I guess it's become cliché now, to go to the beach with friends get a navel piercing as a teenager. Despite warnings from my family, my friends and my doctor I got pierced. I already had 3 lobe piercings one each ear and one cartilage. All of which healed wonderfully.
At A Glance Author Just a Girl When Three months ago Studio 4:20 Location North Myrtle Beach After repeatedly bugging my mother all school year, working on getting my average, she caved in before Mother's Day. We were going to the beach with her and my grandmother. The area of North Myrtle we were staying in was close to a really awesome studio called 4:20. I had only had one piercing done there before (standard cartilage) and with meticulous aftercare it healed perfectly.
It was the second to last day of vacation, and it was too hot to stay outside on the beach. We went to 4:20 at about 10:00 pm, the studio was full of people who had obviously just come in from the beach. Half of the studio was a head shop, which did not surprise my mother, thank God. I had originally heard about it from one of my mother's friends who had nipple piercings done their a year or so ago.
After talking to the guy who was apparently the only piercer working that night, he handed us paperwork to fill out. I'm only 15- but they apparently require that you be 16 or have a doctor's permission for a navel piercing. My mother filled out the paperwork short of the age box. He pointed out on the sheet that it now said my 45 year old mother would be the one getting the navel piercing. After picking out the surgical steel curved barbell, I was led into a white room behind the counter. Two girls on the other side asked if they could watch, which I was okay with.
The marker, what I believe was clamps, and the needle I all watched him take out of the package and discard of the rappers. I was told to just roll my shirt up under my bra and stand while he marked the area that would be pierced. All of a sudden, as I was about to lie down onto one of those chairs that looks like a dentist's, my mother yells out "Are you sure you want to do this?" Which only made me more nervous. I just told her yes, there was no way I was backing out.
The clamps went on pretty painlessly, and I was told to just breathe steadily, I only felt a tug and a sharp pinch when the needle went through. The only reason I could possibly know would be my mother gasping on the other side of the counter. When he switched the needle to the jewelry was when I felt any pain at all- kind of sharp and throbbing at the same time. But very localized.
We went to go pay for my piercing, and were offered an aftercare kit of anti-microbrial soap and sea salt which I already owned from a previous piercing. As my mother was paying, I lifted up my shirt to check out my new piercing, which was beginning to bleed a little. One of the girls in the shop said to just use some bactine to clean up the blood (I forgot the aftercare soap at home) and the piercer told me that I should avoid going in the pool or ocean without a waterproof bandage over it. We went to go food shopping after that, and I picked up a bottle of bactine there. But when I was bending over I noticed my shirt was a little wet, lifting it, I saw blood smeared all around the area that was pierced and on part of my shirt also. Which freaked me out, as I never had seen blood after getting a piercing before. I remember shaking, and not being able to calm down. I still had the sheet on aftercare instructions and called the studio, they were very nice and told me that blood was normal and to not put too much bactine on the piercing.
Back at the hotel, I used sterile gauze with bactine sprayed on it to clean up the blood that had dried on my skin and around the piercing. Sleeping on my stomach hurt that night, so I slept on my side instead.
The next week or two was quite unbearable. I couldn't wear pants up that high, sleep on my stomach, and the piercing kept hurting from time to time. And for most of the day it was just sore. It seemed to ooze one or twice, and at night I used a cup of diluted sea salt to soak the piercing with.
After about three months it has been healing beautifully. I use aftercare soap in the shower before I get out every day. The worst habit I have is picking at it when the bottom portion of the barbell becomes stuck to the skin; I know you aren't supposed to pick at it with your nails. But I do so anyways and it's seemed to not have any effect on the healing. And the comments I have received have been generally good. My grandmother, the same woman who refused to go into the studio with me, had the oddest response to the piercing, saying she thought it was cute.