What happened was, I told my installer to install it pretty much between the metacarpals, almost at base of the distal end of the bones. But there’s a large transverse ligament there, and each time you extend your fingers, it’s shifts quite far back towards the wrist. As a result, pretty quickly, my flexM1 went backwards, past the insertion point, up the wrist bones and stopped just short of the wrist-arm fold.
In fact, I realize now when I extend my fingers flat and bend my wrist up all the way, the free space between the wrist fold and the distal transverse ligament is exactly the size of the implant - quite a lot shorter than I had expected. So it’s exactly where it needs to be and it hiked there all by itself. Luckily my hand is just long enough to accomodate it.
But I did anticipate something like this would happen. That’s why I asked my installer to install the implant chip forward, so that if the implant moved backwards later, only the flat end of the antenna would ride up the wrist bones and not the lumpy chip. The chip has sunken down between the metacarpals and is very well protected there, and it’s not an annoyance as a result. I’m glad as asked him that.
Maybe I should take a picture or something. Hold on…
Man that was super quick! Thank you so much for this. Your results with the flexEM make me very optimistic.
My only concern is veins and such in the area, did you have anything like this prior to install? I wonder if the implant will go above or below them or that makes the area unusable.
Okay hopefully this will make some sense. The blue band represents the transverse ligament. You can see how, when my wrist and my fingers are fully extended, the implant is exactly bounded by the break in my wrist and by the ligament. It really has no other place to go:
Mine has approximately the same incision point as yours, but it’s finally settled a bit closer towards the blue line (back end is precisely touching the incision scar)
Does yours still bite from time to time?
Mine does, and I’m starting to wonder if it’ll always do.
Not too big a deal, but big enough that I don’t recommend my wife to implant one (rather go with the glassie even though the range sucks compared)
Edit: mine is a bit over 2 months old now, makes yours about 6 months?
Mine has never bitten. Well, not strictly true: if I push it forward really hard and extend my fingers, it does bite a bit. But I really have to do it on purpose.
Honestly, it went in, and if it hadn’t been for the stitch, I’d have forgotten about it the next minute. This implant gave me less trouble than a simple glassie injection, which is saying something.
I believe the reason for this is because it was installed with a dermal lifter, leaving a pocket that was larger than strictly necessary. The implant probably had time to settle nicely inside the pocket until it closed up on it. Yours was a needle job right?
Also, it was installed by a pro body modder, which surely made a difference.
And yeah, it was installed on September 5th, so a hair under 6 months.
Thanks for the info.
Mine was also installed with a dermal lifter by a pro body modder.
Was stinging quite a bit the first couple of days, then the occasional “bite”, - as if the thin part of the implant was ‘cutting’.
It rarely happens anymore, but when it does, it’s quite uncomfortable.
(Maybe mine might have settled at a slight angle or something shrug)
Hi,
so it’s been a year since my last post in Feb 2021. My overall experience with flexM1 has improved from “slightly concerned” to “generally okay”.
I don’t notice the implant in a daily life anymore (this is very good, of course).
I’m not getting that “scratchy, biting” feeling anymore. In the meantime I read on this forum this is related to skin shrinking in the cold, and is not related to implant location. So, yea, this is ok.
My skin in the area is still pink-ish. Previously I was concerned this was a sign of inflammation or something… Now, after a year of nothing bad happening, I think this is normal, and I don’t really care about the skin color - as long as the area is healthy, which it is.
The ease of reading is great. I can’t think of a better position. However - I also wear my apple watch on the same hand (left). When I’m doing payments with apple pay, the payment reader sometimes reads my implant, and not the watch. This only happens with “strong” payment readers that have a large reading area, it’s like one in 20 payments. Usually I retry the payment by placing the watch a little closer, and it passes. This is something to keep in mind if you’re doing contactless payments with your watch - I don’t think a different location on the same hand would help - choose the opposite hand from your watch (if you can). I couldn’t place flexM1 on the other hand (because reasons), so this is not haunting me a lot.
In general, I’m now happy with this implant location, and given my other implants, I would choose the same place to put the implant. Yes, there are some caveats (I mentioned them all in this thread), but if you’re ok with them, I’d say go for it.
