Comparitive sensitivity of magnets
My first implant was V&P Scientific 0.7mm X 3mm N42 in digit 4. My latest was one of the resin coated jobs I've been making. It's essentially a 1mm X 3mm N52 as sold by supermagnetman.com, with an extra layer of resin. The difference?
Amazing. I wrote off a lot of peoples claims before as wishful claims. You know, I really wish I could feel this so... oh hey I think I feel something. No, the N52 and N42 are night and day. This may also be related to finger choice. The 52 is in digit 3. I can literally tell the difference between ferrous and non-ferrous materials. You can feel the pull when near any appropriate metal... large speakers... etc. Much much greater sensitivity.
Comments
I just finished the grind/polish job on my first successful resin coated magnet. You weren't kidding about the difficulty involved! I gripped magnet one too loose, so the rotary tool flung it across my house (still can't find it) and I overcompensated on number 2 and cracked the resin in half across the N52 diameter with my supergrinder strength xD
my guess would be you got a very good implant position for the N52 magnet. how about putting up a drawing of where precisely it is located, how it is oriented and how deep it is in? so others can try the same spot and report results, maybe with out upgrading the magnet material so we get good data to compare against.
A drawing would be extremely helpful.
(God I'm a slavedriver... :P)
More important is actually choosing an appropriate location on the skin. Do not make any incision which crosses a joint area. Do not make a fishmouth incision across the tip of the finger. Do not make a cut into the ventral finger pad. Do not make an incision that runs perpendicular to the direction of the finger. Any of these can result in scars, and in the hand these scars can result in pain for the rest of your life. I'm not joking. Hands are a surgical specialty. People study for years just to perform hand surgeries.
The optimal way IMHO is to make the incision starting one third of the length of the distal phalanx, away distally from the last interphalangeal joint. It should be made at the divide between the dorsal and ventral surface, which can be identified as the place where the fingerprints start to fade. This isn't really the same for everyone, so if it seems too dorsal, then try to pick a place that divides that your finger just evenly into a top half and a bottom half. The incision should occur there.
The pocket is then made allowing the magnet to be slid under the skin and under the thicker skin of the ventral surface. You'll still likely want some L or R offset rather than perfectly medial. Thats about it. I'm not at home or I'd send a picture. I'll see if I can make a little diagram.
On the other hand, the second magnet I attempted to implant I was unsuccessful with. I was hoping to get better sensitivity with a tip of the finger location. I made a fishmouth incision just below the nailbed and tried to work downward. It was a terrible terrible decision. That area naturally tends to pull apart, it's thick skin and hard to cut, and I did hit the tip of the bone. I think I would have been more successful than this except... I was using my left hand. Made it real hard. lol.
I never got any infection in the area ( I was damn careful. An infection in the bone can lead to amputation rather quickly.) but it just wouldn't heal around the magnet. It kept moving around and preventing healing which was occuring very slowly. One day it worked its way out and the whole thing sealed up cleanly within a few days.
Now this is totally inadvisable. Hand surgeons totally advise against a fishmouth cut along the fingertip. I was trying to push it though in order to find the perfect location for a magnet. The nerves are very dense there, and we seldom put pressure on the very distal tip.