This is probably not going to be your usual plastic surgery question.

I am interested in getting a 3D art implant on my forearm. This sort of procedure has generally been only carried out in the more extreme elements of the body modification community, and are generally experimental and carried out in legally dubious procedures. The implant is generally hand carved from a bock of silicone and implanted subdermally under local (xylocaine) anaesthesia. As such, they are generally highly risky procedures.

Currently, I am residing in Australia, and there are no practicioners who offer such a service here. I would be travelling to the US to be worked on. As such there would be limited long term aftercare available to me from the practicioner himself, and the idea of turning up in an ER with an infected implant and being assisted by unsympathetic and unknowledgeable doctors is decidedly unappealing.

I have tried to contact several local plastic surgeons to get an outside opinion on the risks, possible complications and remediation required , and (understandably in some regards) none of them will touch it at all. The actual implant i am considering would be approximately 70m x 30mm x 16mm and placed on the upper side of my forearm, carved into a simple design approximating a double helix structure.

I was wondering if someone could offer me some advice on the possiblity of having the whole procedure done by a plastic surgeon, the costs and availability of implant stabilisation and if required removal, and some suggestions on where to get an objective, professional opinion on the procedure.

I am fully aware of the risky nature of such a procedure, which is why I am gathering as much information as possible before making any decisions.

Thanks for your time in reading this.

Check out this article Arete, featuring a guy who had silicone implanted in his calf for the 3D effect: http://cosmeticsurgery-com.blogspot.com/2008/07/docs-study-tattoos-and-who-hates-em.html.

What are your thoughts about the statistics? It's a very interesting procedure, I gotta say. I wonder about the longevity of the surgery, however...

Elana