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I wrote this up to handle one of those events where the player decides to send his character into unadvisable places. The immediate inspiration was the Night Below project, in which a character wearing rings of regeneration and water breathing might decide to take a little swim in a raging, underground river full of broken limestone stalagmites.
Regeneration ultimately derives from Jack Vance's rubbery trolls (and, arguably, the Hydra). These creatures grow back whatever extremity you care to hack off. In the case of trolls and the hydra, you can stop this process by burning the wounds shut (or otherwise cauterising them, in some house rules). This contrasts with clerical healing, which accelerates natural healing, and therefore does not restore missing body parts. (Clerical regeneration is a divine miracle that heals and restores, and so doesn't apply here.)
One question I have to ask about regeneration is - where does the extra flesh come from? Animal cells are made of a number of proteins: complex hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen chains. With bone in the mix you need calcium; haemoglobin in blood needs iron. Someone who takes a few hits in a battle can shrug all this off. Someone who loses his arm (presumably the one without the ring attached) had better have appropriate nutrients at hand, either in reserves of body fat or in a full-course meal. (Now you know why trolls are so hungry...)
Such observations are old hat in rec.games.frp.dnd. My favourite solution comes from Paul Zoski (4 March 1997): after a certain point, the body would reach a starvation level at which the effects of regeneration would peter out. The character would be very weak at this point (low Constitution) and should probably think about recovering from the starvation rather than trying the ring on again.
So much for the extent of the damage. Duration is another matter. Carl Sargent held that regeneration does not protect against pain or anguish: From the Ashes sentenced the hapless Prelate of Medegia to the "Endless Death", a years-long programme of regeneration-extended torture. A PC can experience similar pleasures by falling into a cavern river. The DM should probably roll a sanity check every now and again as the swirling watery chaos takes its toll.