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Magnet Implantation Procedures: Locations other than fingers
I know that @cassox and many others have shared implanting procedures for fingertip magnets, but I've also heard that some people have gotten magnets implanted in their wrists. Has anyone worked on developing a DIY implant procedure for magnets in areas other than fingers?
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What do you mean a DIY implant procedure? That's what we're all doing; do you mean having it written down? If so, I've got that on my blog here: http://jacksbrain.com/neodymium-magnet-implantation-and-biohacking/magnet-implant-surgical-plan/. It's more of a todo for my surgery than a procedure, but hopefully it's somewhat what you're looking for? As for non fingertip locations, I would think the prime areas would be nerve rich, like fingertips, face, and genitals - to be honest, I only feel remotely safe operating on one of those :P
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I meant not performed by a professional. And I didn't mean where you could implant them, I was wondering how.
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If you go for the wrist, make sure it's the forearm-side.
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Nipples maybe?
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I actually considered nipples, with them being nerve rich and all. Just didn't seem like an appealing or easy place to operate, plus I'd rather sense fields by moving my hand closer than bringing them to my nips.
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So, Any particular way you'd try implanting there? Use a piercing needle, perhaps?
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I used to have nipple piercings, then my nipple literally fell off! (Partialy, a little bit of skin was holding it) Then I took my nipple, put it back where it was and after 2 weeks it was just like new haha, so that could be a way maybe, cut a part of your nipple or expand it then let it close with the magnet inside, that could lead to a LOT of risk of getting it infected, but I think it could work.
Sorry for the gross history -
Using a piercing needle for a magnet implant is not the greatest idea.Look at it this way: standard procedure is a (relatively) gentle procedure of making a pocket and tucking a magnet inside. Yeah, I know. That is the gentle procedure...Using a punch needle for implant is basically stuffing the magnet into a place. No lube, no reach around. Having someone (yourself or a professional) do this procedure properly, makes your body way more happy.It's basically like getting your ears pierced professionally vs getting the punch gun from hot topic.
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I'm wondering what the viability of placement in the feet would be. Perhaps on the outer side, similar to the outer side of the hand. Something tells me there are fewer nerve endings in the feet vs the hands, but I'll need to do a quick spot of research on that.
The placement seems like it would be interesting in a subway and wire laden city.
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Lots of nerve endings in the feet.The question you should ask yourself is : how close do i need to get my finger implant to feel something? can *other implant site* get that close to *wire embedded in floors, walls, etc*
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Feet sound interesting but they definitely take more impact than hands; getting it deep enough that it's safe, but able to heal well somewhere on the foot could be a challenge.
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Unless you hobble around on one foot for a couple weeks.
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as far as object damage goes, if you have a proper coating, then it should be fine no matter where you put it. as far as your body goes, it will probably not be keen on having that ish in a foot, but people deal with worse.again, interesting and worth the effort are two separate things. you gonna be hobbit footing it in new york subways when they have replaced the concrete floors with cardboard? if not, then it doesn't make sense.
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Very good points. Not sure I'll have the self control to be completely off my feet for more than a day, let alone a number of days.
I've been looking into an older mod done where the gentleman in question implanted magnets into each triagus and sent signals to it via a coper wire 'necklace'. I wonder if something similar could be done with copper wire bracelets to send waves to my hand magnets, and maybe attach sensors to a pair of boots to pick up various details. Accomplishes the same goal, with fewer glass shards and needle sharps in my feet :)
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That would be @DirectorX. I'm sure if you pm him, he can give you more details
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Nose or eyebrows may be good you could sense it by facing something.
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Please experiment with the range on the magnets before you consider novel places to put them.
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I've been reading through the forums and have been wondering, could the palm of the hand be a viable option? Or perhaps the meaty bit between the thumb and forefinger? That way it would keep it int he hand and near nerves but far enough away that it'd be harder to break it? As to the wrist idea it should be trivial enough to design a bracelet to amplify signals but I wonder if there are enough nerves to feel anything natively?
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I'm doubtful of it being sensitive enough between the thumb and forefinger to feel anything, it might work, but that area is reserved for RFIDs anyway
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I was tinkering with the idea of doing a trip set. pinky, middle and then wrist. and maybe a 4th in the thumb. A project im working on would allow 4 different stimuli or 3 all to one hand that way, almost like the 3 colors. so that combined it would give an entirely new sense. Basically a gadget that would fit on top. or it could be as simple as each being stimulated would indicate that a function of another cybernetics piece was functioning at the moment.
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I have heard the under the big toe nail is a decent place to put one but I'll admit I'm not man enough to make an incision under my toenail that would be crazy pain full.I also know a couple that have implants in both of their genitals and while it may not seem so appealing to " wave you magic wand" about to pick up magnetic fields they have both given rave reviews to the use of and induction coil to enhance certain pleasurable activities. I'll let your mind go ahead and run with that one...
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@drjaaz nice nuclear reactor you got there :) I've just recently been studying Farnsworth's ideasHow did you plan on manually stimulating the magnets? If you were wearing a glove then you'd have more implant options since you'd be able to amplify the signal for areas with less sensitivity...you probably already realized that though.
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Fair warning with nuclear science, its more dangerous than this in a sense and is bloody expensive but if you can try, go for it cause it'll teach you more things than you can imagine. Im actually designing a full body system in pieces. all the bits work together of course but also on their own. This bit in particular would work with the arm piece. as the design stands it covers the hand, forearm and up to the mid bicep. the stimulation coils would be in the "glove" and wrist areas, the latter being more complicated du to movement issues but i digress. Stimulation would be through simple EM coils. that way you could get a pulse periodically to notify you of a system running but still have acess to the magnet sense between pulses or even a set of pulses for notification of turning off and a different set to notify of turning on.
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It's not something I plan on dabbling in anytime soon heh, just interested in the knowledge for now. A full body system would be one heckuva project and I'd love to see it get done. Too many ideas on here never come to fruition either due to immediate negative feedback(although sometimes we all need it ha) or lack of stick-to-it-iveness. Sounds fairly straightforward though, a reed switch in the palm of the hand device could act as a button too if you need feedback activated by a magnet.Of course there's the fact that the notification and feedback could both be done with standard components like buzzers and actual buttons respectively, but the former has moving components and latter could be mis-triggered more easily than a reed switch...that's good enough reasoning for the engineer in me and I'm guessing your project will become more complicated in time anyways?
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the idea being that the feedback would in a sense become a part of you. so if you had 3 different stimuli it would as i said be akin to 3 different colors. give you a wider sensory perception.
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@DrJaaz, You mention a magnet a possible magnet onyour thumb, let me share my experience. I have a haworth magnet on the outside of my thumb, between the top and middle knuckle (in addition to the near-standard magnet in the tip of the ring finger). It's wonderfully out of the way for normal thumb activities, though it protrudes slightly underneath the skin, and is more sensitive than my ring finger magnet. If that position works for your device, I recommend that placement.
Also, just in case you haven't heard, you may want to look up Grindhouse Wetware's Bottlenose project, sounds very similar to what you are suggesting, -
Ya the bottle nose project i've looked at and it is sort of what im basing the concept on only i hope to take a few steps further.
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A couple of answers:Implanting a magnet subcutaneously is inherently problematic because they are prone to move in response to magnetic fields. This is what provides the tactile feedback you are after; the magnetic doesn't directly give input to nerves. Rather, the motion of the magnet is transduced to neural impulses by nearby mechanoreceptors in the fingertip. The fingertip has a high concentration of specialized mechanoreceptors such as Pacinian corpuscles and Meissner's corpuscles that are specially adapted to transduce mechanical energy into sensory impulse. This is probably why you have achieved some success with "feeling" magnetic fields via fingertip implants. These receptor types dramatically decrease in their density of distribution as you move proximally along the limb from the fingertips towards, say, the wrist or top of the foot. If you implanted the magnets at some other, less specialized area of the body; for instance in the chest or abdominal wall, it is unlikely you would feel much at all in response to movement of the magnet (or at least a far diminished sensation) because of the lack of specialized mechanoreceptors.Further, in terms of safety, movement of the magnets as they are stimulated means they pose a high risk for eventual extrusion. The body will wall them off with a capsule in the first place and continual movement, especially if they are located close to the skin, is likely to cause them to eventually work through the insertion scar and become exposed. I can only speculate that this doesn't happen more frequently in the fingertips again because of a specialized property of the fingertip pulp/pad - there are dense fibrous septae extending from the dermis right down to the bone that stabilize the pulp and keep it from shearing with tight grip/pressure. Perhaps these septae, when healed after the trauma of insertion, provide an additional barrier to extrusion for the magnet.Finally, the fingertip is privileged because there are macroscopic structure of value (beyond what I just described) that would cause dysfunction of a more distal part.... also, this is because the fingertip is as distal as you can get in the body... so, essentially, if you screw it up, you only screw up your fingertip and nothing worse. Fingertips are notorious good at healing - even if you accidentally amputate one, we typically just allow them to heal on their own and the healing is so satisfactory that it approaches regeneration - search the web for news stories about 'pixie dust' porcine bladder extracellular matrix that purportedly allows people to 'regrow fingertips!' .... In reality, your fingertips achieve similar healing without any added pixie dust.So, for the reasons above, the fingertip is a very privileged place for what you are all trying to accomplish. The reasons above are also very likely the natural and underlying explanation for the phenomenon that fingertips seem to be the most commonly reported place for a magnetic implant chosen by people who are operating on essentially trial and error.For all the reasons above, I would caution you greatly from implanting anything more proximal than your fingertip unless you are a surgeon experienced in operating in that area. Particularly in the wrist and dorsal foot, the chances of you hurting something you do not want to hurt and causing lasting detrimental effects to your hand or foot (chronic pain, numbness, dysfunction) skyrocket. Even with some of the procedures outlined for fingertip self-surgery via the links above (e.g. making midaxial incisions along the lateral finger to implant a magnet), you risk injuring important structures such as the digital nerve or artery, and I'm surprised that more people haven't reported these types of issues.But enough of negativity. This post is getting long. I understand that many of you are interested in having implants in places other than fingers. I am interested in devising a way to do such a thing, although I doubt that simple implantation of magnets is the right way to go.It would be unethical for me to start listing directions for how you could operate on yourselves in dangerous areas, but I have an idea for how to get this started:Would anyone be interested in participating in a registry study? The goal would be for people to list the biohacks they've already performed, along with their expectations, results, complications, etc. so that we can assess the 'state of the field.' Along with this, we could tally a second 'registry' of sorts to define what sort of implant (and where) people are interested in having but lack the surgical knowledge to achieve.I would collect the data anonymously and publish it in an article on this emerging field in a medical journal. Then I would begin the process of navigating how we can make it medically acceptable to the larger community for you all to have these things done as safely as possible, as elective surgery, in much the way people have cosmetic surgery done today.Just a thought.
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Why not just say it? Why go through all of that to make the info available? Tell how to do it and people will understand it (hopefully) and proceed to do the surgery, with or without your info they will do it, so it will be better to have info
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@Jack_Sylvane As far as short-term goals go, you are correct. NeoSapiens could provide info on certain implant locations and possibly save some people the hassle of messing it up, which is definitely a plus. However that could discount their credibility amongst the medical community and the proposition in front of us could have amazing(!) implications for the future. Many of our far-fetched ideas are considered so because of the location required for the implant. If surgeons were given the 'go-ahead' by the medical community to assist in implantation of certain devices it would cover what I consider our largest roadblock for truly beneficial implants. Having the ability to consult medical professionals on our implants would lead to a whole new era of biohacking possibilities. Please contact me if you'd like specific examples...of all the threads on here at the moment I consider this one of the most beneficial to the community (along with the lab manual, but in a different sense).
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