No joke, but as a last ditch effort. Have you tried wearing a prosthetic, wearing clothing over it and then scratching it?

Kind of: I'm only missing my toes. So I don't normally wear prosthetics. But I do have a pair of really realistic-looking silicone prosthetics that my wife offered me years ago, that really make my feet look whole again when I put them on.

I never wear them because they're very uncomfortable and very fragile. But I figured they looked so good, I could try to fool my noggin into believing those are my real toes, then scratch the silicone and see if it has an effect.

So I sat down and stared at my siliconed up feet for a while, and even kind of felt like I could conceivably be feeling my real toes come back to a point, but when I scratched them, it was even worse because I couldn't feet the scratching and the itch didn't go away. It made it worse because it looked so much like it should do something and it emphasized all the more that it didn't.

Also, the pressure from the silicone made the pain flare up. I tried that years ago and never tried it again because it was rather unpleasant.

Also, if you can take into consideration picking up a sport as a hobby (presuming you haven’t already tried), having most muscle in your body hurting might offset the focus on only that one particular area.

Sadly it's winter now, and my usual winter sport is cross-country skiing, and I really can't do that right now. Too much pressure on the funny bits.

I did try to waste myself at the swimming pool earlier. I'm busted and kind of sore everywhere now but it's not really doing anything. It did provide respite for a couple hours because I could forget the itch while I was in the water, but if anything, it makes the cramps worse.

Right now I'm at the hotel and I've decided to try the most old-fashioned neurological distraction: hard liquor. I'm drinking myself to sleep right now. Hopefully I'll get some sleep for starters, and maybe I'll be so damn drunk the itch will let go of me for a few hours..