Last year on the 2nd of January, I finally convinced my mom to let me get my navel pierced(standard). We jumped in the car and went down to the studio with my friend because we were getting ours pierced together. I walk in and nerves start to kick in, but no way I was going to chicken out now. Finally, the piercer takes me into a little room cleans the area, marks my navel, takes out a new needle from a package, and in a flash its done with no pain what-so-ever. I took a look in the mirror and was so happy with the new shiny thing decorating my stomach.
At A Glance Author keg When Three months ago Artist Trent Studio Area 51 Location Colorado
Well I had the piercing for over a year and it was in perfect condition until about three months ago. I started noticing the skin in front of the piercing getting thinner and redder, of course I didn't know what to do since it was my first non-ear piercing, I just assumed it was infected so i treated it like you would an infected piercing. This went on for weeks and I was getting worried since the skin was getting thinner and thinner until one morning I woke up and my belly button was stinging and I looked at it and the skin in front of the jewelry was so thin it looked as if it was about to snap so I took out the jewelry and went down to the studio where I had gotten it done and showed the piercer and asked his opinion/explanation. He told me that it had slowly rejected and to just leave the area alone until it healed a little. I asked him why he thought it rejected and he admitted to me that he may not have pierced it deep enough in the first place. That sort of pissed me off because that to me meant oh well I messed up piercing you, your scarred for life, sucks to be you. So after that and a little infuriated, I went to my doctor to make sure there was no infection in the skin around the area because i was worried about the redness. the doctor took a look at it and said it was not infected and that the skin was dead and that I will have a scar for the rest of my life unless I considered cosmetic surgery to blend in the scar. I was so upset, not only had I lost a piercing that I was extremely attached to but what cost me $40 to get done will now cost me in the hundreds if I wanted the surgery to remove the scar and on top of that, my friend's navel was just fine and dandy which sort of pissed me off because it made me hate myself and ask, "why me? why does bad luck always happen to me?"
So now it has been three months and I am finished with mourning my lost piercing and have decided to replace it because before I lost my navel I had 15 piercings and wanted to have that again because once you get a piercing you get attached and it becomes a part of you, and when you lose it you lose a part of yourself and I wanted that part back. I did some research and now think that the piercer probably didn't pierce my navel deep enough in the first place because I sort of have an outtie belly button to an extent, which made me kind of upset because the way I saw it was that only people with perfect "innie" navels could have their's pierced, but then thanks to BME I found out about "true navel" piercings and I am currently looking in to getting that done since that piercing would best suite my type of navel. Before learning of the true navel I was considering getting an inverse or lower navel done because I have more skin on the bottom ridge than i did at the top, but either one I choose I'm sort of fearful of another navel piercing in case the new one rejects too because I do not want another scar. On the other hand, I say bring it on because I would rather try it and if it still doesn't work out at least I'll know I cant have a navel piercing than chicken out and always wonder what it would have been like to finally have a navel piercing that stayed.
The only advice I give is to know about yourself and what piercing would fit you and not your friends and also to go to a trusted piercer so your piercing would be less likely to come out messed up. Also if you are scared about pain or just the piercing in general you might as well try it because you only live once and you can't take it with you when you die, but make sure to research everything to do with the piercing before you fully commit because you cant go back.