My nipples were one of the first piercings that I ever planned on getting, I have always had large breasts but my nipples are rather small, so I thought that having jewellery in my nipples would make me a bit more decorative.
At A Glance Author Sarah Contact Sarah@bme.anon IAM porcelina When Two years ago Location Perth, Western Australia However, it took quite a while before I ended up getting them pierced. I had a friend that was an "amateur piercer" as she put it, for months I had planned to get my nipples pierced by her but was never able to find suitable jewellery or a time to go see her (something I am thankful for now, as from what I'd heard of she wasn't the best piercer).
Then after I learnt a little more about piercing and realised that piercing by a friend was NOT the way to go, I started to look around seriously at finding a proper piercer. Unfortunately, there was something I hadn't thought of – at the time I was only 16 and was unable to find anyone who would willingly pierce my nipples for me. As far as I'm aware, there wasn't actually any "official" age concerning nipples piercings on minors in the state I lived in but most studios erred on the side of caution.
A year went past, in that time I had gotten a number of new piercings, but nipple piercings still eluded me. There were always reasons why I couldn't get them done – lack of funds, cancelled appointments, not wanting to have my breasts out of action for a few months was also another deciding factor.
At this time, I was living on the opposite side of the country to my boyfriend and he had come over for a visit. He'd wanted to get his nipples pierced for a while, however never had the courage or the money to do so. I still had a couple of hundred dollars left over from my birthday money, so why not get our nipples pierced? Plus we could do the whole "cutesy couple" thing.
I e-mailed Primal Urge (a studio that I had been to once before for my vertical hood and was very happy with the experience) and booked us both in for the day before my boyfriend flew home (that way I figured I wouldn't have to worry about being "out of action" and it would be a nice parting gesture).
On the way to the studio, I was full of nerves. Everything that could go wrong that day did – I slept in, missed the bus so had to walk to the station, then missed the train. By this time it was getting rather close to our appointment time so understandably I was beginning to panic and wonder whether all of these events were signs to stop me from getting the piercing.
Eventually though, we made our way into the city and walked into the studio. I was greeted by Bob and taken into the back room to be measured for my jewellery. The piercings were to be done with 14ga x 12mm barbells. At the time I had wanted to get them pierced at a thicker gauge however only just had enough money to get 14ga so figured I'd stretch up later (don't ever do this! The thin gauge caused problems later on).
I arranged to go first, but without my boyfriend in the room as he had never been pierced before and I knew if he saw me being pierced, he would back out of the piercing. So much for acting like a cute couple!
So I went in and took off my shirt and bra and attempted to stand as still as I possibly could while Bob marked up my nipples. After okaying the placement, I was ready to go.
I made myself comfy on the piercing bed and got ready to go. Everyone had told me that the clamps would be extremely uncomfortable on my nipples – can't say I found it uncomfortable, I rather enjoyed it actually! After the markings were lined up, it was time to pierce.
I felt a hot pain as the needle passed through the tissue, and then it went a bit numb as the jewellery was threaded through. Well, one down, one to go. He clamped my other nipple and pierced it. I was expecting the second piercing to hurt a lot more as I was all fired up on adrenalin, but it honestly wasn't that bad. I can truthfully say that my navel piercing was worse than my nipples.
So after it was all done, I received my aftercare instructions and went on my merry way. In case you're interested, my boyfriend ended up getting one nipple pierced but backed out of getting the other one done – the piercer he had wasn't particularly good and had a hard time clamping his nipples so after that he wasn't willing to go through with it again and I can't say I blame him.
For aftercare, I used Micro shield twice a day in the shower (I don't recommend this though, back then I followed my piercer's instructions religiously but Micro shield is much too harsh for my skin so I now stick to salt-soaks) and rinsed off with saline afterwards.
After a few weeks it became obvious that the barbells used were way too short – every morning I woke up and had to push the ball out of the side of my nipple as it was becoming embedded. I ordered some longer jewellery (14mm) and that helped for a while until my nipples became larger as a result of the scar tissue so I had to put 16mm barbells in.
After about a year, my nipples still weren't healed. I'd tried everything I could possibly think of – changing to CBR's, longer barbells, D-rings, changing to titanium (I now have an allergy to steel in my nipples as a result of some cheap jewellery I put in, luckily the allergy only affects my nipples but I would warn people against using cheap jewellery – use implant grade only!) but nothing worked. I kept trying to tell myself to take out the piercings and get them repierced, but I was stubborn and just kept thinking they would heal themselves.
Finally, after 18 months of having the piercings and them not healing, I was starting to realise that maybe taking the piercings out would be a good idea. But, I was waiting for the "right time". I'd gotten so used to having decorated nipples it would be hard to go back to being plain!
About six months ago I had to go into hospital to have an emergency appendicectomy and had to remove most of my jewellery, so out came my nipple piercings. By the time I came around from the anaesthetic, they had shrunk too much to put the jewellery back in so that was that. After almost two years, my nipples were finally free to heal themselves without worrying about having jewellery in them.
Within a week or so, my nipples were totally healed. It took another two months before the scar tissue had subsided enough for me to get them repierced, but finally they were healed enough and I got my nipples repierced at a thicker gauge with better quality jewellery and they seem to be healing quite well so far.
I learned a number of different things with this experience –
1) If you're a bigger girl like me, thicker gauge jewellery is the way to go. I would've loved to get my nipples repierced at 10ga however I had to settle with 12 as there wasn't enough tissue to support them, but if you possibly can get them pierced as big as possible. You won't regret it!
2) Always go for the proper length of jewellery. My nipples were pierced with jewellery that was way too small and that contributed to the majority of my problems.
3) You never notice the shower screen door until you get your freshly pierced nipples caught on it, and it hurts. A lot.
Thanks for reading! If you're interested, I will be writing an experience about my second attempt at having my nipples pierced so keep an eye out.