to add to what @Satur9 is saying, there was a lot of talk early on about a slightly more stable battery chemistry called LiFePo4 (lithium iron phosphate), which has lower energy density than Li-ion, but a better charge cycle count and the promise of far less thermal run-away issues… but that does not address gas build-up or other issues.
The primary problem with consumer grade implants and batteries, rechargeable or not, is that you are using consumer grade parts on consumer grade PCBs with consumer grade Q/A processes. Talk to any electronics assembler to get a feel for just how fucking bad it can be. Parts go out of spec all the time. Your perfectly designed circuit is only going to perform as well as your worst constructed component… and let’s say a random capacitor or resistor goes out of spec after a few months… or a PCB has a wonky internal short that has thus far been lying dormant and suddenly makes connection… and maybe the issue occurs in the battery charging control circuit. That could cause anything from thermal runaway (boom!) or simply the production of various fluorine based gasses which build up inside the battery itself and compromise it’s construction… and if the gasses cause enough pressure that it ruptures your encapsulation, then the decomposition of LiPF6 by contact with water is;
leading to the creation of some really fun gasses;
lithium hexafluorophosphate
hydrogen fluoride
phosphorus pentafluoride
phosphoryl fluoride
hydrofluoric acid
None of these will strengthen your teeth… at least not from the inside.
So yeah, this is why we don’t fuck with batteries at all. We have our eyes on some promising battery tech, but so far everything is just annoyingly lethal to most biology.
Oh, and this is a LiFePo4 battery gettin jabbed… so it’s not exactly “safe”… just “safer” than Li-ion;
oookay… damn! Thanks for that in-depht information, I’m slightly concerned about all that (cause I’m actually planning to install a v2 in some distant future). I’d rather not explode, light up or be filled with not-so-really-healty gases from the inside. But well, experimenting has its risks, so I might give it a try anyway
I’m poking on my flexNExT while reading your post, and - I’m not sure, in a way… I had some fluid buildup during the healing process (very little, but it was there), so I didn’t check the surface and how it felt. And now, I don’t know if it has changed… but it still feels pretty thin, so I don’t think there is some added layer of fibrous tissue or anything above it.
And on that one, I can only compare to my silicone implant (because it has a hole, and my flexy does not^^) - no fibrous tissue at all, especially not in the hole. The skin just sinks in slowly (like, freakin slowly… still waiting for it to get done with that ) and reattaches and feels like normal skin again.
But still, it is very interesting to see what your body does with the implant - guess whatever happens might be very valuable information for others who might experience similar things. So kinda “okay, this is all perfectly normal, no need to freak out”
It takes a lot more than this to freak me out I was just a bit peeved because I had expected the removal of the stitches to be the conclusion of a totally uneventful healing, but my arm decided otherwise.
The fluid buildup is pretty much gone. It’s still a tiny bit “wet” when I’m moving about at work (in which case I put the bandage back on for some time, to “drain the swamp” once and for all so-to-speak) but otherwise it’s cleared up. Now I’m left with the lumpy nonsense over the back of the implant, is all.
Hmm, I can see the fibrous tissue over the blinkies in pitch darkness. And the extra-thick blob blocks the light on the side of one a bit. Lucky for me, it’s grown exactly between two blinkies and not smack over one.
i doubt this is fibrous tissue… it’s probably a small calcifying or high pressure hematoma or maybe even a lipoma… growth of fibrin that fast is unlikely… but then again, you are a bare footed warrior… who knows.
Not a lipoma. I have one elsewhere and it’s nowhere near as hard.
Not sure what it is, but it’s rough and distributed over the entire implant almost evenly - apart from that big blob at the proximal end. And it’s extra super thick inside the center hole, but there’s no blinkie there - and it keeps the implant still.
Ironically, for this particular implant, I really wasn’t keen on my body encasing it, and I was pretty glad it wasn’t parylene-coated (not that it could have been, from what you said). And what do you know? For once my body did react, and now it’ll be harder to remove than a bad fart in an elevator
the hard layer is thickening and spreading over the implant. One of the blinkies has gone visibly dimmer, and my wrist really starts to look like I’m wearing a watch.
Nah, I didn’t think you were freaking out, I thought your experiences might prevent others from freaking out! You seem all calm about what your body is doing
Okay, that’s definitely different from what my flexy does… I might overlook a thin fibrous layer, maybe, but it does not feel hard at all, it’s not uneven or such, and nothing is spreading out or dimming the blinkies. But by now, I’m really curious what’s happening to you! How could you possibly find out? X-ray? Ultrasound? Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for you if something’s really going wrong with your implant, but this is, honestly, a bit fascinating
So am I Half of it has become as hard as a tortoise shell, and the other half is only thinly-coated so far, but it’s thickening also. So much for buying a flexible implant…
It’s okay though: it works fine, and the blinky that has dimmed has only done so a little bit. It hasn’t gone dark or anything. And quite frankly, I don’t really mind. It’s just that I’m wondering if it’s gonna keep on going or stop at some point.
I’m assuming it’s keloid scarring, only on the inside. I don’t even know if that’s a thing. But that’s the only thing I can think of. I’ll wait until next wednesday, and if it doesn’t show signs of stopping, I’ll go to the doc to ask his opinion.
Hmmm… I’m not sure if keloids happen inside of the body as well, but I had several because of stupid actions during the healing process of some piercings (my worst enemy, the terry towel…), and at least my keloids were not nearly as “hard as a tortoise shell”… Maybe a bit harder than regular scar tissue, but not actually “hard”. I’m just wondering what the doc may do - are there any ways to find out what’s happening in your wrist?
Meh… Look on the bright side: I pissed off Amal for hours before ordering, because I was concerned the implant might get damaged by repeated flexing. He even took the trouble to made a video to show that it’s resilient.
Well, unless someone hits me with a hammer, it sure ain’t flexing now. I got me battle-hardened giant implant right there! And with that said, if it does fail some day, it’ll annoy the living hell out of me even more
Also, I removed the steristrips and took the time to look at things a bit more in detail, and I just noticed something : two major veins rerouted themselves around the implant. And not a little bit either: they really took quite a hike to avoid being underneath!
Whatever is growing on top of the implant seems to have slowed down considerably. There’s a bit a new material near the edge closest to the scar, but otherwise it hasn’t changed much.
One question: there is still a tiny bit of fluid inside the pocket. Really not much, and it’s mostly pooling up above the two bits of the implant that haven’t been too invaded by the fibrous materisl (since it’s kind of hollow there as a result). But it’s there and it ain’t drying up.
I can flush it out if I wear the compression bandage, but it comes right back when I take it off. So I figure there’s no point in fighting it, especially since it doesn’t seem to be filling up anymore than a couple millimeters. But it’s not helping the lumpy aspect of my wrist.
Does the oedema take long to finally clear in your experience?
) and reattaches and feels like normal skin again.
