Neodymium Implant questions

edited September 2011 in Magnets
Hi guys, I just joined the community, and I've decided to go ahead with the Neodymium implants.

Firstly, I was wondering whether anyone had any magnets left over from previous buys that they could send to Sydney, Australia? Preferably Parylene-coated or with Sugru, otherwise I think I can get them myself.

My other question is about the procedure itself. What's the better incision tool to use for this, a scalpel or a 6-8 gauge needle? I haven't found any videos of the needle being used, but apparently it's better?
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  • @totemboy814:  The needle, definitely.  @SovereignBleak tried using a scalpel in the first attempt, and all three rejected.

    ~Ian
  • Ouch.

    Yeah I saw the discussion earlier, just wasn't sure because all the videos of procedures I had seen were with scalpels.
  • The incision for mine was made with a scalpel, but it was done by a pro, the actual placement is far away from the incision, and I did get an infection. ",)
    My spares are gone to greener pastures already, I'm afraid.
  • I would absolutely not recommend doing this, but I used an art knife (similar to a scalpel, but definitely inferior for this purpose). Everything was thoroughly sterilized with povidone-iodine beforehand. I had someone else perform the procedure, and this individual utilized medical gloves. The procedure required two incisions (the first one wasn't wide enough). After implanting the magnet, site was sutured with a single stitch (fishing line was used for this part), and the wound was kept covered by a bandage (changed daily) and was treated with antibacterial ointment multiple times per day.

    No infection, no rejection. Still have it in my finger to this day, and it's been something like six months. I believe that I used the same magnets as everyone else (just the ones from the group buy), so I don't think that there were any differences for that reason.
  • So when you guys say that you got other people to do it, do you mean you paid a professional, i.e. a professional body piercer or something? And if so, how easy was it to find one that was willing to do it?
  • OakOak
    edited September 2011
    The person who helped me is not a professional. This was the individual's first attempt at any form of surgery, though this person is fairly knowledgeable regarding medicine and medical procedure (certified EMT, doing pre-med). We are good friends, so it was not difficult to do any convincing.

    That probably doesn't help you, though. If you are going to have it done by a professional, you're on the right track - a professional body piercer or general body mod artist is your best bet. I've heard that it can be a hit or miss ordeal with trying to find one who will perform the procedure, but the more people you ask, the more likely you are to find someone who will do it.
  • Well at the moment, I'm tossing up between doing it myself with a friend's assistance and getting it done by a professional, but I'm probably going to go with the former.
  • Well, my main recommendation is to not skimp on your tools. I regret my decision to use an art knife for the incision for two reasons. The first is that it hurt. A lot. The second is that it left a scar. Not a particularly big or even noticeable one, but it probably could have been avoided/minimized with an actual scalpel.

    Also, don't use an old sewing needle for suturing. I'm pretty sure that goes without saying, but apparently some people (me) are stupid enough to use one. No matter how excited, impatient, and poor you are, it's a bad decision.
  • Still impressive that you were able to do it with just an art knife, that gives me some confidence knowing that I will have a pretty good chance of success if I have good tools.
  • Hey totem, keep us posted once you take the plunge!
  • Okay, so I think I'm pretty set on getting it done professionally now. I'm going to be in london for christmas, so I thought I'd get it done at Divine Canvas while i'm there, since it doesn't seem to be very prevalent in Australia. It is a long wait though, hopefully I don't get too impatient.
  • I suggest getting in touch with Divine Canvas and making sure someone able to do the procedure will be there - I know Iestyn does plenty of traveling, and I don't know if any of the others would do it.
  • Yeah its fine, they said as long as I told them sometime before I was coming in, I could get it done on the day.
  • They must be getting more business for these things these days, I had to pay a deposit...
  • edited September 2011
    Yeah they asked me to pay a deposit as well, but since I wasn't sure of the day I didn't want to, so I offered to pay the full amount in cash upfront instead and they said it was fine.

    But yeah, they said it was a "quick easy procedure", so I'm assuming they have a fair amount of experience and have the technique down.
  • Plan for about 3/4 of an hour, which is mostly "sit-around-and-make-sure-this-joker-isn't-about-to-pass-out" time. My appointment was at six and I was in St. Pancras for about 7.
  • @ Unqualified, and others with the implant? Has anyone ever had the urge to get the magnet out? Anything extremely unpleasant?
  • edited September 2011
    @ Unqualified so what was the actual procedure like? Did they use anaesthetic for example?
  • @implanted Do you mean to remove the magnet? If so, then definitely not. I've pinched it in rather painful ways, but never anything that made me that to get rid of it. That said, if it appears to have shattered inside my finger, or if I start seeing signs of poisoning from the coating being breached, I'm prepared to cut my finger open at a moment's notice and get it out of there.
  • @implanted: this is my wrist, from when the tattoo was fresh. What do you think the odds of me getting this implant removed are? ",) I've had the thing flip over due to being exposed to a 4-inch long stack of neodyms so powerful that allowing more than single magnets of them to freely attract will cause them to hit so hard the bottom one will shatter. I've climbed specifically to find out if I could take the pressure on it. It ain't coming out unless it goes bad, and if it does, another one's going in.
    image

    @totemboy814: lidocaine or something similar. I didn't feel any pain. I did spend a fair amount of the procedure staring at the wall, however. I'd suggest asking the guys to send you a quick run-down of the procedure they'll use, rather than ask me.
  • @Unqualified Alright, thanks for the info, sounds good so far. By the way, love the tat.
  • @Unqualified
    "I've had the thing flip over due to being exposed to a 4-inch long stack of neodyms so powerful that allowing more than single magnets of them to freely attract will cause them to hit so hard the bottom one will shatter."

    I don't even want to imagine.
  • Hey guys, new here though I've been lurking a while. I've bought everything for the implant procedure & am fairly experienced when it comes to piercings, so hopefully I can get through this fuss free. If I could just get a few opinions on things that would be great. Ok so here goes.

    What should I expect in the way of pain? I ask because if it's going to hurt like a bitch I may need to place my finger in a splint beforehand. I won't be using any form of pain relief or icing my finger as I think it's easier to work with full feeling & I actually find that cold amplifies pain, for me at least. While my lip (the 1st time anyway) and nose barely hurt, my surface piercings, imho, hurt more than breaking a bone...That may have been because it was three at the same time. Hopefully someone can provide a comparison?

    How easy is this procedure to do without assistance? I have a spotter but understandably she doesn't want any part in aiding this, just making sure I'm ok.
  • Sorry my tablet spazzed out, also how did people best sterilise sugru if they happened to use it? A spray perhaps?

    & one last query that I can think of for the moment. I think I read somewhere here that to set their magnet deeper in place after implanting they held another magnet to the back of their finger to pull it further in. I'm thinking doing this for a few minutes a few times a day (give/take) could make for a more stable deep set & maybe even rid the need for a stitch. The stitch would be replaced with a piece of leukostrip
  • @Oak: well, it came as a shock, but not much pain. Mine is roughly cubic, which might have helped.
    I'd spent the previous half-hour giving a talk on having the magnet; I think some of them finally got it when they saw me grab my hand and flinch back as if I'd touched a live wire... ",)
  • @ryuzaki_yamada

    I did not use sugru, myself, so I can offer no suggestions in that way. I imagine that it will make the final implanted object larger than what I used, so take that into account as well.

    Sterilization of all things is best done with povidone-iodine. This can be purchased at almost any store (often under the brand name Betadine). It is used for official medical surgical operations and for good reason.

    I don't know about pulling a magnet inward using this method - I don't think anyone has determined what leads to the greatest sensitivity, and it may actually help for the magnet to be closer to the surface. Not sure, though.

    I had someone carrying out the surgical portion of the procedure for me (which is to say all of it). I had initially tried inhaling nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic, but that was a failure for multiple reasons (no doubt one of them being me having never done nitrous before). That just made me feel kind of sick once the procedure began, which was obviously compounded by having my finger sliced open and blood flowing rather freely. I don't think that nitrous is good for this type of operation, anyway. Dumb idea.

    So, pain! Quite bad. I've never had any piercings, tattoos, or anything like that, but I've experienced some severe pain in my time (injecting novacaine into infected gum tissue, having a tooth filling done with no anaesthetic whatsoever, second degree burn on the entirety of my palm, etc.), and this ranks up there. I have a fairly high tolerance for pain, so it didn't affect the procedure. The real problem was the suturing portion - I used an old sewing needle (don't ever use an old sewing needle) with fishing line, and it went in without coming back out the other side. A moment of pushing really hard, and it finally poked through - only to get stuck again. Push push push, swear, grab needle-nose pliers, pull really hard, swear again, tie off the fishing line. No fun at all.

    The most difficult portion was definitely getting the magnet in. Blood is slippery stuff (surprise!). I ended up putting it in by hand, as it kept getting stuck to every tool. I should also note that the first incision was too small for the magnet to fit, to a second incision had to be made to widen the first one. I would recommend drawing the incision you plan on making on your finger so that you get it right the first time.

    And I've heard mixed things about stitches vs. everything else. I hated my stitch (it hurt like hell when it caught on anything), but it definitely aided in the healing process. A lot. The guy who writes http://feelingwaves.blogspot.com/ had an interesting hypothesis of sorts: using stitches creates a physical barrier should a magnet migrate toward the surface of the finger, where an external suture-type-thing would have no ability to halt migration. Food for thought.

    Oh, and make sure your spotter knows what to do if you pass out. I'm pretty sure it would be bad news if your finger is bleeding fairly profusely, you pass out, and then your spotter starts screaming.

    Even so, I just... that sounds awful. I get anxious around permanent magnets of any strength because of the pain of a strong, unexpected tug. But I guess if it wasn't that painful, then good. I've got one of those parylene-coated discs, so I imagine it would be a fairly different experience (if one could get it to happen at all).
    And yeah, people seem very interested in the whole magnet-in-a-finger concept, but it really seems to click for them when they see me avoiding getting my hand near a magnet or when I say "Ow!" and recoil from accidentally getting too close to a strong one. I wonder why that is...
  • Holy crap, that's like a freakin' essay. Sorry about that.

    tl;dnr

    It hurts.
  • Haha, don't worry, it's always great to read about someone's experience during the procedure, and life afterwards.

    Just a question, what do you mean by a difference between stitches and "external suture-type things"? I thought they were essentially the same.
  • Stitches through the flesh, suture-things (I think Oak is thinking of steri-strips, here) go over the top and might allow more movement in the wound.
  • @Unqualified nailed it on the head.
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