2-3 cm wide by 4.5ish tall egg shaped silicone thing, does anyone know where i can find some that are body safe and whatnot?
I shot over a message asking about customs, if not would it be crazy to get some body safe silicone and make it myself?
What do you mean by body safe silicone? Where would you get it from? What type? Food grade is not implant grade
I mean it’s possible, but making a proper mold and casting your own implants with a good surface finish using non-toxic mold release isn’t exactly first timer DIY territory.
Ive molded silicone before, mever medical grade though. Found a lb for 200$, it seems like it cures but it says medical grade, i dont know if thats implant grade or not though?
Generally speaking, medical grade means that it can touch and interact with parts of the human body. Think a handle for a fancy scalpel used in surgery. It can be cleaned and can touch your organs and you’ll be fine. This does not mean it can stay in you. It is not necessarily bio compatible.
Implant grade would mean it can stay in you without your body having an immune response, it breaking down (in a short timeframe), or it leeching toxic chemicals.
If that made-up scalpel handle from before touched you and leeched just a little bit of [insert heavy metal used in the dye that was mixed into it] into you, nobody would ever know because it was just a little for just a second. If it stayed in you, it could continually leech that heavy metal into you for months or years until it is removed or you die.
Note: Another more realistic example of medical grade silicon would be the type found in many adult toys.
Dana Marie does some pretty awesome work. She is a travelling body mod artist, and she can be found at @dana_marie_dracula
I contacted her about how comfortable she would be doing our implants, and she said totally comfortable.
I’ll probably be getting with her when I’m ready to get a Flex.
Basically they grade “medical materials” for contact with the body thusly;
- limited contact
- prolonged contact
- long term contact
Each category of material also has type of contact (skin / surface, implant, etc.)
For silicone the important aspects of “long term implant grade” are the lack of contaminants, which takes a lot of effort during manufacturing. To give you an idea, “food grade” actual food has defined allowable levels of things like plastics, rodent hair, animal feces, etc. When it comes to manufacturing materials for the medical industry, entirely closed processes (no open vats, pipes and fittings properly cleaned and flushed between batches, etc.) is very difficult and expensive, but it produces materials with the least amount of external contamination.
In addition to external contamination there is chemical contamination - the remnants of reactants used in processing the material which never got fully extracted and remain in the material. These are also generally very hard to remove, so you will see even lab grade chemicals with levels of purity in the 90% - 99% range… very rarely 100%.
Working with silicone elastomer to be used for implantation purposes also requires some considerations when it comes to surface quality. For example, using a bad mold or mold release process will leave the surface of the silicone which contacts the body in a state that is rather porous and “flakey” for lack of a better word.
The subdermal placement of these implants offers some protection against these surfaces biofouling, but it is important to consider if you are producing devices for implantation.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Biofouling-on-medical-implant-devices_fig6_353979249