Hey everyone, I recently joined the chipped club and wanted to share my experience with self installation and just introduce myself to your awesome online community.
So far I’ve done 4 self installs, and all of them have gone pretty well. What I wanted to share is possibly a new method of keeping an x-series tag from moving, and also a implant spot I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do yet.
So firstly, after chipping myself with an NExT I decided I wanted another one 
y’all are right, it’s addicting… BUT the original spot I had hoped for - between my pinky and ring finger metacarpals on my right hand- just wasn’t going to work. I have almost no meat there and I would prefer the tag wasn’t extremely visible beneath my skin. After much musing, I eventually decided the inner wrist would be a good candidate. So after a LOT of research and plotting to make sure I wasn’t going poke anything important this is what I got.
The tag isn’t touching any tendons or major arteries, and is in a good position for me to use it for readers in front and beside me without having to contort my arm. I also made sure to leave enough room for my wrist to move and the skin to bunch up. DISCLAIMER: The wrist is CHOCK FULL of important things, if you decide to do this DO RESEARCH!!! Look at anatomy, figure out where your veins and tendons are, and keep track of how deep and where the injection assembly is during installation! To date, it’s healed up very nicely and I don’t notice it at all, even when using a mouse and moving the spot over my desk.
Now, for the moving tag bit. A while after installing my vivokey spark 2, I decided I wanted the real estate for an xM1, and so removed the spark 2 (and will hopefully have it sterilized and reimplanted elsewhere). I noticed after installing the xM1 that the scar tissue from cutting out the spark dissuaded the tag from going unerneath it. I also had some issues with the xM1 not being in quite the orientation I wanted, so I tried splinting it (with reasonable success), but didn’t like having tape on my hands. So I thought, what if I made a splint from very small amounts of scar tissue? The tag was moving back and forth in the channel created by the injection assembly, so I simply took a small, STERILIZED 16G piercing needle, and pushed it in just about as deep as the tag. Now it’s only been a few days, but the small incision seems to have made enough scar tissue to dissuade the tag from moving underneath it and thus keeping the tag reasonably in place. I have no doubt it’s a delicate maybe not a universal solution, but it is showing success for me and I wanted to share!
There’s a couple scars there from the installation and removal of the spark 2, but if you look closely you should see 2 small marks left by the piercing needle
Anyways, I hope this info maybe helps someone, and if you actually read through it all thanks for coming to my TED talk. Again, if you try either of these things, be smart, work in a clean space, and make sure everything is sterilized and clean.