4 ms·

How do amputees feel about this?

LtWorf 3y ago
Amputee here. I see a lot of uninformed comments and completely idiotic ideas in this comment section, from people who are thinking they are very smart for coming up with things. Well nobody does it probably for a reason. First of all prosthetics are expensive as fuck, so a normal person can't have 5 of them. Secondly they are big, so unless you go around in a van you can't really say "oh I need that other one now"… the one you have on you is all. Then the looks. They don't have to look realistic but many people will want them to. I've met a few people in wheelchair that have absolutely no use for a prosthetic and yet use one, because it pains them to see themselves without… so i can't imagine how a robocop leg would work for that issue. Also, padding and stuff has the function of protecting the important bits that are inside. I do agree that there is no point in making them look over realistic if the wearer isn't interested in doing that, and in trying to simulate a real limb at the cost of pain, and reduced time when they can be used. In the end what nobody realizes is that prosthetics are complete shit. Try typing on a keyboard or playing guitar for several hours with 50cm sticks tied to your fingers and see how that works out, both in efficacy and strain to your fingers. A prosthetic is more or less something like that. Please stop confusing sci-fi films with reality. It is rather annoying having people come up to you and ask: "why don't you have a 3 million dollar prosthetics that does this and that?"… Well I don't have 3 million dollars and the thing you're thinking of doesn't exist anyway.
- deadbabe 3y ago
  Thank you for this perspective.
- amyjess 3y ago
  > In the end what nobody realizes is that prosthetics are complete shit. Try typing on a keyboard or playing guitar for several hours with 50cm sticks tied to your fingers and see how that works out, both in efficacy and strain to your fingers. A prosthetic is more or less something like that. Please stop confusing sci-fi films with reality. I'm toothless and this right here is why I never wear my dentures, and I especially don't eat with them in. They're uncomfortable, they're made out of this soft plastic that can't rip through food the way real teeth can, they prevent me from feeling the food in my mouth, and if I were to just wear them every day I'd have to completely re-learn how to talk. At best, they just look pretty, so all I've ever done with them is take a few selfies with them in. Other than that, they suck and I don't bother with them. In fact, I have told several people that trying to eat with dentures in is like trying to type with full-finger gloves on. It's both easier and more enjoyable for me to just gum my food. And there are very, very few things I can't eat without teeth, most of which can be mitigated one way or another (and in a couple of cases, "one way" has involved a literal hammer).
  - burnished 3y ago
    What did you use the hammer on?
    - rolph 3y ago
      use a meat tenderizing hammer and make schnitzel like things; crushed nut paste also. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnitzel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnitzel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzapan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzapan
    - amyjess 3y ago
      First time was Butterfinger candy. There was a promotion in FF14 where if you bought a certain dollar value of Butterfingers and sent in a picture of the receipt they'd send you a code for a mount. I bought it expecting to not be able to eat it, just because I wanted the mount. But then I kept seeing the bag on my table and really wanted to eat it anyway. It was full of individually-wrapped pieces, so I took a bunch of still-wrapped candy, a hammer, and a bowl to the landing at the top of my stairs. I laid down on my staircase and went to town on the candy with the hammer. Once it had been thoroughly pulverized, I opened up the wrappers, poured the dust into the bowl, and then just lapped it up out of the bowl. I specifically did it on the landing and not while sitting at a table or something because I have terrible hand-eye coordination (go go developmental dyspraxia) and the hammer hit the floor more than it hit the candy. If I'd done that at a table, I'd have destroyed the table. And laying on the stairs gave me a better angle to hit it than if I'd just been sitting on the floor. The next time was cashews. I tried eating them whole but it was too hard, so I got out the hammer and went to my staircase again. Since they weren't individually wrapped I had to get creative. I wrapped them up in a paper towel as best as I could and put it on a paper plate before going to town with the hammer. With that said, it's been a couple of years since then and it wasn't until much later that I realized my jaw was still healing back then and wasn't at 100% (this was about half a year after my extractions). I could probably eat cashews without the hammer now, though I haven't tried. I still won't touch harder nuts such as almonds, even with a hammer, but it's not a big deal because my teeth were in such terrible shape for years before my extractions that I hadn't been able to eat almonds for a very, very long time.
xtracto 3y ago
I lost the distal phalanx of my thumb in my left hand when I was a kid (6 y old). I've lived my whole life without it and have had gone through the full "stages of grief" rainbow and obligatory bullying in school. Now I am 40 years old and in general my feeling is the following:I would enjoy having a prostetic phalanx which is indistiguishable from the real deal mainly to avoid "distracting" people that I am interacting with. The reaction of most adults is basically to get "distracted" and wondering at some point. I've caught a lot of thease both in public moments (while giving a talk and gesticulating with my hands, you can see into some people's eyes when they "found out", and get distracted). And in private scenarios: I play guitar (more on this later), I've had moments where I am playing with along with somebody else, and you can clearly see when they "realize" about my missing finger. Adults are usually shy/educated and don't ask about it, but it is funny seeing that "moment of silence" when they are pondering whether they should ask and I guess they get "ashamed": "did he realized I stared" ... like, after 30+ years, I don't give a fuck haha. Now, on the other hand (pun intended), I've researched about prostethics. There are some really good prosthetics which are purely visual. I've never tried those (just haven't pushed myself I guess), but what I would really like is a prosthetic that is more functional. As I mentioned, I play guitar, and one of the things that I am missing is the ability to play some Barre chords as well as I could, or doing shredding (I like to play metal) on some topmost strings, basically because I am missing the "support" that would be provided by the thumb-tip to apply the "force" (don't know if I am explaining myself haha). Also, I've always wanted to play the piano but also ... the remaining part of my thumb won't help with that haha. So, I guess in summary: for the public side I'd like the "transparent" prostethic, while for me, I'd love to have some prosthetic that would make it easier for me to play guitar haha. Or a laser pointer, or something cool... of course that may be the geek side of me talking. BTW: I caught your pun

Amputee here. I see a lot of uninformed comments and completely idiotic ideas in this comment section, from people who are thinking they are very smart for coming up with things. Well nobody does it probably for a reason. First of all prosthetics are expensive as fuck, so a normal person can't have 5 of them. Secondly they are big, so unless you go around in a van you can't really say "oh I need that other one now"… the one you have on you is all. Then the looks. They don't have to look realistic but many people will want them to. I've met a few people in wheelchair that have absolutely no use for a prosthetic and yet use one, because it pains them to see themselves without… so i can't imagine how a robocop leg would work for that issue. Also, padding and stuff has the function of protecting the important bits that are inside. I do agree that there is no point in making them look over realistic if the wearer isn't interested in doing that, and in trying to simulate a real limb at the cost of pain, and reduced time when they can be used. In the end what nobody realizes is that prosthetics are complete shit. Try typing on a keyboard or playing guitar for several hours with 50cm sticks tied to your fingers and see how that works out, both in efficacy and strain to your fingers. A prosthetic is more or less something like that. Please stop confusing sci-fi films with reality. It is rather annoying having people come up to you and ask: "why don't you have a 3 million dollar prosthetics that does this and that?"… Well I don't have 3 million dollars and the thing you're thinking of doesn't exist anyway.

deadbabe 3y ago
Thank you for this perspective.
amyjess 3y ago
> In the end what nobody realizes is that prosthetics are complete shit. Try typing on a keyboard or playing guitar for several hours with 50cm sticks tied to your fingers and see how that works out, both in efficacy and strain to your fingers. A prosthetic is more or less something like that. Please stop confusing sci-fi films with reality. I'm toothless and this right here is why I never wear my dentures, and I especially don't eat with them in. They're uncomfortable, they're made out of this soft plastic that can't rip through food the way real teeth can, they prevent me from feeling the food in my mouth, and if I were to just wear them every day I'd have to completely re-learn how to talk. At best, they just look pretty, so all I've ever done with them is take a few selfies with them in. Other than that, they suck and I don't bother with them. In fact, I have told several people that trying to eat with dentures in is like trying to type with full-finger gloves on. It's both easier and more enjoyable for me to just gum my food. And there are very, very few things I can't eat without teeth, most of which can be mitigated one way or another (and in a couple of cases, "one way" has involved a literal hammer).
- burnished 3y ago
  What did you use the hammer on?
  - rolph 3y ago
    use a meat tenderizing hammer and make schnitzel like things; crushed nut paste also. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnitzel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schnitzel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzapan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzapan
  - amyjess 3y ago
    First time was Butterfinger candy. There was a promotion in FF14 where if you bought a certain dollar value of Butterfingers and sent in a picture of the receipt they'd send you a code for a mount. I bought it expecting to not be able to eat it, just because I wanted the mount. But then I kept seeing the bag on my table and really wanted to eat it anyway. It was full of individually-wrapped pieces, so I took a bunch of still-wrapped candy, a hammer, and a bowl to the landing at the top of my stairs. I laid down on my staircase and went to town on the candy with the hammer. Once it had been thoroughly pulverized, I opened up the wrappers, poured the dust into the bowl, and then just lapped it up out of the bowl. I specifically did it on the landing and not while sitting at a table or something because I have terrible hand-eye coordination (go go developmental dyspraxia) and the hammer hit the floor more than it hit the candy. If I'd done that at a table, I'd have destroyed the table. And laying on the stairs gave me a better angle to hit it than if I'd just been sitting on the floor. The next time was cashews. I tried eating them whole but it was too hard, so I got out the hammer and went to my staircase again. Since they weren't individually wrapped I had to get creative. I wrapped them up in a paper towel as best as I could and put it on a paper plate before going to town with the hammer. With that said, it's been a couple of years since then and it wasn't until much later that I realized my jaw was still healing back then and wasn't at 100% (this was about half a year after my extractions). I could probably eat cashews without the hammer now, though I haven't tried. I still won't touch harder nuts such as almonds, even with a hammer, but it's not a big deal because my teeth were in such terrible shape for years before my extractions that I hadn't been able to eat almonds for a very, very long time.

xtracto 3y ago

I lost the distal phalanx of my thumb in my left hand when I was a kid (6 y old). I've lived my whole life without it and have had gone through the full "stages of grief" rainbow and obligatory bullying in school. Now I am 40 years old and in general my feeling is the following:I would enjoy having a prostetic phalanx which is indistiguishable from the real deal mainly to avoid "distracting" people that I am interacting with. The reaction of most adults is basically to get "distracted" and wondering at some point. I've caught a lot of thease both in public moments (while giving a talk and gesticulating with my hands, you can see into some people's eyes when they "found out", and get distracted). And in private scenarios: I play guitar (more on this later), I've had moments where I am playing with along with somebody else, and you can clearly see when they "realize" about my missing finger. Adults are usually shy/educated and don't ask about it, but it is funny seeing that "moment of silence" when they are pondering whether they should ask and I guess they get "ashamed": "did he realized I stared" ... like, after 30+ years, I don't give a fuck haha. Now, on the other hand (pun intended), I've researched about prostethics. There are some really good prosthetics which are purely visual. I've never tried those (just haven't pushed myself I guess), but what I would really like is a prosthetic that is more functional. As I mentioned, I play guitar, and one of the things that I am missing is the ability to play some Barre chords as well as I could, or doing shredding (I like to play metal) on some topmost strings, basically because I am missing the "support" that would be provided by the thumb-tip to apply the "force" (don't know if I am explaining myself haha). Also, I've always wanted to play the piano but also ... the remaining part of my thumb won't help with that haha. So, I guess in summary: for the public side I'd like the "transparent" prostethic, while for me, I'd love to have some prosthetic that would make it easier for me to play guitar haha. Or a laser pointer, or something cool... of course that may be the geek side of me talking. BTW: I caught your pun