Did you suddenly feel the urge to pick up a guitar and play Smoke on the Water since you got the implant?
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More of a Highway Star guy myself, to be honest
Well at least you have the color to back it up. Me, no such luck: I never really liked Donovan 
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Are you saying all issues are done with your implant? There is no more fibrous stuff in it? Your skin feels normal and thin again?
I guess I feel like you have a super body if you healed all that up that quick.
Yes.
You know when you get a cold, you feel sick and shit for a few days, and one morning you wake up and you “know” it’s over? Sure your body is still kind of righting itself up a bit after being all messed up by the virus, but you clearly feel like it’s just the last formality to get back to normal and the fight has been won.
Hard to describe, but my implant feels like that since Wednesday. Whatever that mini-rash was was the last hurrah of whatever my body was fighting (itself, probably). Now it’s in the finishing up stage: largest blob of collagen is 3/4 gone, it’s totally gone from the center hole, and I still feel a tiny bit of skin pull in extreme hand positions. But it’s finally done. I can definitely feel it. My arm even looks almost normal again, as the collagen continues to vacate the area slowly.
Anyhow, re skin thickness and whatever might be underneath, the pocket has been totally drained of fluid by my couch marathon last weekend. When I went see the doc on Monday and she was feeling around the implant, she even asked me if it hurt because it felt so thin on the edges. Believe me, it is very thin, very dry underneath and fully attached to the implant.
I’m pretty sure the color I see now is permanent. Or maybe it’ll shift some, but it’s not going to go yellow-yellow. I’ll know for sure as time passes, but I can “feel” it - if that makes any sense.
Of course, if I’m wrong and it does show yellow eventually, I shall light a candle, drop on my knees and say a prayer to ask Master Amal’s forgiveness for my sins
do you have a photo of your doNExT in the squishpack ?
Squishpack? You mean the baggie it came in?
yeh
Did you mean this
or his body squishpack
yep that’s it.
ok… so… I’ve been thinking about this rash problem because in all my years of selling things have I never seen rashes like this (and @Az_F)… I mean it just kept gnawing at me … why would there be this kind of reaction in such a high percentage of people getting these large flex when it’s the same materials used for other flex… and I think I figured it out… and it sucks and I’m pissed at myself.
The small flex used to ship in tubes. The tubes were ok, but the o-ring was not perfect and would not contain the chlorhex and alcohol long term… eventually it would all sneak out… but when it came time to start shipping much bigger flex devices, it would no longer do anyway… so I came up with the “squishpack” concept… a traditional sterilization pouch heat sealed inside a thick poly bag with chlorhex. The pouches have this little adhesive flap that let you slide the device in, then close it up. Normally these go in an autoclave, but since we can’t autoclave I just use it to ensure the device is still able to be minimally handled once removed from the poly bag without contamination. It worked well and let the installer drop the pouch out and let everything “dry” and then still be able to handle the pouch on the field until they open it and drop the device to the field itself.
Well, the first squishpacks I made also had a leakage problem… turns out the heat sealing I was doing on the poly was being rushed and vapor was trapping itself in the plastic bead and allowing a kind of osmosis bridge for alcohol to slowly leech out. I ended up revising my heat seal approach, and in the process, decided to also stop using the adhesive flap and just cut it off and heat seal the pouch itself too.
After thinking hard about this rash issue, I realized that the only actual difference here is the sterilization pouch… and the fact that it has this adhesive flap.
A while back I put some pouches into bags with nothing inside and put different types of antiseptics inside including chlorhex, isopropyl, and ethenol (with denaturing agent). After the discussion about how strange bodies are acting I pulled these out and started looking at the adhesive flap. It turns out that the mixture of chlorhex and denatured ethanol, which I was using in these packs, basically breaks the adhesive down (which is mostly galactomannan polysaccharide and soy based) and puts a tiny film of it all over the inside of the poly bag… and presumably the implant as well. The chlorhex with isopropyl did not do this, but it made the adhesive basically puff up like a sponge, which is really odd.
So basically @anon3825968 when you asked if I rubbed the implants on a cat before shipping, in a way they actually were tainted. The adhesive itself is supposed to be “medical grade” and non-toxic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an allergic reaction to it… and I think that’s what was happening here… so while your body was basically fighting to absorb and remove it, you were both getting rashes and odd reactions.
This really is a horrible oversight by me and I sincerely apologize to you and everyone who may have implanted devices with this problem. I estimate I shipped about 25 or so such devices, and so far the only rashes or difficulties I’ve heard of are @anon3825968 and @Az_F, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any other cases.
If anyone has had an adverse reaction to a flex device sold in the last 6 months, including flexM1, flexMT, flexDF2, and flexNExT… please contact me. I want to hear about your case.
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Okay. Thanks a lot for your candor. Like I said before, that’s why I keep coming back here: I value honesty and I sure get plenty of it here.
That said, don’t beat yourself up in my case, because that rash lasted 12 hours, happened over 3 weeks after the implantation, was barely visible, and went away almost as fast as it came in. Whatever it was, it was probably not a film of allergen on the implant - not that long after the install. Azflyer’s case might be different though.
Now that you explained this though, I’m beginning to wonder if the collagen flareups, tendon adherence, skin stickiness and various other general weirdness might have been caused by this. Unlikely, as it all started exactly two weeks after the install, and half an hour after getting the stitches out. If all this was caused by something external, it must have been a bug on the stitches that got in and instantly got to work on my case. But who knows…
Thanks for the detailed explanation in any case. I really do appreciate.
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Incidentally, is it just me of that thread has been comprehensively derailed at this point?
Sorry Cobble
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you’re good lol, I think I might’ve settled on deep blue already anyways
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Sure you don’t want yellow? I recommend yellow: it’s the best deep orange you never saw!
By the way Amal, the flexM1 I had installed the same day as the doNExT came in a baggie also, not in a tube, and I seem to remember it had that sticker inside too. I’m almost certain because I remember thinking I’d better not mix up the baggies. Unfortunately I ain’t got no photo of that one.
I got zero reaction from the flexM1.
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good to know! still worth putting out an advisory for… I’ve already got one coming back that was purchased but no chance to install yet… potentially two… so it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Nah, orange ain’t really my color
Well, even if your “oversight” was the cause, I’m unlikely to return the product I am?
I put oversight in quotes because that seems really minor to me. The cretin surgeon who messed up my knee with a simple meniscectomy last year created one really annoying problem for me, he was a fully qualified surgeon, and he didn’t give half the fuck you seem to give. And I’ve been reliably informed by my lawyer that I’d never win against him if I sued, because it would fall in the “oops, that happens” category.
So I’d say keep on doing what you’re doing, but really don’t beat yourself up. It is my impression that you go beyond the call of duty anyway - especially considering what “others” are doing.
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