I had my inverse navel pierced whilst on vacation in Greenville, NC. First, I must say that I never actually had a desire for the piercing nor did I think that I'd ever get it done. The piercing ended up being done out of boredom as a memento for two girls to remember their trip to Greenville.
At A Glance Author ubergeekgawdess Contact ubergeekgawdess@bme.anon IAM ubergeekgawdess When Three months ago Artist Steve, IAM: micro-wave Studio Cape Fear Location Greenville, NC
To start off, I had my regular navel pierced about 4 years prior which led to rather disastrous infection involving a golfball-sized hard purplish bump that was hot to the touch and oozed so I was slightly afraid of getting it re-done. (Before I go on, I must admit that the infection was 100% my fault due to the awful aftercare that I used which consisted of touching it with dirty hands, playing with it, and running my immune system down partying. I must suggest that you do not do these things.) I was a teenager and teenagers that can barely care for themselves probably shouldn't get piercings.
The story begins after a few days of my road trip buddy and I being shop rats at Cape Fear. We had driven down to Greenville to visit The apprentice, The resident shop rat, and The piercer, but after a bit of boredom we decided to get our navels pierced. It started off as a joke but wound up with me sitting on the piercing table and Steve, the piercer, hunched over me cleaning my belly.
The setup included a sterile 14g needle, a sterile 14g internally threaded 1/2" surgical stainless steel barbell, technicare, and gentian violet. Cape Fear has an autoclave in its piercing room so that should definitely put the prospective client at ease about this shop. All of the needles and jewelry are in their own little sterile packages that are opened in front of you. The jewelry is all internally threaded and the organics are bought from small vendors rather than evil capitalistic vendors. Seriously, Cape Fear is a great shop and worth the drive if you happen to live around there.
And so the piercing began... Steve started to mark me up with the gentian violet and I realized that he was marking for an inverse navel piercing which was amusing to me because I thought that I was getting a regular one. (I had not really specified but instead just jumped up on the chair when it was my turn.) Apparently Steve had been listening to our conversations pretty closely all day and knew that I preferred the inverse ones to the norm so he automatically assumed that was what I would be getting. I was pretty happy about that because I'd always liked the looks of inverse navels. Steve changed his gloves when he touched the mirror that was used to show me the markings to keep everything sterile.
Steve pierces freehand and was teaching Ashley, the apprentice, so he explained everything step by step and took his time. Watching Steve pierce the navel freehand was quite neat because often times piercers just end up using clamps for them. I was able to see how he lined up the piercing and the way that he folded my skin to get the angle correct.
The piercing itself was easy to sit through. There was very little pain and once it was over I could not feel it unless it got bumped. I did nothing to accommodate the piercing as my pants already sat lower than the piercing and it wasn't on the natural fold of my body.
My aftercare consisted of saline spray whenever needed and leaving it alone otherwise. The saline spray that I used was in an aerosol can and was called wound wash. Similar spray can be found for relatively cheap at any drug store and is much more hassle free than sea salt soaks. I did not touch the piercing unless my hands were clean. I did not play with the piercing. I did not move the piercing around when showing it to others.
The piercing did well for about 2 months until I lost the barbell. The trauma involved in replacing the barbell with whatever cheap externally threaded junk I had laying around proved to be more than it could take and I retired the piercing. I went from wearing a perfectly sized, internally threaded, quality piece of jewelry to shoving an externally threaded, 1/4" too large piece of junk in the healing wound. It obviously wasn't going to go so well...
I have two small scars from my Greenville navel that I hope never fade because they'll remind me of that trip and my friendship with Rachel. Long after the friendship may have faded (because LIFE happens, you know) I'll be able to look down at my belly and laugh about our trip together: all of the good times and all the bad.