What medical problems could arise in this hypothetical scenario (see details)?

This seems like a more appropriate question for someone who does piercing rather than a medical question. Don’t forget to consider the thickness of the skin when figuring out the outer dimension of the inner ring (on top of the skin).

It would also be important that the object being placed under the skin be sterile, so the material would have to be of a nature that could be sterilized. A two-inch solid ring would require an incision of greater than two inches (which would require stitches).

It would be different than a transplanted organ as an object that does not come from another human being does not have the properties that the body rejects such as you would find with an organ transplant.

I don’t understand the question of “Will the skin grow over the raised part that is supposed to be exposed?” Feel free to PM me with more details.

Is this some type of prosthetic?

Ahh. I’m realizing I didn’t paint a very good picture with my words. So the two inch diameter is along the surface of the skin. The ring would be quite flat, so it would not go deep into the body. The inner circumference of the ring would be raised so that it would stick several millimeters past the surface of the skin. That part is supposed to stick up out of the skin, so I don’t want the skin to grow over it.

@Kardamom It’s very hypothetical as this is just a crazy idea I had, but yes, essentially.

I just remembered another question I should have asked. Would it be able to support a small weight hanging from it (say, up to a half pound).

I could draw a diagram if need be, haha.

It would be very difficult to have something heal well that was placed shallowly under the skin with a part still out in the open air.

@Mariah I have heard of people who have had some type of material inserted under their skin (on their forehead) so it would look like they had horns. Like this guy. Not sure what the material was made out of though, or if it ever failed or got infected.

I would think that if you had some type of item, like you are describing placed into or under the skin and then tried to hang some type of weight from it, that it would likely start to tear the skin or pull loose from the other tissue into which part of the object would become imbedded. It’s certainly not creating a lovely image in my mind right now.

I think that at the point where the ring become subcutaneous, there would either be a wound that wouldn’t heal or some kind of scaly skin that would stretch until the ring fell out.

Yeah, this is seeming more and more impractical.

I decided to draw a diagram to make sure everything was clear. Hopefully my crappy drawing is uncrappy enough that you can tell that the ring is on the lower abdomen. I edited the design a bit with some thoughts in mind: I made the area under the skin larger, so that the weight would be spread over a larger area and not put so much pressure on any one place. Though I imagine the procedure to put such a large area under the skin would be no small feat.

I had this sudden dream of inventing something to help people with permanent ostomies (I have a temporary one right now). We have to stick a ring to our bodies using adhesives. A pouch snaps onto and hangs from the ring. The adhesives cause all sorts of allergy problems, they can leak, and they have to be changed (time consuming and annoying) about twice a week. It’d be so friggin nice, if this idea were at all practical, to have the ring built into the body.

@Mariah I kind of thought that you might be going down that road. I still think that the weight of the ostomy bag pulling on the ring, would hurt physically and would likely stretch and possibly tear the skin. I love the fact that you are trying to come up with a better method than the one they have now. I’m curious as to why they don’t (or maybe they do and I don’t know about it) have some type of belt around the waist from which the ostomy bag would hang and if it could have one of those little strings around the lower part of the bag kind of like those strings that you see on cowboys to hold their gun holster from bouncing around, or if there could be some type of undergarment that could be worn (or attached to regular underwear) that would have some velcro on it and then the ostomy bag could have some velcro instead of the hook or ring which attaches it to the adhesive thingee that sticks onto your body. Do you think something like that would work?

P.S. Your drawing kind of reminds me of the jellyfish that is trying to escape King Neptune on the Fluther page when you can’t find what you were searching for : )

@Kardamom Yeah this seems pretty impossible, unfortunately. There is indeed a belt, but it does little more than take some of the weight off the flange (flange is the proper term for the baseplate that contains the ring and which is stuck directly on the body using adhesives). I know there is special underwear, but I don’t have any myself so I don’t know much. I believe they are sort of boxer-style and include a pocket on the front right to put the bag in to keep it from bouncing around. I don’t think your velcro idea would work, nor would trying to keep it on with only a belt. The seal needs to be air-tight to prevent leaks, thus the need for adhesives. I have no qualms with the bag-snaps-on-ring portion of the system, that part works great. Leaks happen, and skin irritation happens, due to flaws with the flange-to-body seal, not the bag-to-flange seal.

Hmmmm, well I am definitely thinking and hoping that this subject is going to be part of what you will be studying when you go back to college. Have you ever considered going into the medical field, not necessarily as a doctor, but in the part of the field that deals with prosthetics and designing medical equipment? Hint hint. : )

@Kardamom I have thought about it. I don’t think I would be able to stomach getting a medical degree. Oddly enough, I can handle all sorts of gorey stuff as long as it’s happening to me. I don’t think I’d fare well seeing it on other people. I don’t know.

If I do decide to stick with robotics engineering (which is the current plan, but I’ve yet to even take the intro course, so we’ll see how I feel after that), one application I’m extremely interested in is medical robots. Robotic surgical systems, things like that. That would be extremely fulfilling to me. Thanks for your support. :)

Oh wow. Believe it or not, it appears that a variation on this idea is already patented.