I’ll preface this with a link to where this story started. I suggest you get some background context there if you haven’t followed along already.
As you can guess by the topic name, the xG3v2 I have in L1 did pop open. This is likely due to me clumsily banging my hand into a doorframe when walking into my home office.
I have better xrays for the xray topic, but those have to be ripped from the CD first.
Last night I had my go at things to get this out. Sharpened my best knife for the occasion, thoroughly cleaned it and my hands, layed out a clean sheet of paper towel (yes I know clean is a strong word but oh well), did a final rinse of anything hard with 70% iso, and went at it.
No luck. The hole was certainly deep enough (my knife was able to touch the glass), but I just couldn’t get the main chunk of implant out. Unsure why, really. The hole just wouldn’t open enough. Not wide enough?
Either way, I’ll be calling a hand surgeon today. Hopefully can get it out there without much trouble, but damn I didn’t want to have to go there.
The open wound was washed with alcohol and covered with triple antibiotic and a band-aid. Partially hoping I can keep it wet enough that the xG3 v2 coaxes its tip out before I make it to the surgeon.
No need to tell me about how dumb of an idea to remove it myself was, I’m aware.
If there’s a hole in the skin you can likely get a bigger magnet wrapped in a glove and coax the xG3 out. The pull will tent the skin for you. Might need a second set of hands to hold the larger magnet while you massage it loose. You can buy a huge fishing magnet for like $15-20 easily.
For future reference isopropyl works for skin preparation but you’d be better served with povidone iodine which is easy to buy. Remember the crystallization during drying is what actually destroys pathogens. You could even buy chlorhexidine skin wash at a tractor supply store and it would be more effective than isopropyl, although there’s soaps and fragrances in there which make it less than ideal
Yeah I mean if you’re dreading the hand surgeon give it a try. The xG3s that have broken came off pretty cleanly because it’s caused by stress inside the glass due to the sealing process and CTE mismatch, so there’s not much of an edge. Even if there was though you’ve already done a ton of damage digging around in there with a knife.
If you’re gonna do another procedure can I make some minor sterility recommendations? You can get sterile drapes or similar and povidone iodine at a pharmacy. Isopropyl isn’t going to be sufficient for a knife. If you could get 7.5% or higher hydrogen peroxide and soak it for 6+ hours that would be sterile, but barring that I would recommend
holding it under a flame
washing thoroughly with soap and hot water
using the povidone iodine on it and letting it dry or the 70% (not 90%+) isopropyl soak for an hour
Wash both hands/arms and and surfaces with soap and hot water and give the surface a pass with the isopropyl if it can handle it.
Isopropyl will damage the tissue and dry it out so in addition to not being the most effective skin treatment it’s not great for wound aftercare. The antiseptic gel is good but don’t let it get too macerated under the bandage only leave it on for like 2-3 days
Be careful not to make too much hamburger of it. Nothing a professional hates more than fixing an overenthusiastic amateurs work, and if you end up at the surgeon’s, you might just hear about it.
In fact, if it was me, I’d try the magnet, and then stop if that didn’t work.
Also, you could possibly end up extracting the magnet, but not the glass case if it pulls out of it, and you’ve still got the glass cap to deal with either way.
This is my 2nd priority, other than removing everything but the cap.
This is probably what I will do, though I’d like to make the incision just a teeny bit longer first. I want the best shot at it.
This is one of my two fears with the magnet method. The other is the implant somehow “snapping” toward the large magnet and the glass shattering from an impact. This I consider the worst case scenario, and is why I’ll wrap the big magnet in some sort of padding, tape, then a glove if I use it.
Eh. They’ll deal with whatever they encounter, they can reprimand but that doesn’t substantively affect the situation.
I mean ideally you should always go to a medical professional, but it can be a huge financial burden. If we had universal healthcare I’d say yeah of course, but we don’t so it’s better to be realistic about what people are likely to do and try and enable them to do it safely. Harm reduction and all that.
Yeah I wouldn’t worry too much about that. It’s bound up in there very tightly with biocompatible resin. Unless you break more of the glass it won’t come out.
That’s the big issue, digging around for that will be a pain. A hand surgeon could get it if that’s a viable option for you, but if it’s a DIY procedure I wouldn’t bother removing it unless it’s causing you pain. There’s a minor infection risk if left in if the glass surface is rough, but you’ll do so much damage digging around for it it might not be worth the risk of damage to the function of your hand.
you see the two caps floating around in my finger?
i had both an xg3v1 and an xg3v2 do this, one was removed by cassox at defcon 2 years ago and the other was removed 6 months later by the hospital.
I cannot stress enough how the breaks were very much my own fault. the two magnets were in the same finger, one on the top and the other on the side/bottom and they eventually started attracting and touching eachother which introduced a LOT of the aforementioned stress.
edit to add; here’s what my magnet looked like when it was removed, none of the remaining glass in my hand hurts at all. i can feel the caps under my skin but they aren’t a bother.
I got some more supplies on my way back from work. Got wound wash, hydrogen peroxide (the best thing I could get ahold of in time), and some better band-aids to go over any dressings or larger wounds.
I made sure the incision from yesterday was still open, and got back down to the implant. I decided at this point the easiest (though more painful) option was to cut across the length of the implant. I started by opening the wound closer to the opposite side, little by little. This took me about an hour.
I tried the magnet, but no luck. It seems to be a very yes-or-no method.
I opened up the wound more the same way. When I was satisfied, I tried pulling at it with forceps, but couldn’t quite get the broken side to pop out. Went back to cutting on that side. It did not take much.
I got the forceps around the implant, wiggled the broken side out, and it almost shot itself out. The forceps are steel, so it didn’t get the chance.
After calming down a bit, I took a photo, dabbed off as much blood as possible, flushed it with hydrogen peroxide twice, waited for the HP to dry, then flushed it twice with wound wash. I then bandaged it up as if it were a new implant incision. Does it need stitches? Probably. Will some carefully placed medical tape and a bandaid both pulling the wound to a closed state be enough for me? Probably. I will do my best to keep it clean now. Might even take tomorrow off.
Edit:
Oh, does this mean I get to press the big orange button?
What an adventure!! You can check self-surgery off your bucket list.
Whether or not you need stitches depends on how concerned you are about scarring. More importantly, watch for signs of infection — they typically appear 5–7 days later. The hand is a tight, delicate space, so if you notice increasing redness, tenderness, or drainage, you’ll need antibiotics.
I picked up some whitelabel newskin to keep things sealed from a bacteria perspective. Flushed it with a tad bit of HP and then wound wash first, of course.
I bandaged it up again about the same way as I couldn’t find steri-strips in my local store.
A bit is fine (and if anything a reminder). A lot that moves into the realm of disfigurement is not great in my mind.
