I am not a spontaneous person when it comes to making decisions that could possibly hurt or cause damage, so when I determined that I liked the way nipple piercings looked, I waited 2 years to make sure I would still like them and that I was well-versed in their care and possible complications.
At A Glance Author Mile-y Contact em@kissmyass.com When Three months ago Artist Andrea Studio Inkubine Location Sarasota, FL And it was well worth the wait.
I visited about 8 piercing/ tattoo studios and asked their piercers a number of questions - what kind of jewelry they used and why, how many years they had been piercing, complications, etc. I also observed how they treated people they were piercing. It is my opinion that a piercer should not "act down" to a person getting a piercing, which is what I saw a lot of piercers in my area doing. If I asked too many questions, they would get impatient with me.
I actually found my piercer by chance, when I was driving to the other side of town. I went in and started asking her questions about nipple piercings. She answered every question as if it were just as important as the first and then she gave me a small tour of her shop - including all the paperwork needed to ensure safe piercing practices.
One interesting thing she did was refusing to use a barbell. She said that this was because the captive ring would help the piercing to drain and therefore heal faster. Which makes a lot of sense. She also had piercing jewelry that was the only jewelry she would use for the original piercing, telling me that this way she knew that the jewelry was safe and pure (in material). Starting out with the basic jewelry, she said, would also make the beginning aftercare easier and let me get used to the feeling of having a nipple pierced.
Three months later, a friend and me went in to get pierced. I was nervous, since it was my first piercing ever, and it took me about 3 hours to actually settle down enough to let myself get pierced. She was incredibly patient with me - told me to go get something to eat, and then come back, and she would do it whenever I was ready.
When I was finally ready, she took me into the room. It was as clean as I remembered it, looking like an operating room. She gave me the usual talk about new needles and everything she was going to do, sprayed the entire room down with disinfectant it seemed, took out all the new equipment, changed gloves as needed, etc.
She then had me stand up with my shirt off, which is important as it makes the breast hang correctly, and marked the nipple I was getting pierced. In case of fainting, she had me sit on the doctor's-office style chair and told me to sit up straight, again, to have everything hang correctly. Then she put the clamp on.
I have read other stories where people say that this hurt worse than the piercing, but, for me, it really didn't hurt. In fact, I had her leave it on there for about 10 minutes before piercing, so that I could get used to the idea of the needle going through.
The piercing was also, personally, not painful. She simply pushed the needle through and carefully removed the clamp from my nipple. I remember letting out a string of cusses, but that was mostly just because of the fear I had built up in waiting. At my request, she let the needle itself stay in for a couple minutes so I could get used to the feel before she put the jewelry in. Again, no pain. She closed it using some treaded pliers and told me I was ready to go.
I cleaned it three times a day for the first month, using Dial antibacterial soap, then went down to two times a day after that. (This is only because my body reacted well to the piercing, others might be different.) There was never any blood and hardly ever any lymph on the piercing. At about 6 weeks, though, my nipple had gotten so dried out from the Dial that I had to go see the piercer. Again, she answered all my questions and assured me it was not infected, like I thought. I just switched to an antibacterial moisturizing soap without scent and everything was fine. And it was also good advice to use paper products to dry it off after a cleaning, but at one point my friends were actually calling me neurotic about it because I was going through so many paper towels. Better safe than sorry, though!
At one point, I also accidentally dropped a bag off my shoulder and it caught on my piercing and ripped it a couple of millimeters. This actually hurt more than the piercing itself. But, again, with proper care it was fine. As of right now, you can't even tell it was pulled.
Now, at 3 and a half months, the piercing is fully healed. I'm going to get the other one pierced within the week.