In the middle of June, I pierced my own navel. I never really liked navel piercings that much since they were so incredibly trendy, and I didn't want to be put into that group of people that only have mainstream mods. I was getting that craving for a new piercing that I get every few months though, so I decided to go for it since it seemed like a fairly invisible piercing (my parents are adamently against body modification of all sorts) since I wouldn't have to be showing anyone my stomach anytime soon. Since I was still largely against the whole mainstream thing, I decided to eventually stretch it to a larger gauge (think 4g) and maybe get two other navel piercings in the bottom corners of my navel.
At A Glance Author stoopid Contact tunemeoutwifs@yahoo.com When Six months ago Artist moi Studio ma maison Location chicago I initially pierced it at a 12g. I really really don't condone anyone piercing themselves, in fact I think it's a pretty stupid idea. Also, I think it was pretty idiotic for me to pierce myself, but hey we all do stupid things, yeah? I bought my own 12g piercing needle, an autoclaved 12g 1/2" CBR, and read everything I could about navel piercings on both BME and other sites.
Okay, so my navel was at a 12g. I was all psyched about starting my stretching, but since it was so fresh, I decided to wait. At first I wanted to start after a month (just like lobes) but then after reading a little bit, I realized that navels are a tad different than lobes, and I should wait longer. Especially since it still looked kinda crummy after a month. So I waited another month. In August, I put in a 10g 1/2" CBR. I lubed up my navel and pushed out the jewelry halfway, then lubed up the new 10g and put it through the hole. It hurt a little bit, but it all went smoothly, and it was only sore for a while. I cleaned it and it was a little red, but other than that, it wasn't bad at all.
Everything was going fine, so in September (one month later) I decided to go up a gauge again since everything seemed to be going so well. I went out and bought an acrylic 8g Circular Barbell (CiBB). It looked so big, I was kind of wondering if this would work. I went home, and lubed evertyhing up again (KY-Jelly is a god-send). At first it wouldn't go through, but I pushed really hard (jesus, I'm trying to make this NOT sound sexual), and all of a sudden it went through like halfway. I could tell it stretched a lot, and it was pretty damn sore. I still had halfway to go though, so I contemplated on whether or not I was ready to stretch to this gauge since it was hurting. I realized though that I was already halfway there so I might as well just finish. I pushed more and in a few seconds, it went all the way through. I was surprised because there was some blood, and like last time it hurt, so I gave it a sea salt soak, and let it alone. For the next few days it was sore a nd red, but eventually it looked alright.
Even though in the beginning I thought that I would want a larger gauge navel, like a 4g, after it was an 8g for a while, I began to dislike the size. I felt like it just didn't look right on me. So even though I went through all that crap to get to my 8g navel, I decided that it wold be best to downsize. I cleaned my navel, and the 10g CBR that I had in it before the stretch to 8g. I took out the 8g CiBB, and put in the 10g CBR. After a few weeks, I put in a 10g 1/2" Curved Barbell (CuBB). It didn't really look right because my piercing was somewhat deep and you could hardly see the bottom ball when the barbell was in. I wore it anyways, since I was getting sick on the stick outness (okay not a word, but who cares?) of the CBR and decided I wanted a "sleeker" look. In a few days, amazingly, I could see the bottom ball. Hmm, I thought, that's kind of weird, but oh well, it's prolly just getting into a better position. It was like that for a while, and one day, I was just playing around with all my jewelry, and put a CBR in the hole. When I loooked at it, I was freaking out. There was so much less skin there then there was when the CBR had been in there just three or four weeks previous. It looked so bad, it took me days to actually realize it was rejecting. I knew when I first saw it, but I was in denial, and I kept telling myself that it would stop.
Almost a week after realizing this horrible truth, I was finally ready to remove my rejecting piercing. I took it out, and every day since then (it's been almost two weeks) I have massaged it with olive oil, to reduce the amount of scar tissue so I could eventually repierce it. And that brings us to today. Email me if you want to ask questions, make comments, or just tell me how stupid I am for piercing my own navel. Thanks a lot for reading.