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Girl, 5, chews her fingers until there are none
XIAN (Shaanxi) - A five-year-old girl chewed off all her 10 fingers in three years after a fever that is believed to have damaged her nerves so she could not sense pain.
The girl, named Yuanyuan, began chewing on her fingers at the age of two, the Huashang Daily reported.
Her grandparents, with whom she lives in a village in north-west China's Shaanxi province as her parents work in a distant town, tried to stop her finger-chewing habit but she would return to it when they were not watching.
'She went from her index to ring fingers until finally all her fingers were gone,' said her grandfather.
A nurse was quoted as saying: 'Most children would kick their finger-chewing habit with parental help. Such a case was unheard of before.'
Some villagers believe Yuanyuan was trying to relieve an itch on her fingers while others said her pain nerves might have been damaged after she suffered a month-long fever when she was two.
A doctor who examined her suspected that the fever brought on cerebral palsy.
As a result, both her brain and nerve endings were damaged, blocking the sensation of pain when she bit her fingers.
