When scarification goes bad
By Shannon • Oct 6th, 2006 • Category: ModBlogUpdate: First, the person in this procedure healed fine and is very happy. Second, I want to make it clear that while this procedure looks very intense, it’s probably less intense as a procedure than some large skin removal work, transscrotal piercings, implants, tongue splitting, and all the other procedures generally accepted by the body modification community.
Ok, this is a pretty gory entry. I apologize for that. But I think it’s important to emphasize that when you do large scale scarification (or sometimes small scale), sometimes the keloid grows out of control and starts getting very uncomfortable, restricting mobility, and so on. This piece was only about a month old in the photos below (it was done by a “well known body modification artist” who’s gonna stay unnamed because that’s not the point of the entry) and the customer was quite unhappy and wanted it dealt with.
Samppa Von Cyborg and Lukas Zpira got together to help him as much as they could. They felt that all of it was cut too deep, and did their best to excise the tissue, although the centre keloid was not removed (I’m assuming it was adhered right to the cartilage at bottom of the sternum). Starting with some exploratory cuts:
Mostly off and looking very gory:
As you can see, quite a chasm of tissue was removed! Check out the fatty tissue below:
Once stitched up, I can’t imagine how relived and happy the customer must have been. It’s a pretty intense removal, and a lot to go through, but Lukas and Samppa did a nice job restoring him… Hopefully the removal doesn’t have similar keloiding issues (sometimes it’s a problem that snowballs).
Finally, the gross out shot of the removed tissue:
Please take scarification seriously!!!
Shannon is the founder and former Editor of BME.
Copyright © Shannon Larratt. Reproduced under license by BMEzine.com LLC
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Ouch..
wow. i actually got the “watery-mouth-i’m-gonna-vomit” thing.
jesus fucking christ.
it was the shot of the fatty tissue after the keloid was taken off. thats what did it.
eek! this poor guy! i can’t even imagine. :(
Jesus fucking Christ. Maybe it’s just me, but this doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing that you should rely on your friendly neighbourhood heavy mod practitioner to take care of.
the removed scar tissue looks like hot dogs,but even more disgusting!!!!
was he fully awake for all of that? ouch :(
I’m in shock.
holy cow.
:( i didnt get freaked out one bit, didnt even cringe. I am desnsitized. Feel sorry for the guy who went through that, im sure the 2 guys did theyre best to salvage it.
On a side note i saw Lukas Zpira in Marquise Body Art in Lyon a few days ago. None of my friends are into the body mod culture and didnt know who he was. They didnt know why I was so excited. I really wanted to go say hi but didnt due to me being a wuss. :)
Lukas is a very, very nice guy. You should say hi if you see him!
the first picture squicked me more than any of the others.
prolly cos they looked like giant scar bugs. with lots of legs.
i hope he doesn’t get the same problem again. poor guy.
wow, that just looked brutal, hopefully that will heal much better this time around
can’t imagine how deep you’d have to cut to get that amoount of damage
Sweet Jesus! Was he under any sort of anesthesia?! I bet those keloids had to be damn unpleasant though. I’d like to see how the removal turns out once it’s healed.
Yeah he had a pleasantness about him. Yeah i would have loved to but I wouldnt know what to say. I think he was doing some procedure there anyway.
Next time maybe. Definetly. Thanks :D
mmmmm.. sausages.
Lets fire up the BBQ and have some keloid-sausages! w00!
and let Darwin work his magic…
It’s a shame it’s ok to display the names of the practitioners who felt qualified to remedy the keloids but not name the practitioner who did the original work; in the day and age of the consumer/customer/recipient being liable for doing their own research and due diligence, that information could possibly keep them from having to seek other other practitioners for additional assistance.
I don’t actually know who did it — I wasn’t told. If someone knows FOR SURE and wants to post it I won’t censor it.
“Eat at Luigui’s!!!!”
I know what the poster above means by the watery mouth vomit thing. These are train wreck images. The shot of him looking serene with a gaping chest wound is both shocking and beautiful. I had to look a bunch of times…
thats brutal. poor guy.
Wow, poor guy. I really feel sorry for him. I didn’t even know it was possible for scarification to go bad like that!
holy fuck.
they kind of look like fingers.
that said, i like what i can see of his tattoos!
okay, so how much of this was the practitioner cutting too deep and how much was this the client waiting a month to watch these fat keloids form? my cuttings didn’t keloid overnight.
That’s why I would never try scarification.
Oh yeah, that and it’s illegal in Scotland.
Bloody ‘laws’.
They looked gorgeous, though uncomfortable.
The last picture kind of looks like bloody sausages.
Man.
I think if any practitioner did that to me, it wouldn’t be another practitioner I’d go to to solve it.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
I have to agree with Jordan here- although it’s pretty awesome if you have such a deep level of trust in someone, this is something that might be better left to cosmetic surgeon type person.
That said, these are some pretty hardcore photos, and I hope the poor guy had plenty of painkillers!
I agree with many of the other comments here. I have lots of respect for modification artists, but this is something that should be handled by a medical professional. Some of those sutures (albeit well placed and using appropriate technique) appear to be under a significant amount of tension
I am glad that you are posting these pictures so more people will be aware that scarifications are not procedures without significant risk.
VERY SHOKING!..
i mean…sometimes its not even the artist that did such scar’s fault… maybe this guy just has an intense tendency to grow ugly bad queloids…
im really happy that he was abble to solve his problem…
lets just hope he heals well ;)
Maybe I’m the only one who noticed but, nasty scars and blood aside, I think his tattoo and piercing combo dealy is pretty sweet. It seems like the sternum piercing is supposed to look like two buttons to fasten what looks sort of like a coat or button up shirt of sorts. I could be wrong but thats the first thing I noticed (yes, even before the scarring).
I would actually be really interested in seeing how this one heals….
I completely agree with christyn, I think it’s important for potential clients to know what practioner did the intial scarring. Too bad mistakes are never included in artist portfolios…
btw scars form on the subcutaneous tissue layer (commonly known as “skin”) and cannot adhere to skeletal bodies like the sternum…
The first practitioner probably did a poor job here, no question about it — but I REALLY think the bigger issue here is that what is shown in the pictures here is really fucked up and should NOT be done by some guys who are just playing doctor.
This is the last thing I needed to see when I’m going in for a scarification next monday.
No joke.. some things might really be better suited to people with PhD’s. :/
^ Agreed. I would go to a doc to get those removed. I guess people live inside their means though
muito bom o trabalho!!!
VOLTS PAPADA
for everyone saying that he should have seen a surgeon:
That may of been a good option, but think about what a surgeon would do differently compared these practicioners did. The answer is probably not much more than anesthesia.
Also consider the background these practioners have. They’re not you’re regular hack job working in your mother’s basement, these are world renown practitioners.
^^^
yeah, surgeons might not do much more. but they’d make nicer stitches.
pretty impressive modders, though.
and i’d definitely choose an MD over a PhD!
i can handle looking at a great variety of bloody and gory and run-over-by-a-train things but this really, really makes my skin crawl. jesus.
Raunchy.
Though I love the bit of his tattoos which were visible. I really like ORIGINAL bold blackwork.
And yes, PhDs are “doctors,” but not the kind most of you are thinking of…
Zpira does use xylocaine, which is arguable safer than a general anaesthesia. I would think that even with a skilled reconstructive/plastic surgeon, this would probably be an out-patient procedure done with a local.
That said, I think that for something of that order, I would have preferred to see a board certified reconstructive surgeon had I been in his position. While it’s certainly interesting and neat, I think that he’d have less scarring in the end.
Question: why did Messrs. Von Cyborg and Zpira choose to use sutures? Don’t staples usually hold high tension areas better than sutures? I kinda thought that staples were nearly as readily available as well…
Shannon, that midline scar is really nowhere near the sternum, and a keloid scar wouldn’t adhere to bone anyway.
As for the “surgery” I don’t even know where to start… There are so many reasons why that surgery should have been done in a sterile operating environment by qualified plastic surgeons. Of course surgeons would have done it differently… to anyone who’s ever seen any surgery it’s immediately obvious - that surgery is terrible. I probably could have done better myself, but I wouldn’t have.
Just look at the size of the keloid compared to the length of the incision/scar. It looks like the incision had to be extended signifigantly towards the nipple (and downwards to a lesser extent) due to poor planning and the skin not lining up - you can’t just sew a rounded cut like they’d made initially with sutures. The resulting scar is almost twice the length it needed to be.
Look at the tension the stitches are under… Look at the bare arms of the practitioners… are those even sterile gloves? Look at the scalpel blade they’re using.
I hope this guy has access to good medical care, because if he didn’t need it before…
He’ll be lucky not to get a really nasty infection, let alone how that huge scar will heal (future keloid scar formation is likely). I just hope they only attempted that one on his right that you’ve shown pictures of, and not the one on the left as well.
I hope no-one reading modblog gets the impression that this was in any way a good way to deal with his scarring.
Sorry, I didn’t cancel the bold font properly. Hopefully this fixes it for future comments.
this fellow should be in a hospital on bed rest with iv antibotics and fluids not to mention pain meds…
Sometime I really think people need to step back and think before doing something like this cause just because you CAN does NOT mean you should.
I have scarifications and luckly this did not happen to me. I have gotten questions and lectures from doctors after they had seen my healed scars and I know I probably would have gone to my artist for help if this happened to me but I think in the end I would have gone to a surgeon for the removal seeing as how deep they had to cut for the removal. scary…
I hope that this fellow is well and healthly.
Funny, there is even a picture of someone giving the poor guy anesthetics and no one noticed…
Oh, and anyone who starts off a rant by saying “I probably could have done better myself, but I wouldn’t have.” has to be full of it. My two cents.
Full of it? *shrugs*
I have some (medical) surgical experience. I’m not claiming to be qualified to have performed this person’s surgery, but neither were the people who did. They’re the ones who went ahead and did it anyway, not me.
I’d just like to defend Samppa and Lukas here by saying that the guy didn’t go to a surgeon, he went to them, and they did what they could, the best they could.
The guy may not have had the large amount of money a plastic surgeon would have charged, and he might have been told by a doctor that since it’s not life threatening, he wouldn’t get it for free in the near future on his country’s medical system.
If you’ve ever watched S and L work, you’ll know they’re fanatical about sterility - of course the gloves are sterile - and it’s not like they’re dragging their bare arms (washed and scrubbed with antibacterial stuff) through the wounds.
Also I’d like to point out that Samppa does some of the neatest stitching I’ve ever seen, far better than any doctor my partner and I have been operated on by. In that photo, you can only really see the big stitches, but they’re just there to help keep the tension right - there’s actually loads of tiny neat stitches all the way up, in between.
It’s easy to sit behind your computer screen and slag off the work of others, but if you don’t know the situation and you haven’t seen the end result, it’s hardly fair or appropriate.
Oh my fucking god. Wow. In the first picture, they look so… like some type of parasite clinging to his skin and trying to burrow into it.
I think that this is fine for what it is.
Obviously, Lukas and Samppa are very experienced in the ways of cutting, and the guy with the keloids probably knew that there were other options he could have pursued.
If he wanted to go to a doctor, he probably would have. And, I don’t think that Lukas and Samppa just stitched him up and threw him out when they were finished. I’m sure they’ll be checking up on him, and if its necesarry, get him medical attention (e.g. in case an infection arises).
Thank you for posting that, Shannon. I also have the fear of many not taking scarification (or many mods for that matter) seriously in the sense that they do not seem prepared to suffer consequences if things do go wrong (or go right). Having these reminders will hopefully heighten the awareness towards the true, potential risks of body modification, even within ideal conditions. Afterall, what beauty and significance does body modification hold if there are no risks, sacrifices, or pain involved?
that’s out of controle allright!
So is it the artists fault or not? Because I think it’s just how his body treats flesh removals: with big fat keloids. I wonder how it’s possible to find out that it was cut to deep 4 Months after the cutting…
I absolutely agree with ausmoz.
From an infection control perspective this is a nightmare. It’s clearly not a sterile area: gloves don’t look sterile (and even if they were, they wern’t shortly after they came into contact with non-sterile arms due to no sterile scrub clothes), there’s no sterile drapes, and there doesn’t seem to be any betadine used to sterilise the surrounding skin.
The suturing is a little difficult to make out from the pictures, but the order in which they seem to have been placed is questionable as to how good the tension will end up.
I really hope this guy has read these posts and goes to his local doctor for some advice re: preventing/treating his inevitable infection.
Shannon, could you follow this guy up so we know how the story of his keloids ends?!?!
It does look like they’ve used some betadine in the pics on my monitor, but yes, there is a complete lack of sterility.
I also noticed one of those guys is wearing a ring under his gloves… so he couldn’t have been all that serious about washing his hands.
I was thinking… if this was done in a hospital situation, and they decided to excise a keloid that big, they might have just packed and dressed the wound, and left it to heal by secondary intention, rather than suturing it closed under so much tension.
Apart from surgical excision, there are medical treatments, like injecting steroids, pressure bandages, and dressings that could both reduce the keloid before surgery and decrease the chance of another keloid forming after surgery. I’m sure if this guy has had a lot of pain from these keloids, he’d appreciate the benefit he could derive from these treatments too.
I’d really like to hear any follow-up too. I sincerely hope it all works out well for him.
That’s not a good situation to be in for the guy or the people trying to help him – Hope it all works out.
Ausmoz - The top of the scar appears to be over the xiphod process, which is cartilage.
I’ll also add that I have seen doctors perform surgery when wearing rings, and also that these stitches look fine to me given the context.
That looks.. That is.. Wow. I guess I WILL consider once more my future scarification..
I hope he won’t have any more keloids from those scar tissues, cause that looks effin’ painfull. And spooky. And unhealthy. And… Well, you get the point.
Interesting..
This should really be added to the keloids page in the BME Encyclopedia
(and I know I can do it myself, but I dont feel qualified to add them since I dont know anything more about keloids than what that page says.)
I hope this guy ends up ok & I would like to read follow ups
Ack poor guy, thats is NOT something you expect when you go to who is apparently a well known body mod artist. That being said personally I probably would have gone to a surgeon to get this pierced.
This almost puts me off getting one done, but i’m willing to trust mysely to Lukas, when I have enough money.
AJ — Nobody is “slagging off” anybody’s work here. That’s ridiculous. It’s not like we’re making fun of somebody’s tattoo or something. The critics here are saying — or at least I’M saying — that it was irresponsible for Samppa and Lukas to perform a fucking medical procedure that they had no business performing, just because somebody asked them to. Their intentions might have been good, but the fact that they went through with it is idiotic.
So, yes, it is ENTIRELY fair and ENTIRELY appropriate to say that when heavy mod practitioners stop doing what they normally do and instead decide that they’re fucking doctors just because they buy scalpels wholesale, that it’s stupid and dangerous and extremely bad for the people who are going to get lumped in with them.
And no, Teresina, it isn’t fine for what it is, because what it is is Soviet Russian back alley surgery, and it sets an incredibly dangerous precedent for any other moron who thinks he’s capable of doing discount medical procedures for friends.
being scarificated myself couldn’t help to feel a knot in my stomach…
i just hope that the removal works out fine for that guy…
For everyone saying this guy should have gone to a doctor: I’m sure he considered that as one of his options, but realize that many professionals (not all but many) in the medical industry are weary and uneducated when it comes to body modification. The men he chose to help him are professionals in their own right. They are extreme body modification artists who are world renowned and have been doing this for years.
As for sterility and the “inevitable infection” people have been operated on, in hospitals by surgeons and still had things go wrong. Medical supplies have been left in body cavities, breast implants have been inserted and grown huge infections. What I’m trying to say is this client chose the practioners he felt could do the best job for him.
Eternal Ice, doctors were treating scars long before every piercer with a slow day decided to start doing scarification. The fact that some doctors are uneducated with regards to some aspects of body modification is neither here nor there in this case.
And yes, of course things go wrong in hospitals, but an accident in a medical environment is far removed from two guys who are not doctors performing surgery in god-knows what kind of setting. It was the client’s prerogative to approach them, yes, but they should not have agreed to do it.
If I need a tooth pulled, but I don’t like my dentist, I don’t go to the mechanic just because he has a wrench.
So Jordan, you’re saying that if the guy didn’t had the money to get the keloids removed by a doctor he must have bin keeping it that way?
The guy with the scars has every right to ask every person he knows to remove his scars. What I’m saying is that anybody who actually agreed to do it — who was not a doctor that would have done it in a surgical setting — is an irresponsible idiot.
And as bad as the keloids were, my sympathy for the guy only goes so far. Anybody who gets this kind of stuff done should enter into it knowing full well that what they’re doing to their body is potentially very dangerous.
I totally agree with Jordan. Not to mention that to attempt to remove keloids that size is at the very best absolutely pointless as the result is often bigger keloids and more skin tension, whether you go to a certified surgeon or to a body mod artist. (Common sense says though that the former is far more likely to do a better job than the latter). From my understanding, cryosurgery and laser treatment are better options than surgical removal.
I would love to see a follow-up of this story as I’m willing to bet that the “customer” is not gonna be very happy with the result. I do hope though he escapes the nasty infection…
i’ve had 3 surgeries within the last year and the shit i’ve seen doctors do as far as sterility has made me want to throw up. i personally hate doctors and try to avoid them as much as possible. i can’t say (and i don’t think anyone in here can either) what the right thing to do would have been. doctors don’t always know what they are talking about. i had to explain to a doctor about the implant in the back of my hand and how it was able to sit there without messing up the function of my hand. this was one week prior to that same doctor putting a silicone implant into my knuckle. maybe the procedure was a little too advanced for them to be doing. maybe it just looks much worse than it really was. i dont think it’s fair to call the practioners irresponsible idiots just based on a few photos without any real back story or knowing the circumstances.
I haven’t seen the scars in person of course, but there are two arguments that I think should have been considered (and may well have — I’m not suggesting they were ignored) before resorting to a serious procedure:
1. Scars take a lot longer than one month to heal*. I have seen scars that blow up huge (to the point where they’re distorting surrounding tissue uncomfortably) during the first year or so, and then settle down, softening and shrinking dramatically.
2. It is also possible that steroid injections / creams as well as other non-surgical scar treatments could have dealt with it.
* I should also add that it’s possible that this scar is one year old and that month was a typo.
And I hope that Lukas or Samppa will comment if they’re reading this…
I can’t speak in Samppa’s case, but Lukas is known by other artists around the world for having incredibly… umm….. “relaxed” views toward cleanliness, disinfection, and sterility. I have worked on him, and seen him work up close, and I can tell you that I’ve seen some frightening things.
Anyway, there is no way to tell from the photos whether their gloves are sterile (or at least were sterile before use), so that’s a moot point. Regardless, it’s not of great concern. Control of cross-contamination issues is much more important, and that’s where training comes in. Remember, you’re only seeing a few out-of-context snapshots of what happened on this day, so it’s pretty useless to comment on cleanliness issues, unless there’s something obvious going on. But yes, they SHOULD have their arms covered.
Betadine isn’t the only product used to disinfect skin… TechniCare, which many practitioners have switched to, goes on clear. (I see that there is some type of product being used.)
As for the surgery itself, it looks alright considering the circumstances. Should the client have gone to a doctor? Of course. But that’s not always an option, for many reasons. Who’s to say that he didn’t consult a doctor first?
The stitches don’t look half-bad, either.
Smart move having the scars removed? Only time will tell. My scars take about 5 years to settle, so who knows?
I am a big fan of Lukas and Samppa’s work. What they do, they do incredibly well.
But, I agree with the folks who say it should have been referred to a doctor.
I don’t care if the client does not like doctors. I don’t care if the guy could not afford a doctor. I don’t care if Lukas and Samppa had some personal reason for taking it on (Like, umm, I dunno, maybe they were friends with the original practitioner and wanted to clean up after him or something?)
This is not a procedure that should be done by an untrained person. You can be a world renowned piercer/mod artist/scarification artist. Best in the world, even, and that does not make you qualified to do everything that involves the skin and a pointy object.
It is not just about degree of training, it is the setting. In a medical center if something goes wrong, there is a whole staff of professionals ready to back you up. What if the client went into shock halfway through? Or got delerious from blood loss? Or started to sieze? Or had an MI from stress? For that matter what if one of the practitioners happened to pass out for unrelated reasons? How would they continue?
In a medical center, there are the methods, systems, trained personell and equipment to deal with such things, whether it’s on-staff nurse anesthetists, central oxygen, a defribrilator or just other equally skilled personell to step in and assist or consult, when needed.
Given that this client had a history of poor healing, either due to peculiarities of his skin structure and immune system or due to his aftercare, he was going into this with a very high chance of a less than satisfactory outcome. That chance rose when Lukas and Samppa agreed to perform the procdure they did.
Oh, and, btw, if it goes wrong again, maybe even moreso, does the bod mod community as a whole really need another run in with the law, either when this guy’s insurance company forces him to sue or when the state/province charges the practitioners with practicing without a license?
There are lstill lots of places where we have to fight tooth and nail to convince communites we are responsible business owners, not criminals. If this goes very bad, as it might, the adverse publicity will not help the bod mod community at all.
One word sums it up: irresponsible.
JESUS TITTYFUCKING CHRIST!
Where’s moddoctor when you want to read the view of a plastic surgeon?
Actually…while we’re on the subject of scars, I have a cross on the back of my left hand (done when I was about ten years old :/) that’s rather faded twelve years on…
It’s only about 1″ across…I’ve been thinking of strike-branding it.
Good idea for the back of the hand?
*n
OMG!!!
i’m in shock :O
Speaking as someone with experience, there’s also the consideration that he didn’t want to go to a doctor because he didn’t want to be put in a mental institution. They still do that, you know.
**Although to be fair, I don’t know where this procedure was performed or where the person under the knife lives. Milage may vary.
penski, i was also wondering about branding in areas where there are viens close to the surface, and thin skin. such as the under side of the wrist.
off topic i know, but any ideas any one?
I’d like to know how many stitches it took!
this is a mod in itself, scare adjustment! I can’t wait to see the result in a couple of months…
There is no denying that Samppa and Lukas are some of the best in the bod mod field. I agree with many that I would love to see the healed product of this work.
I love the second picture. I love how scar tissue looks when it has been cut through, (from personnel experience) it doesn’t ’split open’ like flesh does - more just leaves a line. Seeing those wads of scar tissue is incredible.
I know this is a method they use in ‘professional’ plastic surgery for removing scars. Cutting out the scar tissue and then sowing the wound shut for less of a scar.
Absolutely amazing - one of the best modblog entries to date.
xXx
This made my heart hurt.
i think howie did that at the swiss mod meet.
Great modblog post. where to buy higher resolution images!
(They’ll be in their galleries / free next Tuesday I expect)
For what I’ve seen Mr. Zpira and Mr. Von Cyborg are great artists, but in the same way that doctors shouldn’t pierce or tattoo because they are not qualified for that, artists should not engage in surgery, because no matter how prepared they are, they haven’t had the formal training, a lot of things can go wrong. Of course that the man being operated has the right to go and have the keloids removed by whoever he considers best, it’s his body and he has the right to do whatever he wants with it, personally I’d go to a doctor, but that’s me, his decission must be respected.
poor bastien.. t’as du morfler!
Ultimately, I think we should remember that depending on where this was done, these guys are practicing medicine without a licence.
They should not have agreed to do this procedure. It will be them, not the client, who will land in jail or with a stiff fine. So the client’s feelings about doctors are not an issue. Lidocaine in the injectable form is still a prescription medication. It should only be being used by or under the direction of a medical professional. If given at too high a rate it can cause heart arrhythmias.
As a medical professional, I am very aware of the legal ramifications of this. If something goes wrong, they have no form of legal protection against any type of civil or criminal lawsuits.
mmmmmmmm……………
I agree with Nosimplehiway (comment 76) about the setting. Even if those guys were qualified surgeons, to operate in that context would be negligent.
Penski - I think moddoctor has said in the past that s/he is a “cosmetic dermatologist” rather than a plastic surgeon.
Shannon, those two points you made in comment 74 are both good reasons that these guys shouldn’t have gone ahead and done this procedure. I had mentioned a few of those non-surgical options in comment 59. As well as making the (potential) surgery easier, it’s quite possible that these treatments could have negated the need for surgery all together.
I too would be interested in hearing from Lukas and/or Samppa.
“watery-mouth-i’m-gonna-vomit”
I know exactly what you mean, phoenixxx.
I echo the above “thanks for posting this, Shannon”. Some time in the future i want to get a stomach scarification piece, and those of us who’ve only seen good clean results need to have a different point of view like this shown to us.
well, i met this gut today and scar looks really neat and he’s really really happy. He said that it’s amazing feeling that he can stad right again.
Procedure itself was pretty easy altought that it needs about 60 stitches. And yes we used sterile cloves and sterile everything and about scalpel blades…(btw ausmoz, can u came up with ur real name, please?) we used(me nr. 15 as usually and lukas nr.11) and what was wrong with blades? u need two different type of blade for it.
and about this quote: “Just look at the size of the keloid compared to the length of the incision/scar. It looks like the incision had to be extended signifigantly towards the nipple (and downwards to a lesser extent) due to poor planning and the skin not lining up - you can’t just sew a rounded cut like they’d made initially with sutures. The resulting scar is almost twice the length it needed to be.”
obviously u don’t have any idea about this kinda procedures…or then u don’t have eyes on ur head? or then u don’t just understand. there was so much tension that guy couldn’t even stand straight and of course when u cut that keloid half, it getting much longer as there’s no ant tension anymore.
and about stiches…i did exactly same thing what i’ve been teached by doctor (yes, i’ve learned from doctor. i haven’t been in medical school, like some ppl say that they been…but other than them, i can prove that doctors teached me to do all body modification and surgigal work what i can do now) and i used double stitches(don’t know right name in english, in finnish patjaommel), so there wasn’t much tension for those normal stitches.
and about infection risk…of course there’s always risk to get infection, if u get any bod mod of surgigal procedure, but sad but true u get bad infection much easier from hospital tho.
and we don’t think that we’re any doctors tho. we talked long time about should we removed or not and because it was so bad that it had to remove and this guy wanted me and lukas to do it instead any doctors and he totally understood risks, we deciced to help him.
and like u all see, it didn’t bleed much and we had cautery just in case if it start bleeding. we didn’t have to use it tho.
and we didn’t kicked this guy out after procedure. he was with us week under our control.
and someone asked how we can know that it was too deep cut by that practioner who did this “scarification”….there’s a pics on iam of fresh scar and if u understand anything about scarification, u can see that it was far too deep, as u can compare those random lines with cutting and skin removal”
anyway, now i’m gonna go to bed. i’ll keep posted about how it healing…so far it looks really good.
Iâm glad to hear that this man is doing well so far.
In talking about the length of the incision, I was comparing the pictures that were taken after the keloid was removed (that is, when the skin was no longer under tension from the keloid - http://modblog.bmezine.com/wp-content/uploads/200610052007-pix4.jpg) to the apparent length of the closed wound (http://modblog.bmezine.com/wp-content/uploads/200610052007-pix5.jpg). If Iâve misinterpreted the pictures I apologize, but to me, the closed wound looks a lot closer to the nipple than the open wound.
As for the shape of the excision, I think an âeye shapeâ? with pointed ends would have been preferable to the rounded/elliptical shape that you used (if the intention was to suture the wound closed). As far as the amount of tension goes, as I said earlier, I wonder if hospital surgeons would have preferred to leave the wound open, packed and dressed it, leaving it to heal by secondary intention, rather than closing it at all. Iâm not sure what they would have chosen to do, Iâm not claiming to be an expert.
I think the #11 scalpel blade was not a good choice for the excision. The shape of the blade promotes cuts that are too deep. While itâs not impossible to use (in that you can cut with it), itâs not a good choice â itâs more awkward to use than a rounded blade (like a #10 or a #20) would have been. I didnât know that youâd also used a #15 (there was no picture). I think a #15 blade is a little too small, but itâs better than the #11. Speaking of the depth, in the first picture I linked, the âcraterâ? left after the keloid was excised looks deeper at the bottom half (where the blood is pooling) than the top half, which I doubt was necessary. Again, I may be misinterpreting the photo, but thatâs all I have to go by.
Whatever you say about sterility, the fact remains that you were not in an operating theatre. The patient was on a non-sterile bench. He was wearing non-sterile clothes. Neither of you were wearing a sterile gown, so your arms were not sterile. The fact that Lukas was wearing a ring indicates that he scrubbed his hands sub-optimally. Creating a clean environment is not something that should be done by halves. When not everything is as sterile as possible, it is of little consequence that some of your equipment was sterile when you started. There is no doubt that the setting in which this manâs operation was performed would have increased his risk of infection over an appropriatly set-up operating theatre.
It goes without saying that if anything had gone seriously wrong, you would have been much less capable of dealing with it than a hospital with trained staff, appropriate medications, and life support.
Having said all of this, I still think this man would have benefited from the non-surgical options that have already been mentioned, and from appropriate keloid minimizing dressings/bandages post surgery.
I’ve tried to post a comment in reply to samppa 2-3 times now without success. I don’t know if there is some sort of delay that I haven’t experienced before when posting here, or if the comment hasn’t been sent successfully. I’ve emailed the comment to Shannon (at the glider at zentastic address). He can post it for me if he likes.
Merde..
Pourtant il avait l’air bien fait étant frais mais la croissance des cheloïdes est un peu anarchique..
Ausmoz - I’m not sure why it put just those comments into the moderation queue… Maybe it was because of the length, I’m not sure.
In terms of your question as to healing it open, I don’t see a doctor doing that, because then you’re almost certainly going to have a worse keloid than you started with. Procedurally I think the way the client was put back together was pretty solid and just as good as what you’re going to get from a doctor.
I think Samppa raises and interesting point as well — while it’s true that you can get antibiotics more easily from a doctor, it is also true that had this procedure been done in a hospital, the statistical odds of a serious infection may well have been much higher…
I think it’s really bad that the practioner who made this scar
is unnamed. If Shannon doesn’t know who it was, Samppa or the guy who has these keloids or anybody who knows for sure should reveal his name.
And whatever people say here about the risks of skin removal, the biggest risks are irresponsible wannabe bod mod artists who fuck up people like that and then can get away with it. Taking scarification seriously is to a big extent choosing the good practioner and avoiding the bad one, but how you can avoid them if they are “well-known” bod mod artists whose name is hidden when they ruin somebody’s body like that. I think it’s really incredible that it’s written that “it’s not the point of the entry to reveal his name” but to me that is!
There was one mention of a probable mod artist who did this on this forum, well - i was considering of getting some heavy skin removal from him, and i’m not the person who doesn’t take scarification seriously, i already have a large skin removal. So for fuck’s sake - reveal the name of the practioner, hiding it is irresponsible as in this case it can happen to somebody else.
It’s true that there is probably a higher chance of picking up an antibiotic resistant strain of S. aureus (for example) in most hospitals than in the community (depending on whether S. aureus is prevalent in hospitals in whatever country that was). BUT that’s not to say that this patient didn’t have a higher risk of infection (including with S. aureus) overall - that much is obvious from the pictures.
I don’t think there’s any question that the benefits of being operated on in a hospital outweigh the risks.
In the above comment (#102):
“depending on whether S. aureus is prevalent in hospitals in whatever country that was”
should be
“depending on whether antibiotic resistant S. aureus is prevalent in hospitals in whatever country that was”
Non-antibiotic resistant S. aureus is pretty much everywhere.
Hi Ausmoz - do you have a name, or choose to remain anonymous for any particular reason?
re: name of the practitioner…
Just a theory…
We don’t know the back story of the client getting the original scars. It may have been some wacky, experimental scarring that the practitioner had to be essentially talked into, with the clear understanding that there may be a poor outcome. The client may have agreed to keep the practitioner’s name quiet as a condition of it’s being performed.
As far as infection and setting goes, there are two flaws in the reasoning on this thread: first is an appeal to probability, the idea that because some patients get infections in hospitals, that this patient would get an infection in a hospital. Second, that because hospitals sometimes transmit infections, that any setting other than a hospital is less likely to transmit an infection.
Maybe I am misunderstanding the pro-Samppa/Lukas folks, but the reasoning on the second argument seems like it goes something like this:
1. Hospitals are places where people get infections.
2. This procedure was performed outside a hospital.
3. Therefore, this procedure will not likely result in an infection.
If I have misrepresented the argument, please correct me.
If the original practitioner is named, will open and free discussion of ‘pioneering artists’ who have taken a stance of “you knew the dangers when I did the procedure. I will not assist you now that it has gone wrong.” be encouraged?
*n
Ausmoz - regarding distance from the nipple:
Note that in the ‘open wound ‘ photos, his arms are raised, pulling the tissue of the chest upwards. He is also laying supine.
In the ’stitched’ photo, his arms are down. He is also standing up so gravity has a bit of an effect also.
In my opinion, this is what has contributed to the incision appearing closer to the nipple.
*n
Firstly i would like to say that people (Ausmoz in particular) should stop sitting there commenting on what Samppa and Lukas should or shouldn’t of done, you were not there and you did not see the procedure, saying they should of used one type of scalpel blade or this type is just wrong, if you knew anything about Bodmod work you would know its what you feel comfortable using, and with their knowledge on Bodymodification, i am most sure they were the right implements. And saying he should of gone to a doctor, please have you seen some of the results coming out of hospitals these days, you are more likely to pick up MRSA or something, and thats not the point the guy in person felt more comfortable going to Samppa and Lukas. I know Samppa very well and am very good friends with him and have been with him assisting while he has done mod works and i can tell you his level of hygiene and knowledge on cross-contamination is a hell of a lot higher than in any hospital i have been to over here, and ofcourse they prepped before and scrubbed where they should, i would know i have seen him work before, how the hell can you comment on such things from only seeing a few pictures, you never saw the whole procedure. It really makes me pissed off that people just sit there and make such negative comments and say what other people should of done. Everyone is free to make there own decisions and his was to let Samppa and Lukas do this procedure, and they done a fucking good job at it, remember this guy couldn’t even stand up straight from the tension of the scars.
And to say that a doctor may of left the would open and just dressed it and let it heal by secondary intention, what the fuck how the hell can you say that, do you realise the size of the wound? if anyone doesn’t have knowledge on these type of things then its the people writing these things. I have refered this to a family member of mine who is a surgeon, and what did she say, its the same that they would of done if they had a case like this, and NO THEY WOULD DEFINATELY NOT OF LEFT THE WOUND OPEN!
Yes we actually saw the person last night who got the work done and i cant tell you how happy he is, its just such a relief for him and he is overjoyed at how its healing!
Seeing it myself personally, its healing really well and the stiches look great, Samppa does the neatist stiches i have ever seen, and seeing this guy last night just proved that!
All i can say is Well done to Samppa and Lukas, you done a great job, and being one of the few people here to have seen the results in person. Its always easy to just sit there and say what people should of done especially when you remain anonomous. Samppa and Lukas have extreme amount of knowledge on these procedures and have learnt from doctors, they would not perform the procedures if they wernt confident that they knew exactly what they were doing! Well done
i actually felt sick looking at those pics…and i am a pretty desensitized person. it was the stitches…like the skin stretched over the stuff.
sorry i know the convo has gone in a different way by now, but i am like…stunned.
The people defending this on the grounds of, “They did it just as well/better than a doctor would have” or “The person would have been more likely to get an infection in the hospital” or anything like that is missing the goddamn point.
Maybe Lukas and Samppa are brilliant medical minds and missed their callings as surgeons. I don’t know, but it doesn’t make a difference either way. The fact of the matter remains that, in spite of their relative skills or knowledge, they had no business doing a surgical procedure like this.
It doesn’t matter what kinds of scalpels they used, how good their sutures were, or if they were wearing fucking hazmat suits for the entire thing. THEY ARE NOT SURGEONS.
The problem here is that it sets a very dangerous precedent. There’s already a sentiment growing in this “community” that people, practitioners and clients alike, know more than doctors. This is bullshit. Maybe doctors are not quite as informed about certain aspects and particular things, but by and large, they know a hell of a lot fucking more than most other people with regards to this kind of stuff.
Any asshole with a scalpel already considers himself a scarification “artist.” If what Samppa and Lukas have done here is accepted and applauded — which is just blowing my fucking mind, by the way — then what’s to stop that same asshole from thinking he’s a fucking surgeon?
People are going to start dying, and other people are going to start going to prison (as well they should), and everybody involved will have fucked any chance of legitimacy for more extreme modification procedures. So think about that when you decide to cut somebody’s torso open in your studio, or when you support somebody who does.
Can’t it be seen that this entire procedure was, in base terms, just large-scale skin removal? Neither artist proclaims themselves to be a doctor, but both regularly perform skin removal without great uproar.
If arguments are flying that no bodymod practitioner has ‘business’ performing serious fixes like this, then surely we are back to the stage of questioning if former body piercers should have ever picked up a scalpel in the first place…?
I do not ‘applaud’ the procedure, nor condemn it; however the client was obviously comfortable going to Samppa and Lukas with the intention of having the keloids removed in the same manner as a skin removal. Medical politics should not come into it.
The original practitioner was already outted as Howie. Many sketchy proceedures and minor aged recipients have gone under his blade.
Nosimplehiway - I don’t think anyone has used that as an argument; it’s more of an aside comment.
Jordan - The problem is that if you’re going to say that *this* procedure goes too far, you have to say the same for ALL forms of implants and most forms of scarification. Are you willing to say that?
yeah what i have to say sort of echos what shannon just said
i mean everyone is flipping out about “oh god it was a surgical procedure and blah blah they should be doing it”
from what i see it looks like a skin removal, or if anything else similar to a nipple removal just abit larger
this procedure is rahter tame compared to some things that are done really
so they shouldnt be doing medical procedures right ok then, so no more implants, no more transscrotals, no more tongue splitting, no more ear pointing, and it goes without saying castration and ampuation are out
and hell dermal punching and scarification are out too, cause well its useing a medical device so its practicing medicine without a license
something that was mentioned that really was never taken into consideration is there is a very good chance if he went to a doctor with this they could and probably would try to have him commited for self harm, and you know what for all we know he could have went to a doctor and they refused to help him
and there is a good chance thats is what happend, most doctors do not know or understand what we do and will refuse to do anything that crosses the bondery of whats normal for them
i guess the point really is, you dont know whats going on till you get the whole story, and making blanket statements is dangerous to our community and well freedom to do what we want
people pretend that this is something they do everyday, no it was an extreme case that in my opinion had to be done to help a person live a better life, well not even an extreme case cause people are blowing it way out of proportion as useal (drama queens)
jordan, jordan, jordan…where to begin with just how wrong you are?
first of all, doctors are not the only people qualified to perform medical procedures. nurses perform a huge number of surgical procedures. paramedics also have the ability to perform quite a few emergency surgical procedures. there are countless other individuals…midwives, bush medics, even witch doctors…that are either self-trained or taught through exposure who are far more experienced and qualified than an MD to perform procedures such as this.
secondly, the type of mods that lukas and samppa do ARE medical procedures
next, neither of them have said or insinuated that they will ’stop doing what they normally do and instead decide that they’re fucking doctors just because they buy scalpels wholesale’
continued next comment…
“i guess the point really is, you dont know whats going on till you get the whole story, and making blanket statements is dangerous to our community and well freedom to do what we want”
This sums the entire thing up PERFECTLY. Thank you, Pauly.
Hell I know of people that have been almost commited for suspending in a public place, because the ‘authorities’ didn’t “understand” why we would do that to ourselves, so I can only imagine what would happen IF this person went to a hospital. Once again, we dont know the WHOLE story and while everyone can certainly voice their (very valid) opinions, what seems to start off as opinions seem to work their way into statements and ‘factual arguments’.
Maybe it seems like I’m talking out of my ass, but stuff like this concerns me, as well as the entire body mod community. Alot of my work has been “surgical procedures”, a number of dermal punches (biopsy punch = surgical), scalpelled piercings, tongue split, scarification, so Shannons’ question to Jordan is certainly one that I await a response to.
/rant.
If the original artist was in fact howie, I would like to say that I have personally seen some of Howie’s scar removal (a smaller scale of what happened here) and I was blown away by the results.
There is alot of talk about what is acceptable and not acceptable by “extreme body artists” in this thread, and I think people are over generalizing both sides. This whole thing is a gray area. When does a scar become to large for a top artist to remove? This procedure is midly more dangerous then some extreme procedures that are done on a very normal basis imo.
What zpira and samppa did may of been borderline, they said the client was under their supervision for a week however. It’s not like they just did this large procedure then flew out of town and let him to fend for himself.
And as for talk about which blade is more suited. Zpira’s has the ability to weild a scalpel and do some pretty fancy cuts in on some sort of tai-chi fluid motions. I’m sure his scalpel choice did not endanger or hinder his work on this client.
I’m sure Jordan will answer on his own as well on different points, but playing devil’s advocate to my own question there are two main differences:
1. This procedure involves the removal of a large amount of tissue. That makes it legally problematic in many countries, both in terms of the procedure itself and the disposal of the tissue. (This also affects skin removal scarification, but not implants).
2. (and this is the main one:) This is a procedure that doctors do, and are trained to do. That doesn’t mean they can do it better, but it means they can make a legal case that it’s their “territory”.
As I see it, this procedure (which appears to have been done as responsibly as possible) is not “more intense” than others that have been documented here and on BME and elsewhere, but it does involve some legal “technicalities” that could make it problematic.
Here is a photo of the cutting/removal fresh
that is some intense scarring for a month old cutting.
I wish there was some some day to day time lapse photos!
While it is true that this community often supports unlicensed practitioners performing procedures like castration, trans-scrotals, tongue splitting and others that should be in the purview of organized medicine, that is because the medical community largely refuses to perform them on an elective basis.
When someone approaches a cutter for those procedures, both parties understand that there is virtually no other way to achieve the same effect and therefore are willing to accept the higher risks associated with an unlicensed practitioner.
But in the case of this procedure, the client could, had he chosen to, gone to a physician. More precisely, I think it’s safe to assume that since the client had pain and reduced function, had the unlicensed practitioners refused to perform the procedure he would have been forced to use legitimate medicine… which is superior to other forms of treatment. (Sigh. A point I am just tired of arguing… if you think hospitals are such hotbeds of incompetence and cesspits of infection, then burn your insurance cards and have “I refuse all medical treatment, take me to a piercer instead” tattooed on your chest. Any takers?)
The reason unlicensed practitioners are rarely called on to perform breast augmentation, rhinoplasty or the removal of a benign skin tumor is because the legitimate medical community provides these procedures.
Underground cutters should be an option of last resort.
As for the new pic… I am far from an expert, but that looks like a big, but not exceptionally huge, skin removal. Did something unsual happen to promote the keloiding? And is it maybe time to quit dancing around the issue and get the client on here to tell his story in his own words? What happened during healing? Did he have a history of heavy keloids? Why did he not go to a doctor?
I have personally had a scar removal on my chest. I wish him all the best of luck. I went to many plastic surgeons whom wanted nothing to do with me, and tried to give me over the counter remedies that did nothing for my preexisting scars. I really should submit my pictures.
[...] http://modblog.bmezine.com/2006/10/06/when-scarification-goes-bad/ [...]
I firmly believe that this is going too far, and I am unwavering on that point.
That said, I think a lot of other practitioners go too far with procedures that people here just accept as “extreme” now, as well.
There is a lot of very, very dangerous stuff being done now about which neither clients nor practitioners know nearly enough.
What it comes down to is this: At what point are we going to admit to ourselves that the danger that people are putting themselves in outweighs the benefits one might receive from looking the way he or she wants to look?
If things like this are setting the standard for acceptibility, then the industry needs to be regulated. Sorry, but it’s the truth.
You need licenses to do things far less dangerous than implanting objects under peoples’ skin and removing large chunks of flesh from their bodies. I have no ethical or moral problems with a certain degree of medical training being required by anybody who wants to facilitate more “extreme” modifications. If it stifles the industry, so be it. I’d rather have a much smaller, more contained group of practitioners whose expertise and qualifications can be depended upon than an open market where you don’t know a butcher from a master.
The “community” is much, much too secretive as it is, all in the name of protection. Protection of whom? Of ostensibily well-renowned “artists” who cause people serious bodily harm? Because the industry relies so heavily on reputation and cliques that if you dare criticize somebody, you’ll have a throng of their sycophantic customers jump down your throat? This is madness. And I’m not saying it’s exclusive to body modification, but god damn it, if you get fucked up by an implant, there’s no way to file a malpractice complaint!
If this industry doesn’t make any attempt to save itself, then it’s going to find itself in a deep pile of shit, and it will have nobody to blame but itself. And it will deserve all the shit that it catches as a result.
do you have any images of his tattoos? they have potential to be the most amazing tattoos i have ever seen!
It’s my opinion that nobody here has the right to determine whether this or any other procedure is “right” or “wrong”. If two (or three, in this case) consenting adults take part in an extreme medical procedure who are we to stop them? If I have the right to pay a doctor to cut open my chest and insert huge implants, why can’t I pay a cutter to do the same? Of cut out a chunk of skin, or cut off my genitals? For that matter, why can’t I pay some random guy on the street to stab me in the gut? It’s my body; I can and will do what I will with it. The fact that what the other guy does to me may or may not be legal is an entirely separate issue, but one that’s based on the first.
I also don’t feel that cutters are under any ethical obligation to clients, except when it comes to minors, people who are obviously incapable of making safe choices, and the obvious responsibility to see that the procedure is done in the safest and best manner they can do, and that the client recieves proper care after the procedure so as to maximise the potential for proper healing.
Yes it was Howie at the Swiss mod meeting in June 2006, and the client was iam:bastien. But before everyone starts bad talk about howie: he refused to do a procedure on me (magnetic finger implant) which Steve Haworth, Emilio Gonzalez and about 5 other mod artists told me personally that they would do it. And told me nothing about possible risks. Some months later, Shannons article proved him right.
I too think that bastien should tell his story. We don’t know if he pushed the mod artist into doing it, we don’t know if his body has a increased tendency to keloid.
Thanks sammpa for explaining the thing about the deepness of the cuts.
This is one of the more interesting threads we have seen on here in a long time.
Only problem? My finger gets tired scrolling allll the waaaay down to the latest post.
:-)
dude, this had 129 posts, that HAS to be a record!
nope, the claw hand wolverien freak boy post has 400 some post’s. no one from fark has see this yet. lol.
At least was in the best of hands for this.
Jordan:
I’m sure from your statement that the “authorities” could easily wrangle up some obscure documents of tongue piercing infections causing death, statistics on hep c linked to tattooing etc etc etc… where do you think the line drawn could be? you’d be opening up a very large hole that everything worked so hard to achieve could easily be sucked into.
I don’t understand the arguement. The client has every right to get a cutting. I’m sure he knew the risks involved. The whole purpose is for the SCARRING…it just so happens that it’s a risk he took and unfortunately it did turn for the worse. However, the practictioners who removed the keloid had every right to do it. I’m sure going into the initial scarification he knew risks, as i’m sure he knew there is a risk when getting the keloids removed. People are looking into this way too much. People will perform procedures their own ways, it’s up to the client whether or not they agree with and want to go under the procedure.
Wow. For someone like myself who has bigger scars due to actual surgical procedures (some ten feet or so) from heart and various other incidences, I can tell you how horrifying you all are to sit there and actually buy into this shit that these fucking fools think they are “artists” because they hack into people’s skin and make pretty designs.
I’m all for the do what you want with your own body mindset, believe me. But the fact that there are less than educated hyped-up younger folk reading this shit and thinking, wow, man, I could totally do that, it’s so cool, makes it completely wrong to be complicit with-not only for putting it up, but for advertising these faux skills of a bunch of fucking hackers.
Wouldn’t it be a totally novel idea to maybe even get a basic nursing degree? Wouldn’t it be amazing if these guys actually got a fucking education as to what they were doing…not just metaphorically, but physically to the victims that pay them? This is not like 9th grade where kids pierced their ears with burnt tip safety pins. This is the real deal and all of you fucking tools who buy into this shit as appropriate are asking for it…either through staph or whatever infections might claim your life. Arguing over blade size and sterilization wouldn’t be necessary if you all actually trusted these goons knew what they were doing.
I can’t wait for these guys to end up in jail. It’s an imminent danger, and maybe someone has to actually die before the wheels are set in motion.
But I ask you, would you really trust a guy whose grammar and basic spelling skills are less than someone who is 14 to cut into your skin and do some of the most obviously unprofessional sutures I have ever seen? I wouldn’t trust someone who would actually type a statement like this out: [(Procedure itself was pretty easy altought that it needs about 60 stitches. And yes we used sterile cloves and sterile everything and about scalpel bladesâ¦(btw ausmoz, can u came up with ur real name, please?) we used(me nr. 15 as usually and lukas nr.11) and what was wrong with blades? u need two different type of blade for it.]
Not to pop the bubbles of all of you kids who think you need to morph into other things besides the human beings that you all happen to be…but honestly, guys, THINK about what you are doing. I can’t tell you how often it is that people with less than stellar egos, people who might not have the self-confidence that they might perceive the average person to have, do these things to their body and then sit and whine and complain that “everyone makes fun of me…how can they judge me”. This is the mirror complaint that they had BEFORE they underwent these âmodificationsâ?, yet now actually have the ammunition to validate it.
You might try something actually useful, like spending your hard-earned cash on some fucking therapy before you go buying into this “idea” that cutting yourself up is going to make it all better.
Looking at the original skin removal, with exception of the cutting in the middle, I wouldn’t have guessed that the side ones would keloid like they did.
I’m glad this guy got relief. I see this procedure the same as typical skin removal work. But this is a cautionary tale. It just hilights the risks of scarification that people should be aware of in the first place. Scarring can be unpredictable, you really have to know your own body, and even though people can heal differently it’s still a good idea to research the artist and look at before and after shots.
Regarding post #95
The sutures placed are called mattress sutures and are commonly placed to help relieve tension on a primary suture line (Just some FYI for Sampaa). Note previous post about pattern. However, other tension relieving techniques may have been helpful, as it did still seem kind of tense.
In the future, rings must be removed if you are even going to begin to use aseptic technique. Consider investing in a gown and drapes.
Regarding healing by secondary intention:
With a primary surgical site that is not grossly contaminated, there is no reason (for a SURGEON) to not perform primary closure. Delayed primary closure and closure by secondary intention should only be used in the case of contaminated or infected wounds or if a wound cannot be closed with out a skin graft without being under undue tension.
It was healing by secondary intention, which is what scarification is all about that caused this problem in the first place.
Regarding skin removal in general:
I just don’t believe it should be done AT ALL (I know I am going to be flamed but don’t care). Skin is a precious resource. The way it heals cannot be compatible with most peoples artistic vision. I have posted previously about my concerns with contracture and loss of mobility and I am sad that it was seen out.
So many more things to say, but too tired to fight. It is not going to change anyone’s mind anyway.
this is why scarring is retarded. if you want a scar that badly just get cancer or something like the rest of us instead of trying to be “badass” , its pathetic.
sweet jesus! those go all the way to the fatty tissue,eep!
i’m between being really jealous and being really thankful because none of my scars are tht bad.
shannon: you just posted a link to the (i believe) original cuts done to the guy’s torso. that’s some mighty intense scarring, be it one month later, or a year. i’m rather curious now if he’s had a similar reaction to any other cuts, or if he’s had any done before.
i’m glad things are going in the right direction for him now.
Wow…one comment that always gets on my tits is when people say, as a means to justify their behavior “They knew what they were getting into when they got the cutting.
Guess what folks….there’s not a person here who can say with certainty, that they are aware of what they are getting into when they get a scarification. If this individual did then he sure as hell wouldn’t have gone through with it, would he?
People…this is NOT a dainty world. There are a ton of pics on here where the scarring looks horrible. How many of these people who get this done actually ‘test’ their bodies to see what might happen, since they have no basis for comparisson and everyone scars differently?
Still, it certainly makes me never want to get anything intentionally scarred. no one to tell for sure WHAT might happen…even if the results are good.
Hmmmmmm speakin of Howie being professional. Is this the place to bring up his broken beer bottle scarification piece. Or how about the time all the girl wanted was a heart scar and he decided to do that plus scar her for life by putting an H in the center to leave his mark. Just because she could not see what he was cuttin on her at the time due to the area? hmmmmmmm Howie any comments
From my standpoint, as someone with a massive (perhaps the largest save for Corinna?) skin removal — done by Lukas Zpira no less — as well as probably more scarification than anyone else, I’d have to back up the person (iam:bastien) with his choice to have this done.
Sure, neither Samppa nor Lukas have any sort of medical degree (I’m assuming). And sure, it doesn’t seem to have been performed in the most sterile of environments. And sure, he most certainly could have died as a direct result of having such a large wound. Then again, so could I. Here’s some video (also available on Google Video) http://modblog.bmezine.com/2005/12/05/high-res-scarification-video/
The thing is, what about people who take unknown drugs from “friends”? There’s most certainly a very real element there of death. I’m not talking about kids, I’m talking about adults who elect to imbibe chemicals from a total stranger, the origins of which are usually highly suspect.
I feel that the above scenario is not too different from this keloid removal, although it would probably be viewed in a different light. That’s just my two cents on the “ethical” arguments given thus far.
In regards to why such a large, handicapping keloid developed I’m not surprised at all. The picture Shannon posted SEEMS to be somewhat deep, I agree, although I’d need more angles/closeups, and even then I’m no expert. But more importantly, the area in which he was scarred is the clue. Areas where the skin has more movement will scar heavier than those areas whose movement is little. Have you ever seen a keloid on someone’s skull? I haven’t!
His ribs and stomach area especially have massive movement. Look what happens to your stomach when you sit down. I know on my torso my stomach area scarred much more than, say, my chest. Here’s a pic:
http://modblog.bmezine.com/2006/08/22/fineline-scarification/
Anyways, I don’t think that the industry is becoming more ballsy in its approach; on the contrary, I think the recent professionalism has made practicioners more practical when it comes to more “extreme” mods. People have been bisecting their penises forever, it’s only nowadays that there’s people to go to who are even remotely sterile.
It’s too late now, bed time for me. Sorry if none of this made much sense.
That’s quite immense how it keloided up. They were huge.
re: Comment 134:
“But I ask you, would you really trust a guy whose grammar and basic spelling skills are less than someone who is 14 to cut into your skin”
Deanna - could you re-post what you had to say in fluent Finnish with full grammar and correct spelling please?
I would just like to state that us saying he should’ve gone to a doctor is just about the same as a mother telling her 30-year-old son not to get another piercing. Granted, the procedure and risks are on quite different levels, but if the person is of a secure state of mind and capable of making their own decisions, who are we to judge? And if they are not capable of making their own decisions, should they be commited to a hospital? Then who draws the line?
I personally think that two people should well be allowed to kill and eat each other for all I care as long as a) they’re not harming anybody else and b) they have a written contract in case something happens so the consent can be proven.
But I’m very much against BB anyway, and that’s just my opinion. I’m sure the politicians will know my rights better than I do.
Deanna (Comment 134) - Samppa is Finnish, and English is not his first language which would explain his imperfect spelling and grammar. HOWEVER I have never quite been able to connect the issue of spelling with the issue of being a good practitioner. That seemed like an irrelevant attack.
The main thing that I’ve been thinking about as I read the posts is how many modification procedures which are becoming more and more common are potentially as dangerous as the keloid removal procedure.
Whether this means that we (as the modified/modifying community) should step back and re-define what is ’safe’ or acceptable, or we should step back and up the sterility, or step back and consider other options all together, I do not know.
This post has certainly made me step back (and I think many of you stepped with me…) and re-think the risk levels of my planned modifications.
Haha… Jesus! Snap!
time to say something …
ok , wen bastien came to me asking to remove hes cheloides, I didnt say “yes” … just “maybe, but it s going to be more dificult than you imagine… let me think about”. after a while, we both agree that another advice was necessary. samppa came to us. THE 3 OF US talked about the procedure and we finaly decide to perform it .
let me explain you something jordan . this wasnt our first procedure … I dont bulshit you talling like some other that I’ve been in medical school for years , but I start doing body modification 10 years ago, enouth to learn some “basics”, while you were still playing with your ungrow penis, try to guess is purpose.
so we did the procedure, in a studio simalar at other studio that people use to do subincision and other pretty hard procedure . everithing we used for the procedure was sterile, and even if the procedure was a bit dificult for everibody , everithing goes right . we did one side only . we decide to wait a couple of days , see how things are going before to do the other side . everithing goes right , so we decide to remove the second cheloide 2 days later . in the same spot and again all we use was completly sterile . like for the first part, a 3 person help us during the procedure.
after that, we decide to put bastien under antibiotics for 10 days, and to make him wear a medical corset to avoid all execives tensions .
bastien stay with us during a couple of days after the procedure , almost a week, and we check everiday if everithing was corect . and beleve it or not, we didnt got any other problemes . no execive bleeding, no infections …
bastien will come in this forum to tel you hes point of view, and we will keep you updated .
but man , stop coming to this page to colport fucking gossip ! the point her is not to kill anybodys reputation …
thats always drive me crazy wen I read coment like :
“but Lukas is known by other artists around the world for having incredibly⦠ummâ¦.. ârelaxedâ? views toward cleanliness, disinfection, and sterility. I have worked on him, and seen him work up close, and I can tell you that Iâve seen some frightening things.”
who are you asshole to say bulshit like this about me ? thats just gossip. and pretend that you worked on me on the top of that !
the only people who worked on me are : steve, howie, samppa (and tom for a scalpeled neeples that I didnt keep). your just a pretentious liar.
I dont have anything to prove about my work . what I did during the past and still doing now talk for me .
so if somebody got something to say about the procedure and the legal issue, he can tel it. but if you just have to talk shit about anybody, go back play with your playstation .
so, yes I agree this procedure was legaly border line . but what about subincision, transcrotal, nipple removal, implants etc ….
I call all theise procedures “body hacking” . is nothing legal with hacking . so what ?! why shall we respect some laws made by people who still beleve that man should be like god made them ? why should we respect laws made by people who just want to take the control of our destiny ? theise laws will soon make illegal facial modification to beter control us via biometric system . are you going to respect that ?! who is going to make the regulation about body mods ? george buch governement ?! sorry Im laffing . are americans going to send some troops to arrest bodmods artist in other country ?! come on baby , think a bit by yourself and stop whatching cnn , ok ?
re:comment 134 again:
“I’m all for the do what you want with your own body mindset, believe me. But the fact that there are less than educated hyped-up younger folk reading this shit and thinking, wow, man, I could totally do that, it’s so cool, makes it completely wrong to be complicit with-not only for putting it up, but for advertising these faux skills of a bunch of fucking hackers.”
Deanna - apart from all the emotive crap you wrote (something to do with empathising over having involuntary scars from surgical procedures “some 10 feet or so” from your heart), what are you suggesting here? Censoring this so that “younger folk” don’t see this?
I get the feeling somewhere down the line that you missed the point: this post is about keloid *removal* (hence the deeper cutting) from original scarification gone wrong, not “this is cool shit to do to your own body”. There is a valuable lesson to be learnt here and censorship is besides the point.
Two questions though: Where is yttrx on this issue? what does howie have to say for this?
the keloids are not the result of a bad artist… they are the result of the body producing excessive scar tissue… had nothing to do with the artist… and the center scar is not on the sternum, it is on the abdomen… hopefully, he won’t scar up as badly this time, but the potential for more keloids is there, because since he had them once, he is prone to have them again… 8-)
First, I wanted to thank Lukas and Samppa for adding to this forum.
Second, I wanted to say that I thought this quote (paraphrased from Lukas) was great: “Nothing is legal with body hacking — so what! Why should we respect laws made by people who still believe that man should be like god made him? Why should we respect laws made by people who just want to take the control of our destiny?”
Micehell - I am fairly certain that the top part of the scar is over the lower part of the sternum. Obviously I am aware the entire thing is not. I think we all know where the sternum starts and ends.
deanna, scarification is not what people have done to ‘make things all better’. that is called ’self mutilation’, and it is a very big difference than people who choose to alter their bodies. self-cutters do it for relief of psychological pain. i’m sure that every person in this forum who has undergone scarification, branding, tattooing, piercing will agree that they did not do it for psychological pain relief.
my apologies if my grammar and spelling are not to your level either. like lukas and samppa, english ain’t my first language either.
Well with just moments from catching a taxi to head to Toronto and get more of my arm scarification sleeve completed…This has certainly wasted much precious time I could have utilized, in getting to Toronto earlier. haha
We can all argue till the cows come home about this procedure, because we are on the outside of the looking glass…Based on the quicksnap photographs that someone took documenting the procedure. So you can’t tell anything from the pictures, other than what is vaguely going on.
Sammpa gave us a run down of what went on…I’m inclined to believe Sammpa, why lie publically about this stuff? As it’d only severely tarnish his reputation as a bod mod artist. However before Sammpa posted, all we had to go by was nothing…Since many of the people posting, save for a few, have little to know understanding/knowledge of any of this topic.
Judge not least you’ve walked a mile in the shoes ALL individuals in questions.
FYI: for anyone who supports Sammpa and Lukas with the phrase: “They are GREAT BOD MOD ARTISTS!”
If I remember, not long ago on Shannon’s page this was discussed already…But if you forget…SOME OF “THE WORLDS GREATEST BOD MOD ARTISTS” HAVE SERIOUSLY INJURED THEIR CLIENTS TOO!!!!
And we’re talking LIFE THREATENING too, close to death…Not leaving them scarred or nerve damage…
I know and admire both Sammpa AND Lukas, so I will never argue specifically against them…However personally, if it was me, I would have sought out proper medical attention…I would have FOUND a doctor who would do the procedure…I would have MADE SURE they used proper aseptic technique with everything sterilized and prepped properly.
As for putting people into mental wards, that’s purely subjective and based entirely on WHERE you specifically live. In small backwater towns, possibly…But in HUGE mega cities such as: Toronto, NYC, London,etc you will NOT be subjected to such ignorance…At least nowadays.
I remember one day after BMEFest I had a friend seek out medical help for anti-biotics after a procedure they had done…They saw the doctor, showed them the mod and the doctor was very open an asked MANY questions and acted like: “Oh ok well lets treat the problem”
Also to the person who wrote that perhaps the individual in question TALKED THE ARTIST INTO DOING IT, AGAINST THE ARTISTS WILL
I call utter and complete bullshit! As a piercer if I have clients come in that I feel are not anatomically adequate to have a navel piercing, I TELL THEM…If they try to talk me into it, I REFUSE!
Artists should not give in to the clients demands. If the client wanted Howie to cut deeper than what is desired…Howie should have flat out told the client: “NO!”
Ethics and Morals play a HUGE part of what artists do. Coupled with our skills that’s ALL WE HAVE. If we feel doing something to someone might be dangerous, WE SHOULD LISTEN TO OUR LIL VOICES IN OUR HEADS AND REFUSE!
Now people will come back an say: “yeah but if one refused, he’d just search until he’d find one that would”
But again that falls under ethics…Hell I’m sure I could find someone to locate a dead hooker and have a horse fuck it while a kid strokes the horses ballsack…It’ll take some time, but I’m POSITIVE I could…Doesn’t mean I SHOULD.
Clients are sometimes ignorant and know NOTHING about modifications, other than that they want them.