Yes, it's a terrible pun, but it's true none the less. My frenum piercing healed within a month but even though I got my navel pierced in November last year it's still giving me grief. On the other hand, this probably is because being an FTM - a female to male transsexual - I bind my chest down flat, and that's really where the trouble started. This is the tale of epic endurance, a nomadic navel and a boy who refused to be beaten by biology. Wow, that sounds almost catchy...!
At A Glance Author da_staplerthief Contact da_staplerthief@bme.anon IAM da_staplerthief When A year ago Artist Pieta Studio Punktured @ Off Ya Tree Location Adelaide, South Australia Let us flash back to ten months ago, November 2005. My boyfriend at the time seemed to think I had a nice, perfectly round and symmetrical belly-button, and so I decided to get it pierced as a post-exam reward. The logic was something along the lines of 'I've survived agonising study, getting a piercing should be easy'.
And it was, actually. I paid $60 for the piercing and after signing the consent form was taken into the backroom of Off Ya Tree. The actual piercing was a bit like losing one's virginity - a stab of pain from a prick, a stretching sensation as the body groes used to the unfamiliar presence within it, then it's all okay. I walked down the street feeling slightly sore but quite happy.
Initial reactions were mixed from my friends. A lot of them considered it a very feminine piercing and couldn't understand why I wanted one in the first place. I shrugged this off because I've seen other guys with navel piercings before, it's no big deal, although it was slightly embarrassing when my little sister enthusiastically followed suite.
Problems started soon after. Unlike my sister, who heals easily, I tend to have wounds linger. The fact that I work in a deli, and so have to bend over a lot to serve customers, really didn't help. Despite following the prescribed after-care, my belly-button quickly became infected, the area inflamed, and the bar being rapidly sucked in by the piercing, which was making like a bad horror movie monster and consuming everything in reach. When it looked as if the balls holding the piercing in place were about to be engulfed in I returned to Off Ya Tree and Pieta replaced the piercing with a rather longer length of PVC which was capable of bending while I was at work. This worked rather well. Apparently it's used in pregnant women, and this mortified my piercing so much that it stopped swelling and resumed healing. It looked pretty weird, having plastic in there, but at least it wasn't weeping pus.
Around January I was fitted for a binder by the local hospital. The thing was basically a very tight compression vest used for lymphoedema patients. Now, if I thought I'd had problems before they were nothing. The damn thing kept rubbing and rubbing against the poor piercing. Monsieur piercing was not impressed at having his head constantly stroked by this strange lycra-clad object and and attempted to escape to greener pastures, via my abdomen, burrowing its way to the left, weeping bitter tears of pus. I had the fit of the binder altered and eventually it grumblingly resumed healing, all the while looking longingly towards my shoulder, perhaps with aspirations towards becoming a clavical piercing, I don't know.
Encouraged, I had the PVC removed - by then it was about March - and a slightly larger bar put in place.
Guess what?
No, it didn't get infected, this time it was worse. I saw red strands of muscle fibres sticking out of the hole! (Piercing: "I do protest that I do not require any more iron in my diet! I'll use my mighty muscles to shove it out of me!") By then I was incredibly irritated but being a stubborn fool, refused to give in. I snipped off the leaking meat with sterilised scissors ("Holy mother-fucking OW!!!!), soaked the thing in disinfectant and held my breath.
It healed.
Cut back to my sister. All this time I'd been struggling to keep my piercing from getting infected, but while mine had been doing this, hers had actually rejected. She hadn't actually realised that it was doing that and so left the thing in, and by the time I noticed, you could see the bar through the flesh, which was stretched tight and red. Going back to Off Ya Tree, the piercer (someone else pierced her) actually winced as she removed it, and said, "You should have removed this ages ago." To this day my sister still has very angry-looking scars on her belly-button.
As for me? Oddly enough, my belly-button is actually okay. Despite it getting infected multiple times, apparently the love and care I put into it actually paid off and the thing is now mostly okay. While it repeatedly sulked at me, it never showed any signs of rejecting, it just threw hissy fits. Nowadays it tends to weep occasionally if I bind too tight, but that's because the binder is forcing the metal through my flesh. Otherwise the piercing has finally resigned itself to the fact it's not going anywhere and is otherwise quite well behaved, its nomadic tendencies apparently quenched. Also, now that I've started taking testosterone injections my tummy is now getting hairy, which makes the piercing look even more awesome in my opinion. :-)
The points to this otherwise long and aimless rant:
1. Binders are the natural enemies of body piercings. For the love of God, don't get pierced if you wear a binder which goes down to your waist. It really complicated my healing no end, and that was after I'd had two months of healing before I started binding. My navel piercing is now at a thirty degree angle instead of being vertical. I can only imagine how painful it would be to bind on top of pierced nipples.
2. If your piercing rejects, take it out, otherwise you'll have huge scars afterwards. My sister's scars aren't simply two holes, it's a long vertical strip.
3. It really pays to take good care of your piercings. It's common sense but had to be said.
and finally:
4. Punctured @ Off Ya Tree really does take its aftercare seriously. All the staff there were quite helpful in making sure the piercing was properly taken care of.