My first experience with a piercing was when I was driving my friend Val home from getting her navel pierced. We both had been toying with the idea for a while since we are best friends. She had gotten hers done first. She stated it hurt so bad that she didn't want to move. 2 weeks after she got it done we were driving by and she said "What about your turn?"
At A Glance Author Rachel Contact Rachel@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist Unknown Studio Tattoo Lous Location Long Island So we pull in and walk in. I've been in the studio before to watch my ex get his first tattoo and for some other reasons. I go in, sign the forms and hand over the paper. I get taken around to the chair where I sit down and the woman talks to me about what she is going to do. I feel a little nervous about doing this, since it was spur of the moment. And the fact that on her I can only really see her ears are pierced. She marks with the little purple pen where she is going to pierce. It looks pretty straight to me, so I lay back in the chair.
The clamp hurt when she put it on, and I just took a deep breath and the needle was through. It didn't really hurt at all. On a scale of one to ten it was a four. I felt the ring slide through and I felt a little dizzy and sick. She closed the ring and I got up and paid. I couldn't help but keep lifting my shirt to look at it. This was the first thing I had ever done for myself, and it was new and motivating. I was happy.
The piercer didn't explain how to clean it well though. She said to use bactine. So I bought some and just put it on and left it on, I didn't realize you had to wash it off. I got a very nasty infection. To try and fight this infection I started using the bactine correctly and I also changed the ring.
Changing the ring as early as I did was a bad thing for me. It became harder to clean. I was use to being able to turn the ring whichever way I felt like. With the new standard curved bar in, it became very hard to do. I could barely pull it up and down to clean inside it because of the infection and the inflammation. Val had changed hers when it was only 2 months in her. Hers had started bleeding. I had to use a scissor to pry apart the captive bead ring. I put the new jewelry in and cleaned it again and took a shower. It looked slightly better after I did that.
While it may have looked better it really wasn't. It still was infected and I had just pushed it through the whole thing. It started pussing very bad. Then oddly, it stopped. Instead this red bump started to grow at the bottom. It had started to keyloid. It hurt to touch and I thought my body was going to reject the piercing. I went and bought H2Ocean. That started to get rid of the rest of the infection but the keyloid was still there.
I decided to pop the keyloid, which was my second bad idea. I usually pass out when I see blood. At least, see it and touch it. So I popped it and started spraying the H2Ocean on it. The blood kept on coming. I was pulling what looked like globs of fleshy material and skin out of the new hole. I finished cleaning it and started getting dizzy. Luckily my boyfriend walked in just as I almost smacked my head on the toilet and started dry heaving. Like I said, I'm bad with blood sometimes.
He wanted to take me to a piercer he knew. Her name is Deb and she works at an all female studio called Ink Alternative. I was afraid I had done something wrong with my piercing so I said no. I would deal with it. After that it stayed clean and healed up better.
I have kept in a single piece of jewelry for 4 months now, out of fear of re-infecting it. Also on occasion it has been difficult to get the jewelry in. Almost as if there is a little pocket that catches it on the way in again. It's very annoying and I am hoping that by healing it all the way through it will disappear.
It is now 6 months and it is finally healed. I wound up using H2Ocean to heal it the rest of the way. And just the other day I noticed it was slightly crooked. Overall I am happy I got the piercing, and I know I could always get it repierced to straighten it. And next time I go to get something pierced I'm going to go to Deb.