Parylene Coated Magnet Implants

edited December 2016 in Magnets
I found some magnets on SuperMagnetMan that look pretty good, they are a good size for implant and are rated N52. I was previously planning on coating a magnet in rhodium, but I haven't found a jeweler who is willing to do this. Parylene should be safe to implant though, right? As long as there is no defect in the coating? These guys seem to think so. 
I would of course examine the magnets under a microscope and test them in a saline solution before implanting. Just wondering if anyone has had much success with this, and if it is safe.


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Comments

  • edited December 2016
    Some people have reported Parylene magnets to be the most stable, some have had better luck with the TiN coated flavors. ^^

    Parylene, if I understand correctly, is one of the more ideal choices. However, in terms of long term use, I have heard stories about it breaking down when measured in years. I think in terms of coatings, it's meant to be a temporary', and is not suggested for more than 1 year. :o

    Please do use gravimetric/salt water testing. Please do optical examinations. Stress and strain and make sure the magnets are actually good. ANY failure is TOTAL failure, when it comes to magnet coatings. ><
     


    Have no experience with that company, but honestly, if you do go with buying from them, pretend like every magnet is compromised. Assume 100% failure until otherwise validated. ^^

    Realistically, expect most to fail. That is normal. 
  • I don't know where people get these suggested numbers for how long parylene is good for. I think I'm at 3 years on mine. Others should have had theirs longer. Put a good one in and take care of it, and you'll be fine. I've had more trouble with my 3 TiN magnets than either of my parylene coated ones.

    @masterjasper This has been talked about many times before. A quick search for "parylene" on the forum should find you a lot of information. If the forum search isn't too great, you can just use google to search for that keyword on the site: https://www.google.com/search?q=site:biohack.me+parylene&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8
  • The few failures I have read about comes to mind between about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 years, from coating failures. Though, not all magnets are made equally...

    I get this number from the Wiki, where it advises using Parylene for no more than a year. It's the only source that I have in regards to what is a 'proper' timeframe for it's use.

    I have heard of people having parylene's that seem better than TiN counterparts, but the opposite has been true too with some people. In the end, It might be down to the "too many variables". x-x

    Sorry. Not enough information. ><
  • I can't think of the person who has it but can the record keeper of mag implants please enlighten us on this subject? Perhaps a quick break down of % failure over amount of years with coatings?
  • edited December 2016
    I think most of the failures that are contributed to parylene is more so to do with the quality and procedures of the coating rather than the material itself, I have a large implant coated in parylene, I have had it for a year now and it likely won't be taken out for 6 or so years how ever this was coated in a state of the art facility, now not some grinders basement.
  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VPZb6u3EsDrz4cCF-6qq2FlSABoUjVjTSqUuesUTepE/edit#gid=0

    On a related note, I think it would be helpful if this were pinned somewhere to be continually updated for the sake of record-keeping.
  • edited December 2016
    I have heard a little evidence to suggest it's a bad material, but in at least two different cases I have seen critical failure. though, it could have had very much to do with the quality of coating. :s

    I'm simply erring on the side of caution... Especially with where most people seem to get their their magnets... From much lower quality distributors... >~<


    @tbaleann, if parylene does act the way I would expect it to, from how some people have described failures, if you experienced a sudden failure in the next year or two, it's doing the exact same thing that some other people's have. :c


    Not forecasting or saying it's bad, simply comparing observed failures to try to see if there's something that can/could have been done to improve success.  ^^
  • Ooh @rpyka is right, ignore me
  • edited December 2016
    @zerbula And that's fine to err on the side of caution, but it's the one year thing that annoys me. I've removed that whole "important note" from the wiki. There was no source for that information, and the editor who added it didn't leave their username. This is right from the top of the parylene wikipedia article (linked in the wiki,) and has a source cited if you want to check it out: " It is the most bio-accepted coating for stents, defibrillators, pacemakers and other devices permanently implanted into the body."

    Looking at the spreadsheet and excluding the ones used for testing, I see 20 rejected m31s and 26 successful ones. (And one of those 26 has been giving me a little trouble recently.) That's not looking too great for TiN, and the m31s were intended for implantation.
  • edited December 2016
    Agree on all aspects, except that it's not possible to say all those M31's have failed specifically because of coatings; rather, if they were Parylene, would they have taken? >~<

     I'm not advocating there aren't coating advantages or disadvantages. But it needs to be addressed that the variables make closer to 45%ish failure rate can't be positively confirmed to be exclusively caused by the coating's composition, just from the chart. :s

     I don't have enough exposure to Parylene to understand it's durability and longevity in the body, especially in a finger tip... *Not a doctor* x_x
  • Oh yeah, my bad there. I didn't really mean to say TiN itself is bad (clearly it isn't since not all m31s failed.) I just found the 45% failure rate for the m31 interesting since those were meant to be implanted and I'd expected those to be tested before shipping. I'm wondering if some of those rejected m31s had defects that would have
    been caught by testing/inspecting them before implanting.
  • I'm going to be a lot more inclined to say it was probably a failure or complications with the procedure of implanting. ^^'

    Or some form of trauma or complication after the fact that caused damage and failure.
  • Thanks for your replies everyone. I ordered some of these magnets to test and inspect them further, and attempt an implant if I find a good one. I'm just getting tired of waiting for TiN coated magnets to become available again. I'll update with how the testing process goes.
  • edited December 2016
    @Zerbula The issue with the graph that shows a lot of them failing doesn't show the thousands of pacemakers and other implants that stay in till battery loss when another is put in so I feel fairly safe with my implant unless I mess around magnets or emps and turn mine off.
    Edit: just realised the saying "magnet or emps" is redundant but I will leave it in because realising our own mistakes is how we improve.
  • but @tbaleann , Magnets from supermagnetman aren't made to those specifications, either. One can buy a hundred at once easily for a reason... ><


    If something isn't done properly, be it design, manufacturing, implanting, care, materials used, bodily needs... There will be a failure. ^^'

    Pacemakers,implanted by skilled surgeons and manufactured openly by medical standards that have been tested, shows that Parylene is a biocompatible coating. Titanium Nitride has the same background in use of synthetic joints with wonderful success. 

    The difference is their application... Does it work small scale in a more stressing environment, with thinner coatings, more movement, different coated materials, and exposure to possible stress. Is the surgeon (who may be the same person as the patient) implanting it correctly in the right space with the right tools, and not causing damage to the magnet in question?  Pacemakers don't have any place on our graph. ><


  • edited December 2016
    @Zerbula: With that kind of standard though, the only thing that should have a place would be implants specifically for fingers, whether it be TiN or Parylene. Which means we would need data on parylene finger implants, which means someone needs to test them.

    Plus since we are also talking about the skills of the surgeon themselves we can only consider the data done by the exact same person on themselves plus on other people, which seriously limits the amount of usable data. Not even clinical trials for medical devices have that kind of standard.
  • All of this is what makes it really hard to gauge results, effectiveness, etc... ^^'

    That's the jist of why I say 'too many variables for the chart to mean one thing or another in direct correlation to a single variable.' ;_;
  • edited December 2016
    Not really though. Animals models have given us enough of an idea to see how bad things can get in a human body that we can use it to determine drug and medical device safety. This is how new drugs and medical devices (implants etc) gets developed.

    Also, knowing how much you can extrapolate from imperfect data is a must-have skill. Otherwise you'll never be able to do anything new since there is never exact data available. Research is always shooting in the dark (with known information as a guide).
  • @IvoTheSquire A key to data analysis is recognizing that correlation does not imply causation- like Zerbula said, there are a lot of variables at play
  • edited December 2016
    @misslitty Exactly. ><

    That chart, IMO, does not tell me anything in regards to Parylene or TiN being an ideal coating or not. In observed theory from other applications, both should be perfectly suitable. All that chart tells me Is that about 45% of the people who have M31's implanted have had it reject. It does not explain WHY.

    Did the person sterilise all of their equipment correctly? Do they have a unique allergy to TiN? Was the wound exposed to ocean or pool water before it healed? Was the implant site probed by a doctor or impacted before it could completely seal? Was the coating damaged prior to implanting? Did they apply Triple Antibiotic ointment, and how often? What kind of temperature was their finger exposed to during implanting, during healing and post healing? Did the person have any illness pre or post implanting? Was the magnet exposed to any high flux during healing? How much was the implant agitated post healing? Was the implant site shielded or armored with a brace post healing? Was the implant site ever exposed to an electric shock during healing? Does the owner have any pets that could introduce some kind of foreign debris, such as saliva, hair, fecal debris, into or near the implant site? 

    Like... The amount of things the chart DOESN'T account for, that could possibly cause failure, is staggering... I recall someone had their M31 autoclaved pre-implanting and it failed a year and a half later without warning, and everything else had been done perfectly. It had acted just fine until then... ><


    Many, if not all, of these same questions can be asked about the other magnets. and the twenty million fold other things that could happen...


    Optimal conditions with a huge amount of variables controlled, in a completely sterile medical environment with a perfect M31 or Haworth silver, surgerey done by someone well versed, have still failed and rejected simply because of physiology. These implants, from what I have seen, are still a little bit of an educated gamble, even with all things done perfectly. ;_;
  • edited December 2016
    @misskitty: Of course. But recognizing limitations and completely disregarding data are two different things. What I am saying is that given limitations of resources and ethics we can almost never have perfect medical data, and completely disregarding data that is even slightly flawed is going to set us up for stagnation and unable to improve, unless we start doing things that are highly unethical (anyone up for a Unit 731 re-enactment with the human experimentations?).

    It will always be a risk and a gamble. Thing is available data provides a guide to minimize that risk. Pacemakers are completely different to finger implants, that is true, but when there is zero / not enough data available on the parylene implants for fingers should we consider the results from the pacemakers? We might have to unless we have something better. A flawed guide is better than no guide.

    What I am seeing here sounds like "I am not going to consider any data about parylene implants unless it is made by the same person implanted by the same surgeon on the same patient one the same finger on the same time" which pretty much limits to one data set at best.
  • edited December 2016
    The data was never implied to not be taken into consideration. Simply not taken to heart. ^^'

    Again, we KNOW parylene is a good place to start because it has worked well for pacemakers and many other things. That's why the idea coat a magnet in parylene is even being a tested and debated ideal at the moment, and why people have them implanted with success, with the anecdotal stories and numerical evidences present.

    We KNOW that TiN is a good type of coating to experiment with because of it's consistent success in applications with artificial joints, and we have seen, according to that chart with no other reference, at least a 50% success rate on a random sampled average among people in this community. :3

    But we do not know why there have been some failures on either part. There is not enough data to explain why there are some failures, or rather, why the failures were failures and why the successes were successes.
  • misslitty - good idea to pin it. I just did so.
  • edited December 2016
    @Zerbula: Then what did you mean by "pacemakers have no place in our graph"? That sounds like a complete rejection of pacemaker data to me.
  • edited December 2016
    @ivothesquare

    Pacemakers have no place in our chart for magnets. Nor do they have a place in our rfid chip chart. One could argue the misc. chart, but is anyone sporting a home made piece maker? ^^

    We should be referring to a 'FDA complaint/certified' pacemaker chart, because of the differences in manufacturing, implanting, and the conditions of their operation and environment. ^^

    The data should not be mixed. Data from pacemakers is not data for magnets. This does not mean it had no relevance, but needs to be proven and tested, then it can be part of the magnet chart. There are variables and conditions and differences that need to be differentiated between. ^^

    A two and four stroke gasoline engine have much in common; their constructions make interchanging fuels usually disastrous. Accordingly, we make sure to carefully differentiate their fuels to avoid critical failure, despite the huge similarities in being engines.

    So yes, pacemakers designed by teams of engineers, manufactured and tested to established standards, and implanted by trained surgeons shouldn't be grouped with single run manufactures, implanted by untrained recipients, if we want useful data that's completely accurate and completely relevant to us. ^^'

    And again, these charts also do not explain every variable of everything going wrong. These charts, for example, should not be used to validate or disqualify a specific material as being 'good' or 'bad'; It does not control the variables to say that. >~<



    Absolutely NONE of this is to say that these charts have no purpose. They are extremely valuable, and any relevant knowledge should be taken into consideration. ^^
  • edited December 2016
    The thing is though: do we have enough data with that kind of specificity to generate any useful conclusion? The google docs linked, as far as I can see, only seem to include less than 50 data points. By comparison, phase III trials involve something in the thousands of patients. And that is not including meta-analysis that would analysis hundreds if not thousands of studies. We simply do not have enough data of that specificity to essentially say anything really. So either we don't have enough data to say anything, or the data is not relevant enough. 

    I would rather argue "use at your peril" is better than saying "exclude this and that" when our data is this limited at this moment in time.

    Edit: I would also like to add that since we're onto the quality of the surgery itself our methods of implantation seem to vary quite a bit: the wiki recommends using stitches but all the magnet implantation videos I saw on youtube uses glue for the wounds instead. And that does not include those who would not do their research beforehand or ignore what other people have said. Given that, I would say that extrapolating any information that is to be that useful is literally impossible.
  • edited December 2016
    Agreed, And what I am trying to stress isn't the aspect of the data to be ignored. But the sheer amount of variables that are present, even such as the choices between anesthetic or not, sutures or adhesives, Parylene or TiN... It does not let this chart reflect "Highest success rate" or "Best magnet", or even "Best place to place magnet" or "average lifespan"...

    I simply do not want to see people take the data as a definitely proven variable, as many people are likely to do. ><
  • edited December 2016
    Oh god no. That would be a disaster if people do that.

    But what I'm trying to say is that excluding pacemaker data is not necessarily going to improve anything eitherr: I would say that it would make it worse since that means there is less "known" data. Data that is less relevant to the purpose is still better than not enough data. The former at least you can extrapolate something.

    At the very least with pacemaker / professional implants data we can still say "this is kind of what happens for parylene and TiN across the board for professionally made implants plus surgeon skill levels and procedures". I don't think there's enough data specifically for self-implantation with less-than-perfectly made magnets to even attempt to say anything (last I checked the google doc has only 5 data points for parylene magnets. Five! CI? What is that?).
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