heard in quite some time \*\* Seven \*\*. ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/14 "2005-01-05T07:28:47Z")
You know, the entire procedure was **really** cool. My friend was a real good sport about it all. I think his mind was more interested and amazed by the procedure he never got bummed out by the fact he chopped off his thumb. I, of course, was the great friend and I spent time visiting him in the hospital and hanging out on his couch while he recovered. I loved watching the entire procedure unfold. I’ll have to say I had to stop playing Nintendo with him. He just got too damn good at it. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/15 "2005-01-05T07:58:37Z")
His roommate in college was a med student with a really sick sense of humor…? ---
**Author:** ![Spongemom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Spongemom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spongemom)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/16 "2005-01-05T09:01:40Z")
I’m sorry…I must… Cool band names: Surgical Leeches Stinky Black Thumb Belly Meat Belly Hair Meat Carrot Funky Ring of Hairy Belly Meat Belly Meat Ring I do feel sorry for your friend for having to go through all that. But the way you wrote that story was fantastic, **Seven**. ---
**Author:** ![Spongemom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Spongemom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spongemom)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/17 "2005-01-05T09:03:11Z")
I also have a feeling that some of those will become trademarks of the SDMB, much like 1920s Style Death Ray and 18" DHIBJD. ---
**Author:** ![jacquilynne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jacquilynne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacquilynne)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/18 "2005-01-05T16:32:23Z")
My mother told me that the sister of one of her co-workers (so how reliable is this story? who knows) was in a car accident and had extensive skull damage. The doctors, apparently, have removed a portion of her head (skull bones, I think, but there’s some speculation that it includes an actual portion of her brain) and placed it in her abdominal cavity for safe-keeping. Even creepier than the idea of having fingers attached to your stomache is the idea of having your intestines strangle your brain. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/19 "2005-01-05T16:53:17Z")
> [@Seven](#): > > A: Playing Nintendo and Sega for at least an hour a day. It’s true. Doctors orders. Man, I wish I had a medical excuse to play video games all day. I don’t think I’ll go to the extreme of cutting off my thumb with a saw though. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086/20 "2005-01-05T17:11:40Z")
**Seven** , I don’t understand why your friend had the intermediary step of the “belly-meat thumb” before the toe was migrated. Why couldn’t they just create the “thoe” in the first place? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thumb-attached-to-stomach/283086.md?page=2)