‘Chronic pain made me cut off my finger'

A BANTRY woman who cut off her right index finger recently said she set it on fire afterwards so it couldn’t be re-attached.

Megan Cullen (25) told The Southern Star that she felt forced to cut if off having suffered chronic pain since her finger was caught in a car door when she was 18.

‘I had CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) since then and I was in pain 24/7 and despite two operations and six nerve blocking injections, the pain got worse,’ said Megan.

Megan, who works as a care assistant, cut off her finger at her home and threw her finger in the bin before the ambulance crew arrived. 

She spent last weekend in CUH where doctors closed up her wound on Sunday and she said she was never happier to have an operation in her life.

‘I had tried to chop it off with an axe in 2015 but I wasn’t successful, but now I feel absolutely brilliant and have no major pain.’

Megan is keen to highlight the pain that people with CRPS go through and is hoping other sufferers won’t have to go through what she did.

‘At the end of the day, I was the one who took my finger off, but now I’m not in pain anymore. I didn’t want to be celebrating my 26th birthday next month and be still in pain,’ she added. Megan first told her story on Red FM four years ago and updated the radio station this week. 

She said she now felt she was in ‘a bubble of brilliantness’ because the pain was finally gone, but added: ‘I wouldn’t suggest anyone else should do this.’

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