so… I was getting laser hair removal today as I have many times. my tech asked me if I would like to try it on my hands. I said yes, and we started, and not three zaps in, she hits one of my implants. there is an audible pop, it hurts, and the area becomes inflamed.
this implant specifically has poor readability under normal circumstances - last time I remember trying it about a month ago I could not get it to scan at all. this is of course still the case now.
my hand, thankfully, has calmed down, and the glass feels like it is intact.
anyone else had such an experience? should this be something mentioned on the product pages?
I don’t recall hair removal lasers being tried before, but someone did test tattoo removal lasers once, not sure how different they are, but there might be some information there for you:
The above image indicates that it is possible for lasers in the IR range to penetrate relatively deep.
We know that Dangerous Things seals their glass implants with an IR laser because the glass can absorb that range.
You felt a reaction of the implant to the laser.
I think this pretty conclusively confirms they used an IR laser that reacted with your implant. Even if it is intact, the fact that you felt a reaction probably means it’s cracked.
I’d wait for @amal to tell me I’m stupid, but my advice is that you should get the implant removed relatively quickly
Great mention. Thankfully @Satur9 mentioned he used a Nd:YAG, which, according to the image above, penetrates the skin fairly deeply.
Unfortunately, I would hazard a guess that in this case, the tattoo actually protected the implant by absorbing most of the energy of the laser. This would explain why @ThatOneDoge felt a reaction and @Satur9 didn’t.
It sounds like your implant is installed too deep to start with which is the source of your reading issues. Usually if you keep practicing with your phone or a more powerful USB reader you can get an occasional read, but it might be worth removing, resterilizing, and reinstalling elsewhere if you have a capable body mod artist.
Regarding the laser, it’s a very complex topic. Especially if the implant is installed too deep, I don’t think your laser hair removal specialist actually hit the implant. While the wavelength of light determines how much your tissues absorb it, that’s not the most important factor for how much damage hair removal or tattoo removal laser can do to a target. The laser beam is focused into a single point a few centimeters from the end of the emitter by optics.
To get the energy density they need to destroy the hair follicle with a portable laser system, they need a very small depth of focus. Before and beyond that point the light diffuses significantly and loses 99%+ of it’s destructive power. Your specialist would have had to really misalign it to hit a deep implant. Even if they did though the depth of tissue attenuates some of the beam power, and most importantly your flesh is an excellent active cooling system. In addition to a small depth of focus, these lasers also get their energy density from extremely small pulse widths. Your water cooling system spreads out the pulse width, dissipating the energy density and mitigating the damage.
I think the reason you heard a pop is similar to what happened with my laser on max setting. Just above the implant the skin is thinner, so if you aim the focal point just at the surface of the skin there’s less liquid buffer and the skin itself pops under the tiny fireball. It would be very challenging based on my testing with water and a Nd:YAG laser to damage anything significantly inside the body. Maybe a flex because they’re more fragile, but I’m not even sure about that. You can’t make a fireball in water with a pulse laser, and CW lasers with higher energy densities are not common
