At A Glance Author Devoured_by_Envy IAM Devoured_by_Envy When N/A Artist Can't remember Studio Tattoo Studio, Kingswood, Location Bristol, England I never really wanted a navel piercing, well I never really thought about it before until the day I got it done.
Before I actually got the piercing done, a eyebrow barbell was probably more what I wanted, but after seeing so many people with really badly done, or a migrated piercing's, I went off the idea, and forgot about piercing's in general.
That is until my mum decided that I could have a tattoo and a piercing for a present for passing my exams.
She took me to the tattoo studio where she had got her last tattoo's done, and so knew the tattooist, and had apparently previously asked if he would tattoo me under age, and he said yes with her permission, and attendance.
The whole thing was a surprise, and I really was not expecting it, especially not a piercing as well.
When I got to the tattoo studio I chose the navel ring because it was the only piercing I really liked the look of, and had previously seen some nice jewellery for.
The studio was very clean, so clean that I could not even find something to concentrate on when I was getting my tattoo done, previous to the piercing.
I was quite scared before getting it done, as the last piercing I had done was a standard lobe piercing with a gun when I was ten, and then I ran round the shop screaming after the first stud went in, and I did not want a repeat performance.
I went in to the back room, where the female piercer told me to lie down on the table (chair thing), and she said not to worry, it won't hurt. I lifted up my shirt, then I felt her fiddling around, she wiped something that gave me a strange cool feeling on my stomach, then I felt a pinch, which I though was the clamp, or her holding the skin tight, but then she said "you can get up now".
It was done, and I did not even notice. I got more pain lying down on the table, because I smacked my head on the way down.
I was not really given a choice of sizes or anything, she just pierced it with a 1.6mm (14g) needle, which I'm guessing is just the normal sized used for such a piercing.
She put a pad over it, gave me a care leaflet, my mum paid, and we were on is way.
Just as I got in the car, I started to feel something on my stomach, my piercing was bleeding, and my stomach felt sore, it hurt to sit down. This was bad because all I wanted to do was sit down, but my mum had organised another present for me. I felt really ungrateful, because I really did want to see what my mum had taken me to see, but I also wanted to get home to look at my new tattoo, and piercing, plus clear up the blood.
When I got home I cleaned up my piercing with some surgical spirit, and went to sit on the sofa, but it was a very strenuous task, a bit like a game of operation. I was trying really hard to not annoy my new piercing, while at the same time, really wanting to sit down. The only comfortable thing to do was to stand, and this lasted for a few days, the bleeding did not continue after the first day, but the piercing did weep a little for a while after.
It was all ok, and there were no problems after the first week or so, and I kind of just forgot about it for about six months, perhaps wiggling it around a bit, but not really doing much else to it, because it seemed fine.
That is until it started weeping again, when it did this I decided to change the ring for a bar, but I did not check what the bar was made out of. It was a very cheap metal, and although it was fine for a few weeks, I had to change it again after a while, because it made the piercing swell, and get sore.
The next time I changed it was for a titanium ring, because someone told me this was better for the piercing, than steel, and again just like before it was, it was for a while, but my piercing do not seem to really like anything.
My main problem with this piercing has been that either it has rejected the metal, or the bar was too short, allowing dirt to get in, but not out, and thus leading to infection.
I've now for the moment settled on a blackline banana bell, that is longer that is a lot longer than my last banana bell, and does not look quite as good, as the snug one, but better than another infection.
Most people are quite surprised still though when I show them my piercing, because after over three and a half years, it has not migrated at all. So I presume it was done very well originally.