Fingernail implant site

I know the standard location for magnet implants is in the pad of the finger, but the area under the fingernail is a lot more sensitive because a) it's shielded from direct contact and so doesn't lose sensitivity the way the pad does and b) there are more nerve endings so the area can respond to pressure transmitted through the fingernail. With that in mind, I was wondering if it might be practical to trim the fingernail back by about three quarters, implant a magnet, and let the nail grow back over it.

Comments

  • edited March 2018

    No. Implanting under the fingernail would 1. Mess up the keratin cells that grow your nail, that in itself may ruin your ability to grow a nail. 2. The nail may grow into your skin. 3. Rejection would probably push off your nail. 4. Infection would require you to remove the nail and pull out the infected bit(or treat it) thus pretty much ripping your keratin cell layer to shreds.
    That's all I can think of at the moment. It is an interesting idea and could flesh out, but the excess of ways that could go wrong honestly scares me.

    EDIT: All the nerves under the nail would be shredded by implanting, you could end up with no feeling in your finger or more, or even unending excrutiating pain for the rest of your life.

  • Lol not to mention implanting there i think would hurt like 3x more

  • True but anaesthetics are a thing.

  • If only there was a perfect magnet out there that could last a lifetime and a way of safely getting the magnet there without shredding the nerves, maybe from the fingertip and insert under the nail without removing it, Then I'd be in.

  • If only we could do a neodymium liquid with a carrier that would preclude the body from damaging the neodymium. Then you could inject into the location instead of having to hack the finger apart to insert the magnet.
  • with the potential to get said liquid into your bloodstream causing massive havoc? I'd rather recommend against that.

  • Well the liquid would just be a carrier, like ferrofluid, which is essentially crushed magnet in a carrier fluid. I'm this case it would need to be large enough that it couldn't make it's way to the blood stream and at first thought maybe the carrier fluid wouldn't be able to be absorbed either. Although, maybe it would be beneficial if it did get absorbed to eliminate any space between the magnet bits.

    I mean it's a bit of work obviously, but it would help eliminate the issue of the magnet getting damaged and the mangling the finger part. It's not as far fetched as it sounds, the only issue would potentially attempting to coat the magnet bits in something thin enough, but I don't know that I have the time to fully flesh out the idea.
  • so you'd be left with tiny little pieces of material. The body usually doesn't like small particles either. I'd not be aware of any suited carrier fluid or coating for the tiny magnetic bits. If we had a good coating we'd already be using it. Also keep in mind that having small particles will lower your ratio between magnetic volume and the volume of the coating, decreasing performance.
    Further i would not recommend to use the space under the fingernail for magnetic sensing anyway. The mechanism which allows you to feel magnets is abusing your fingertips ability to sense the tiny vibrations generated by your fingerprint pattern. Moving away from the skin on your fingertips the density of mechanoreceptor cells drop off very fast and you'll get less sensation.

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