I have both my nipples pierced, but since the experiences are more or less identical, though three months apart, I will focus this account on the first. I will however make comparison to the second where appropriate.
At A Glance Author Jane66 Contact Jane66@bme.anon IAM Jane66 When A year ago Artist Steve Studio Alan's Tattoo Location Moreton I had my first nipple pierced as a real spur of the moment thing. I had just got my outer labia pierced and thought hell why not. I was feeling rebellious and was still on a high from the first piercing. The piercer Steve had impressed me with standards of cleanliness and professionalism and so it just seemed like the most sensible thing to do. I have pretty insignificant nipples and so was curious to hear Steve's views as to the best way to go forwards. He gave me a choice. A typical female nipple piercing, which would hurt less but stood a good chance of migrating out, since it would be relatively shallow, or a typical male nipple piercing. The latter would be deeper, into the areola behind my nipple, would hurt more, and take longer to heal, but had the twin advantages of being less likely to migrate and having more room to stretch it up afterwards, thus increasing the apparent size of my nipples. That was the clinching factor, it was to be behind the nipple.
I decided to only do one nipple to start with, mainly because I wanted to see how much my partner and I liked it. Ironically I had only just restored symmetry to my labia, adding a right piercing to a self-done left labial some 15 years earlier, and again I chose the left to start with, my naughty side! Steve got me to stand up in front of him with my arms by my side then list my arms up over my head. He was seeing how much the orientation of my nipples changed; it was quite a bit, though in my defence I have had three children, so my breasts are a little on the relaxed side! He marked me up with a rather lurid green felt-tipped pen and asked me to confirm the positioning in a full-length mirror. It looked spot on to me, parallel as I stood normally, and about 3mm into my areola from the junction with my nipple.
We then had a discussion about the best jewellery. Steve recommended a 1.6mm CBR for the initial piercing since it would allow for swelling and would be easier to clean. For my second nipple a few months later I chose an oversized straight barbell since my then I'd discovered that I get on much better with barbells than rings in my nipples, but more of that later. I had read and heard that nipple piercings are amongst the more painful piercings to get, so I was more than a little nervous, so I asked Steve what to expect. He told me that while nipple piercings hurt, he was sure I would have no problems because he had seen how I'd taken the labial piercing a few minutes earlier. He asked me if I wanted him to use clamps. I bounced that straight back to him and said to do what he felt most comfortable with. Apparently it was normal practise to use clamps but he found they caused unnecessary pain and tended to get in the way. He asked me to lie back and breath deeply. H e held my nipple between the finger and thumb of his freshly gloved hand and rested the freshly opened needle against the spot on the outside of my nipple. There was a few seconds pause while he checked all his angles then he counted to three as I breathed out.
Oh my God that hurt, surprisingly so. I expect I swore like a trooper and at considerable volume, probably alarming the shop's remaining clientele. I looked down to see that the needle had exited clean through the green spot at the base of my nipple. "Good shot," I said recovering some of my poise. For those of you planning a nipple piercing, you do need to be prepared for some pain. The intensity was close to that of the feeling of removing a particularly aggressive nipple clamp after 20 minutes, but was accompanied with a hot, burning sensation not unlike a bee-sting. Until recently, when I had my clitoris pierced, that first nipple was comprehensively the most painful of my eleven piercings. Just for balance I should say that I had a very different experience with the second one three months later. I was full of trepidation as we went through the same procedure, and besides a tugging feeling, I was barely aware of the passage of the needle. In fact peeling my unnecessarily sweaty and slightly sunburnt back off the vinyl couch afterwards was probably the most challenging part.
Steve fitted the ring, I think through the back of the needle, but to be honest I was lost in a fresh wave of pain and expletives. If anything fitting the jewellery hurt more than the initial piercing. A few seconds after the ring was installed the pain died away to nothing and I was left with just a warm glowing feeling in my nipple. It took a few goes to get the ball in and a tense few moments with ring-opening pliers!
As I got dressed Steve went through the aftercare for my nipple and labial piercings. He recommended an anti-bacterial soap for my nipple, unlike the labia, a Boots own brand tea-tree oil natural anti-biotic and saline washes. He warned me to be very careful to remove any encrustrations on the ring and never to rotate the ring dry. The sooner I could build a skin tunnel around the ring, the quicker I would heal and pulling a dry ring through would be more than enough to destroy that delicate layer. He also warned me that for the first few weeks the ring would spend most of the time sticking straight out. Later it would most likely dangle down below my nipple.
I paid up, left a healthy tip and went home. On the following few days my nipple was slightly uncomfortable rising to very sore on the numerous occasions that I caught it on things. Car doors, children, cupboards, shower curtains; it was amazing just how many times it was possible to make inadvertent contact with a nipple during a day. Though there had been hardly any bleeding at the time of the piercing, I found myself cleaning encrusted blood off the ring each morning and evening for a week then just lymphatic leakings. During the early part of the healing process I noticed that my nipple was much more sensitive than previously. If I lay on my back and just touched the ring, my nipple would erect itself, in turn swinging the ring upwards to the vertical, which further stimulated my nipple and so on until my nipple felt like a toothpaste top! This stage only lasted a few weeks and was fun if a little embarrassing at times. I also found that despite the pressure, I was more comfortable wearing a relatively restrictive bra as opposed to "hanging free", which was fraught with danger.
After twelve weeks things were stable. I was still leaking annoyingly large quantities of lymph. Frequently I'd awake to find myself spot-welded to the sheets. I found that the movement of the ring during every day life resulted in a widening of the entry and exit wounds due to the arc described by the ring as it rotated. I was seriously considering switching to a barbell when my youngest daughter made my mind up for me. Unable to sleep one night, she joined me in bed and somehow managed to get her fingers hooked in my nipple ring. To say she nearly yanked it off doesn't quite convey the severity of the situation. Fortunately the piercing held, though I was bleeding again. I was adamant that I would not let that happen again in a hurry. That evening I sterilised one of my curved navel barbells and with a little pain, since it was externally threaded, managed to fit it in place if the ring. Since the barbell had a slightly larger radius of curvature than the ring it replaced, it pushed the centre of my nipple forwards slightly in relation to the edges. A few days later I laid my hands on a straight 1.6mm barbell and set about swapping it.
These days I have access to a wide array of tapers and insertion pins which make swapping nipple jewellery pretty simple. I did this without and I can't recommend it! Being externally threaded the leading edge of the shaft hurt a lot. I got it though eventually, but when I came to screw on the ball, I noticed that there was a clear tube of skin covering the thread. This was the skin tunnel that I was supposed to be looking after so carefully, now on the outside of me and looking like the world's smallest sausage skin. It accounted nicely for all the burning feelings I had experienced inserting the barbell! I removed the barbell and inserted from the other side, carefully repositioning the skin tube. Fortunately this passed without further incident and within just a couple of days it had settled down completely. Well completely apart from daily light lymph encrustations.
I had my second nipple pierced with an over-sized barbell, to allow for post-piercing swelling and cleaning and would strongly recommend anyone else to do this as an initial piercing. My right nipple overtook the left in the healing process, despite giving it a three-month start and suffering an early setback. It came undone while frolicking in a sleeping bag in Sutherland. It was AWOL for five hours and was reinserted with much caterwauling and gnashing of teeth in far from sterile conditions. I have now both stretched up to my target gauge of 3.2mm, via 2.4mm. On occasion I make the mistake to swapping to rings, which I ultimately do want to wear in them. It usually takes three days for the lymph to start up again. I've resolved to leave them completely alone for at least four months after I think they are healed this time.
If you are interested here are a few pictures of my nipple piercings, viewable only if you are logged into IAM. This was taken a few days after the initial piercing, this is a close up at 3 weeks showing the depth of the piercing, while this is the current situation with 3.2mm barbells, showing the apparent increase in size of my nipple.
