Being 15 and living in a house where any sort of mods are completely unacceptable (except for lobes of course, go figure, right?) makes you search hard for piercings and other things that you can keep hidden from those evil ol' parents. Thus begins the story of my pierced navel.
At A Glance Author susan Contact tunemeoutwifs@yahoo.com Artist me Studio my house? Location chicago I've always been fascinated with mods, and I have a few of them (1/2" lobes, septum 10g lobes, tongue web, nipple) and I've done them all myself, and they're all hidden from my parents. I was searching BME one fine day because I had that craving for a new piercing (you know how it is), but I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted, or what I could get without getting caught. I came upon the navel piercing, and I was just looking, because I've never really been interested in them, mostly because of the number of people I know and have seen with theirs pierced. I glanced at navel projects, and I thought most of them were completely awesome, and a great way to keep a mainstream piercing original and new, especially those awesome star projects. So I decided I'd get my navel pierced, and hopefully eventually turn it into a whole navel project.
Since I've done all my piercings myself, there was no doubt in my mind that I would do this one all by myself. Although most of the stories that I had read on BME about self-pierced navels turned out badly (infection and other nasty things), I was determined that I would do this one myself. So, while I was ordering some jewelry online for some other piercings, I got a 12g 1/2" CBR, and a 12g piercing needle for the procedure.
The day my jewelry arrived, I decided I was going to do the piercing, just because I was so excited and couldn't wait. I got everything ready. I got Q-tips, my trusty forceps, cotton balls, tissues, rubbing alcohol my jewelry and needle, and got down to work. First I cleaned my tummy with warm water and antibacterial soap. I washed my hands the same way, and dried everything with tissues (cloth towels can harbor bacteria I've heard). I went to my room then rubbed my forceps with alcohol. I marked the areas where I wanted the enter/exit holes to be, and put my forceps on tight. A lot of people say that the forceps are the most painful part but I figure if you don't put them on extremely tight, then it's really not too bad. So anyway, I got my needle out of the nifty little sterilized pack thingy, and I held it with a tissue so I wouldn't get my nasty germs on it and because it's easier to push when that hard ass needle isn't pushing against your finger, and I put it next to the enter hole.
I started pushing, and at first it wasn't really painful, but after the needle went a few mm's through my skin, it started hurting a bit. The pain was sharp but bearable, so I just kept on pushing. It took me a good 10 or 15 minutes, but the needle finally went all the way through. Once I saw the needle coming out of the other side, I just gave it a really hard push and it went all the way through. There was some blood, but it wasn't too horrible. Once the needle was all the way through, I pushed it out with the jewelry and put the ball in. There was drying blood, and it was just looking nasty, so I soaked the piercing in warm water for about five minutes, then dried the holes with the Q-tips, and dried the rest with tissue. The rest of the night it was sore, but really not too horrible, and I pretty much expected it.
It's been almost a month I think, and I was cleaning my piercing with salt soaks twice a day, but it would get redder than usual when I cleaned it, so for the past week, I've just been rotating it in the shower without cleaning it, and it's been doing really well. The first couple weeks, there was crust, and white stuff coming out (lymph right?) and it was red around the holes, but I know that's normal, so it's okay.
Just today, I put in a 10g 1/2" CBR, and it got a little red again, but it's all right. I did it in the shower while my skin was softer, so it was a lot easier than it probably would have been if I wasn't. I plan on eventually going to a 4g I think, stretching maybe a gauge a month. So anyway, thanks for reading, and if you have any questions or comments at all