Some time ago installed a chip in the forearm. A month passed and the chip still did not work. Exasperated, I decided to remove it because it was installed too deep. And what did it turn out? It’s not there. I bled heavily during the installation and it probably flew out along with the blood. Something I felt under the skin turned out to be an lump after of the installation. After cutting it, it no longer feels anything. We sewed up the wound and that was it.
I’m writing this because if you don’t have a chip working, check to see if you have one.
Heavy bleeding can create pressure that basically lets the x-series slip right back out when the needle is removed. Often times the incision area is covered with gauze too, blocking your view. One approach which works to help solve this is placing gauze over the incision when the needle is still in place, then applying slight pressure as the needle is removed, hopefully keeping the device on the correct side of the incision as the needle withdraws.
If it went into a vein and could actually travel they would have serious medical issues. Is there any report of that actually happening? Or are you being speculatory and potentially spreading misinformation?
kinda… to date I’ve had two people report this… one provided some iffy x-rays, but all attempts to follow-up and get doctor information for confirmation and further study have been ignored.
Essentially in both cases what has allegedly happened is that the device makes its way to the heart, flows through with the blood, finds its way through the pulmonary arteries up to the lungs, and gets caught where they branch off and get smaller as they turn into capillaries… and that’s where it sits. No discomfort. No issues. If the second case is to be believed, the doc said it should just sit there because any attempt to remove it would be far more dangerous than leaving it there… even laparoscopic surgery… according to the customer anyway.
I see. As a phlebotomist I would be shocked considering the amount of effort it takes to get a much smaller gauge needle into vasculature and effectively draw/infuse into it. But there’s Murphy’s law I suppose.
i shared this concern, which is partly why i wanted to confirm the cases with the actual MDs involved… alas, no such luck. the cases were a few years apart, and both customers went totally silent shortly after i started asking for medical provider information to build case studies.
@amal seeing the post, the persons vasculature is pretty large(very typical of more elderly patients) definitely large enough for a 14g to thread into. I could see a chip implanting into a vein like that. As a phlebotomist who has access thousands of veins over the years, what I would recommend to prevent this in the future, is to:
A: most obviously avoid veins at all cost and potentially consider alternative implant locations if there’s a lot of veins running through the area
B: Add a step to the procedure to check for a hematoma before implanting. A method I would use is backing the needle out almost to bevel(a laser etched line would be great for this, but not necessary if professionals are doing the install. They should always know how much needle is left if they know what they’re doing), lift the needle up slightly, pausing for a moment to watch for a hematoma, then advance the needle to the proper depth, and implant the device. If you do this, you can almost be certain you haven’t hit any vasculature, and if you did you will clearly know and can terminate the procedure.
Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor, but I am a licensed phlebotomist who has stabbed(in professional terms, performed venipunctures) literally 10s of thousands of needles into peoples arms and hands, and this is what I would recommend from that experience.
After re-reading that case, I too actually believed it was possible… however attempts to contact them to get contact details for their doctor to confirm went cold… probably a result of the rough ride the guy had on the forum.
With regard to the suggestions… we do not mandate a specific procedure per se, we leave it to the professional to do the job right. In the only procedure training video we have (for Spark) we do mention vasculature… but it could be called out better I suppose.
But let’s also consider the following;
well over a hundred thousand implants installed with only 2 reported cases
both cases were self installs (not done by professionals)
No amount of documentation could have ever helped avoid this particular scenario because, and maybe you missed it, but “thought it would create a nice memory to my 11 year old son to inject the chip in my hand” … it was injected by an 11 year old boy.
11 year old is insane! That image of the injector in the hand is horrifyingly wrong and looks like a direct into muscle stab. What a crazy and interesting story!
This is what we refer to as bevel up, from my experience, bevel down yields better results with regards to healing, bevel up can cause a skin flap that can leave a small lump when healing.
What would have been better to happen here was, for the installer to withdraw the needle slightly BEFORE or even whilst depressing the plunger, but in this example, the plunger was depressed which resulted in the implant having to force its way into position.
So it may be deeper than you expected, or hoped for.
You can see in this example, the blood already starting to pool, BUT
Here at least you see that the implant was ejected…
It was difficult to see if anything came out during the initial blood wipe.
My feeling is, it is quite deep, here is what I would try:
Measure the length of the Needle, and use that as your search datum from the install inscision.
As it is an xLED Get a high-power reader and try to make it blink in the dark.
Get a magnet, and see if you can feel it, or possibly “stick” to it
And as was mentioned above, get an xRay
Those 2 globules leaked from the syringe, after the implant exited from the needle
I don’t want to shit on your installer, so I will just say I think there should have been a pinch and roll of the tented skin to remove any blood vessels
which resulted in the implant having to force its way into position.
