Say you have a flex implant of a certain size. It’s in its pocket, it’s been there for a long time and the pocket is all nice and settled. You open the pocket, take out the flex implant and install something smaller in the pocket. Does the unused area of the pocket reconnect? How long does it take for the pocket to shrink down to the size of the new, smaller implant?
I’m asking because I’m wondering if it would be a good idea to make some kind of hollow guide out of PCL plastic pressed around the new implant to pin it down and prevents it from floating around and settling where it shouldn’t, until the pocket itself shrinks around the implant and restricts its movements, and whether such guide pressing on the now-empty areas of the old pocket would impede its closing.
Hard to say things like how long because there are a lot of variables… but I believe I got my VivoKey Flex One alpha taken out after your flexNExT and I feel like mine is fully reconnected. There’s still a bit of a bulbous area where some blood got trapped… but the scar tissue has connected to itself quite nicely.
Scar tissue will be a serious pain in the ass to open up again… so likely the implant will go above or below it if you’re aiming for the same spot. Think of trying to cut sideways into a pancake made of silicone rubber… fuck that just put it overtop or whatever.
Edit: of course it’s not a pancake… it’s more like a fibrous rats nest between your skin and muscle… but you get it… kinda like smashing your way through the jungle brush. Your mod might want to avoid it as much as possible and separate dermis from scar tissue… but it would likely take a scalpel not a blunt dermal elevator… just because the scar tissue is designed to glue shit together like nobodies business.
Okay I didn’t count on scar tissue being there quite frankly If the pocket didn’t reconnect, then that’d be okay too as the implant would in fact never really settle somewhere wrong that I wouldn’t be able to push it out of.
I rather pictured Lassi resting the scalpel blade flat against the dead doNExT (or my half-dead flexM1) and slicing through the center bit that definitely has reconnected. I didn’t think the skin on top of the polymer had stuck to it. But maybe it has, in which case I figured the blade would simply separate it from the surface with the implant acting as a guide of sorts. I didn’t think he’d have to slice the doNExT in half
If he does have to scalpel out the flexM1, that will be messier than I anticipated though, as the pocket is thin and long…
Edit: Surely the skin isn’t sticking to the polymer: the flexM1 slides freely in the pocket when I push on it.
Edit2: I just got what you meant: the silicone rubber bit is not the flexNExT but the scar tissue
No it’s still in. I keep it in as a placeholder for exactly that purpose. It nearly came out a couple months ago, because I’ve had a wrist sprain since February that just doesn’t seem to resolve, and the docs are adamant that the implant has to go before they do anything about it. I nearly agreed, but in the end I decided I was having none of it so I told them to get stuffed. I’ll go back when the replacement is in.
Okay so I’ll get cracking on a suitably sized PCL guide to keep the replacement still while it reconnects
By the way, I meant to ask you: does your biopolymer dissolve in acetone or something else without damaging the circuit inside? When my flexM1 is out, I’m hoping to coax it into working one last time to get the data out by strategically bending it or pressing on it. But if it won’t play ball, I’m planning on soldering the wire back up under a microscope. But for that to happen, I’ll need to remove the coating.
Even i don’t know what it’s made of, but from my mucking around with it I can say is it is extremely chemically resistant. I haven’t specifically tried acetone, but I just had my flexDF out so I have a test subject. I’ll keep you posted next week when I do some side by side destructive testing with a 2+ years installed flexDF and a fresh IAR P1 in silicone. Should be interesting.
Nope… as stated it’s extremely chem resistant. In fact acetone exists within our bloodstream… it’s a metabolite… would be pretty shit to use material vulnerable to it … the body is full of crazy chems.
I’m almost certain that old pockets wont close. I’ve got a xG3 that was installed 7 months ago, that has a 1.5 inch pocket that it can move around in. The magnet can also move above where the injection scar is.
I took multi vitamins for a month after injection, average 10 hours of sleep per night. However my diet isn’t great, I often skip meals and have eaten instant ramen for lunch for the past year.
Okay. It’s not particularly surprising though: plain old silicone is already inert enough, and the Amal goop has extra magic baked into it, so I expect it to be even more inert.
Hopefully I’ll manage to read the flexM1. Interestingly, it still kind of works okay: some days it works all day, and then it stops, but if I push juuust right on the right spot in my hand, it comes back to life long enough to be usable.
And it seems to remain fairly “predictabily unpredictable” that way: I mean I could do that for a short while with the dying flexNExT too until it died for good. But my flexM1 really does seem to have some sort of reliable on/off feature now. I’d be almost tempted to leave it in if I didn’t know it’s a complete fluke and it might quit working forever tomorrow.
Anyhow, point is, I think I’ll have a fair chance to read the data off of it once it’s out without peeling off the magic goop. And in case you wonder why I can’t read it right now when it’s on a good day, it’s because I lost the keys and I need to stay motionless in an inconvenient cramp-inducing position for 15 / 20 minutes to nested-attack the keys, otherwise it stops working. Annoying…
Are you sure the pockets aren’t being kept open by your natural body movements?
My flexM1 installed between the pinky and ring finger metacarpals too can slide in its oversize pocket about 1/4", but there’s a good reason for that: when I bend my wrist up, the fold in my wrist pushes it forward. If I extend my fingers, the tendon that runs across the metacarpal heads pushes it backward (and if I do both, then it’s wedged in-between and the pocket is just long enough to contain it, luckily). So all day long, it slides back and forth and keeps the pocket open.
Depending on where your implants are, they might be doing the same sort of thing.
If the pocket didn’t reconnect, then that’d be okay too as the implant would in fact never really settle somewhere wrong that I wouldn’t be able to push it out of.