Botched Implant Procedure
So, I tried to implant my two M31s last night into my left middle and rings fingers. It didn't go too well.
Having never cut into myself before I had to rely @cassox's blog post and stories from here as to what I was doing. I sterilised everything, used chlorhexidine, etc., and cut in the right spot. Sort of.
My initial cut was more angled than it should have been, so from there I had to pull the skin slightly to cut downwards, which was no big deal. However, I kept looking for the 'red tissue' described by a few people where I should start making the pocket. I wasn't able to see it, at all, before I started getting deeper than I was comfortable with.
(Picture to go here. Is there any way to upload a picture from an iPhone? Simply copy/pasting doesn't seem to work).
As you will see from the pictures above, there were little white nodule/noodle type structures appearing in the cut. What are they? Should I be cutting further than that, or have I gone way too far? I didn't use lidocaine as I feel I am pretty good with pain, and it didn't turn out to be an issue, although I did notice that as I got down far enough, the incisions weren't hurting, at all. Again, is this to far? Not far enough?
Upon closer inspection of one side of the wound I saw a faint pinkish tinge to the skin about 1/4-1/2mm down. Is this the fabled 'red tissue' where I should have started making the pocket?
I'd appreciate everyone's opinion on this so I can be more informed next time, hopefully leading to a seccessful implant.
Cheers.
Having never cut into myself before I had to rely @cassox's blog post and stories from here as to what I was doing. I sterilised everything, used chlorhexidine, etc., and cut in the right spot. Sort of.
My initial cut was more angled than it should have been, so from there I had to pull the skin slightly to cut downwards, which was no big deal. However, I kept looking for the 'red tissue' described by a few people where I should start making the pocket. I wasn't able to see it, at all, before I started getting deeper than I was comfortable with.
(Picture to go here. Is there any way to upload a picture from an iPhone? Simply copy/pasting doesn't seem to work).
As you will see from the pictures above, there were little white nodule/noodle type structures appearing in the cut. What are they? Should I be cutting further than that, or have I gone way too far? I didn't use lidocaine as I feel I am pretty good with pain, and it didn't turn out to be an issue, although I did notice that as I got down far enough, the incisions weren't hurting, at all. Again, is this to far? Not far enough?
Upon closer inspection of one side of the wound I saw a faint pinkish tinge to the skin about 1/4-1/2mm down. Is this the fabled 'red tissue' where I should have started making the pocket?
I'd appreciate everyone's opinion on this so I can be more informed next time, hopefully leading to a seccessful implant.
Cheers.
Tagged:
Comments
Link to the album. The top picture is today's healing (about 20 hours after procedure).
I was using a tourniquet, but have no idea what exsanguinate is. I'll have to look that up.
So hitting adipose tissue is a tad too deep/around the right depth? How do you recommend starting the pocket. I tried briefly with some surgical scissors and felt a strand of something that was quite hard to break, so I was also unsure whether that was the right spot to start the pouch.
I used a hair tie at the base of the finger as a tourniquet, and massaged the blood out of the finger much like @aviin described in his procedure.
So, stupid question time. Everyone feel free to chime in. Is the pocket being made is between the epidermis and dermis, between the dermis and the hypodermis, or is it splitting the dermis apart? (For reference, I put my hand through a window recently and found the skin on top of my middle finger had pulled away from the underlying tissue pretty freely, and had assumed something of the sort would happen on the finger. Evidently not, though, unless I did something wrong).
I wasn't too bothered with being 100% with the blood, I just pushed down from the tip of the finger to the base a few times until the finger lost a little colour. I figured getting some of the surface blood removed quickly was better than removing most of the blood over a longer period - maybe next time I'll compare a control with pushing the blood out over the two fingers to see if it makes any difference.
As for the cut, when I made the very first incision, the cut was angled at about 45* to the skin, instead of perpendicular (90*).
As an aside, is there feeling in the hypodermis? I've had trouble finding an accurate anatomy of the fingertip to distinguish relative thicknesses and such.