I'd played with the idea of doing my own scrotal ladder for a while, i'd kept putting it off for a multitude of reasons, when i'd had my pa's and ampallang done before they had been quite painful and the thought of actually doing my own was something that I definately needed to work up the courage to do.
At A Glance Author Sanguinnus Contact Sanguinnus@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Self Done Studio Home Location Northern Ireland After several weeks of contemplating and putting it off again and again I finally worked up the courage to proceed with the deed. I washed my hand with anti bacterial soap and then set my work area up with 2 trays, 1 for clean equipment and 1 for anything that had been touched or used pads etc. I laid my equipment out on the clean tray, 1 clamp, marking pen, 1 14G and 1 16G needle, sterile wipes and a pair of medical scissors.
I started off by taking a measurement of the first piece of jewellery and then used this to decide on my placement, which I wanted to be central and starting from just below the bottom of the shaft, about a centimeter down. I found the marking to be quite difficult and found the best way was to lie flat and stretch my scrotum downwards to make it even, I would then let the tissue go loose and see how the movement affected the marks. After a few botched attempts I was happy with the placement and was ready to do the deed.
I clamped the marked area up with a little difficuly as I found the tissue in that area quite hard to work with, changed my gloves and removed the needle from its sterile pack. Holding the clamps tight I pushed the needle through and overall it wasn't that painful, the closest thing I can liken it to is the nip of an injection. I removed the needle leaving the plastic casing behind, snipped it down to size and then proceeded to feed the jewellery through while supporting the tissue on the exit wound with 2 fingers so as to minimise any chance of extra damage to the surrounding tissue on feed through. There was a slight nip as I did this but again nothing overtly painful. I then put the ball on the bcr and sat back for a few minutes while I contemplated the second piercing and basked in the glow of being half way done.
I took a few minutes to wipe down my calipers and clamps with disinfectant wipes then changed my gloves before i set about marking for the second piercing. I placed it half a centimeter down from the original. Once i was happy with the placement and how the 2 pieces of jewellery would line up, I changed my gloves and then reclamped and did the second piercing. This one hurt a little more, i'm not sure if it was due to the slightly larger guage of jewellery or the lower placement but again overall it wasn't so bad, definatly not even in the same league as my ampallang and pa had been. I did find myself shaking a little during the jewellery feed through although this wasn't to any massive extent and was probably just down to adrenaline and nerves. I got the ball onto the bcr with no problems and sat back to survey my handiwork. After chilling out for a few minutes i cleaned my area down and packed away all my equipment.
Overall the experience was a good one, the placement turned out to be perfect and overall I was very happy with the whole process. The pain really was unexpectedly minimal compared to my other genital piercings and I had got such a buzz off them being self done. They're healing up nicely now and i'm very very happy with them. Once another month or two goes by to allow for healing i'll be winding up to add to the collection. I would even go as far as to say that these 2 are my most favourite piercings. I really would suggest these to anyone who has maybe played with the ideas of a scrotal ladder and also for anyone contemplating any other sort of genital piercing. Definatly something to contemplate as a nice opener to the world of genital piercings.
As for healing over the weeks afterwards it wasn't horribly bad despite being in an area that moved about quite a lot. It was never anything worse than uncomfortable, i'd even go as far to say that the healing period involved mroe pain than the piercing itself. I've never really been one for masses of aftercare, generally being happy just to leave my piercings be and let them take care of themselves. Other than running a shower over them when I bathed I left them pretty much alone. The healing process seemed to go very well and there were no complications other than the expected crusting.