***NOTE: The following experience contains a detailed description of a self-done, non-professional piercing. It is not intended to be a guide, nor an endorsement for you to pierce yourself; if you choose to do your own piercing(s), you are accepting all responsibility. You know the dangers, and it's your decision.***
At A Glance Author wren Contact paradamus@hotmail.com When A year ago For many years (since I was very young), I'd wanted a navel piercing. I didn't know why, and to this day I don't know why. I certainly didn't see many (if any) of them (this was slightly before the whole teen-girl craze started, and that wouldn't have influenced me terribly much anyway, as I'm a male, and pretty OK with that). I'd heard of them, but I'd probably only seen one or two, definitely none in person, then one day they started sprouting up everywhere (I was probably around 12 or 13). At that point, I'd learned that they were kind of a "female" piercing at that point, so I decided to get one, just to go against that. A few years passed, I got a few other piercings and I became comfortable piercing myself, so I figured it was time to do it, and simultaneously a good excuse/reason to get a pair of forceps and learn how to use them.
The plan was to buy a set of forceps, and learn how to use them (I eventually settled on "navel forceps", not because of what I was doing, but because I wanted some decent, all-purpose ones that I could use for general surface piercings, and these looked like they fit the bill). I ordered them, and some other jewelry, from an extremely cheap online store I'd ordered from before that sells some very nice, high-quality stuff. They ship very quickly, too, but enough of that. I'm not writing an endorsement, which is why I'm not giving the name of the store.
Anyway, I planned to pierce what turned out to be an inverse navel piercing; that is to say, the bottom of the bellybutton rather than the top. I wasn't even aware of the difference until I mentioned the plan to a friend, but hey, it's what I'd been imagining ever since I was 5 or 6, so that's what I was going to do. I was going to pierce it at 12 gauge, for no real reason; it's just a gauge I like. I planned to stretch the piercing a good bit once it healed (I wasn't sure how much). I had the needles and jewelry, so I was just waiting on the forceps. They came, and I was ready.
I put the jewelry (12g curved barbell, 1/2" long), the forceps, and the needle in a bowl of alcohol, then took a bath to get clean and soften my skin. I then got a towel to sit on, a can of H2Ocean, a fine-point Sharpie, a clean plate and a clean paper towel to put everything on, and I was ready. I put the towel down on the floor, sat down cross-legged, and meditated briefly, relaxing and getting myself into the right mindset. After that was over, I examined my bellybutton and swabbed it with rubbing alcohol to clean it. I put dots on the entrance and exit points, and put the forceps on.
When I use forceps, I don't clip them like most people do; I like to have more flexibility. I hold them in place. I put the forceps on, lined up, looked, and noticed that the holes vs. what I was clamping weren't perfectly lined up. I figured, oh, what the hell, close enough, picked up the needle, lined it up the way it needed to be lined up, made a mental calculation to figure out which way I needed to angle the needle to get it through both dots, and went for it. I chose to pierce "up".
When I pierce other people, I do it as fast as possible while still being accurate, but when I pierce myself, I do it slowly. I've therefore noticed (very acutely) what I call the "crunch point": the point in every piercing that "crunches" (if you have a piercing, which I'd presume somebody reading this site would, you know what I mean). What was interesting about this piercing was that I went through 3 or 4 different "crunch points", which isn't something I'd encountered before (or have encountered since). Anyway, I went slowly, and the skin was very, very tough; when I reached what was very near the end, the needle stopped. It wouldn't go any farther, no matter how hard I pressed. At this point, I was "above" the pain; I'd removed myself, so I couldn't feel what was going on; I thought I'd just reached that particularly tough patch of skin right before you break through at the end. Eventually, though, I noticed that I'd clamped the skin crooked, and I was pushing the end of the needle up against the forceps.
I backed up a little, and went through at a different angle. The piercing was finished; a little crooked, but finished, and not crooked enough to warrant a re-pierce. Holding the skin in place with the forceps, I lined the end of the barbell up with the end of the needle, and pushed the needle out with the barbell, which slid the barbell into place nicely without giving my clumsy self a chance to lose the holes. I screwed the ball on, and tried to take the forceps off. Shit! The balls were bigger than those on most jewelry, as it was a 12g barbell, and the ends of the forceps wouldn't let the balls through; the balls were too big to fit through the forceps' holes. I immediately unscrewed one, and got that end of the forceps off, but I couldn't get the other ball off; it had never been taken off yet, and you (probably) know how those are. After trying for a very long time, I went down to the tool shed, got out two pairs of vice grip pliers, boiled them in water, then soaked their ends in rubbing alcohol, all with a pair of forceps dangling from my brand-new piercing. After the vice grips were reasonably clean, I attached one to the bar of the barbell to hold it in place (I had to stretch the piercing a huge amount to get enough to grip), attached the other to the ball, and unscrewed it, then took the forceps off. Finally! The piercing was obviously swollen and irritated, but it was OK.
It went through a pretty normal healing process (I used H2Ocean the entire time, like I do with every piercing), eventually reaching a point that I though was healed, then it got sore again. It kept doing this for months (I'm pretty sure it'd almost healed in 2 or 3 months, then it'd get sore and flare up again). Eventually, after another 2 or 3 months, I decided to just start stretching it anyway. I took the 10g straight taper I had, and stuck it in. Obviously, it flared up for a couple days, then when that went down, it was healed. Completely. I've continued stretching it slowly (it's a 6 right now, I think; either a 6 or a 4), and I plan to keep going, at least to a 0. I want to be able to put a large but very unobtrusive plug in, as I like corseting, and that's difficult with a belly button piercing; you certainly can't use conventional jewelry, as that just gets in the way. (If there's an appropriate place, I plan on submitting my experience of corseting with a healing navel piercing.)
So...that's all. If there's anything I didn't go over, feel free to ask me about it. :)