In August (and it's currently March), I decided to get my nipples pierced. I was doing Rocky Horror at the time, and it was almost over, and I was ready for a new mod. Having watched my boyfriend get his done a year before, and seeing the pain it caused him, I was pretty nervous. At the time, my only other mod was my navel. The other thing that made me nervous was that my wonderful piercer, Aaron Solomon, was no longer piercing at his former studio, and we had no idea where he had gone.
At A Glance Author gdgetgein Contact gdgetgein@bme.anon IAM gdgetgein When Six months ago Artist Aaron Solomon Studio Aces High Location Johnson City, TN
We decided that if we couldn't get Aaron, then I wanted a female piercer. I had heard good things about a certain studio in Johnson City, TN, so we went there. Upon walking in, we noticed that the piercing and tattooing are done in the same area behind the counter, with no division from the waiting room, or each other. We were greeted by a girl who asked if she could help us, and were told that they did indeed do nipple piercing; then she walked off. We asked the guy behind the counter if they had a portfolio for piercing; he informed us that it was the green one on the table. We proceeded to go through the green one, the blue one, the red one, and several black ones, finding not one picture of a piercing. When we asked the girl where it was, because we couldn't find it, she snapped at us and told us "If you want someone with a portfolio, then go see Aaron!" Aaron? My Aaron? Excellent! She ended up giving us directions to Aces High.
Enter Aces High. Aces High is an insanely clean studio with a private piercing room, and tattooing is done in an area with dividers seperating it from the waiting area and the other tattoo cubicles, they have polite staff members, and of course, a portfolio. Aaron could indeed pierce my nipples today, so they handed me a stack of papers to fill out, took my license and photocopied it. Aaron's apprentice helped me choose my jewelry, 14ga CBRs. In retrospect, I wish I'd gotten pierced with at least 12ga barbells, but at the time, I was dead set on CBRs.
After getting into the piercing room, Aaron shut the door for privacy and I took off my shirt and bra. He turned on a fan sitting in the room and cranked the chair up so that my boobs were at fan-level. This was an interesting method, I thought, as a year prior to this, I had seen him put on gloves and pinch at my boyfriends to get them hard. I rather liked this method better. I assume it was either because I was female, or the thought just hadn't occurred to him back then. Aaron put on a pair of gloves and got some sterile q-tips and poked at my nipples until they were defined enough to be pierced. He cleaned my right nipple off with two different substances, and then proceeded to get a cup of ink and a toothpick and mark it until we were satisfied that they were straight. It should be noted that everything used on me during the procedure had been autoclaved and was sterile and bagged.
The next step in the process was the clamps; mildly uncomfortable, but not too bad. He told me to take three deep breaths, he was going to count to three, and then pierce. I took my breaths, he counted to two before he pierced, and I naturally held my breath. The needle going through was like a sudden, sharp pain, and I could feel the exit point more so than the entry point. Like when you push really hard on something and feel relieved when it finally breaks through the other side, that was my nipple. Ok, well, that wasn't so bad; but wait! There's another nipple to be pierced! He cleaned, marked, and clamped the left nipple. I wasn't worried. I was fearless. I had my right nipple done, how bad could this be? I took my breaths, he pierced on count two, I didn't hold my breath this time, but before I could have the chance to be proud of myself I felt burning searing excruciating pain! Then it was over. Neither breast hurt exactly, though they were sore. I looked in the mirror, blinked, smiled, and thanked Aaron.
He gave me aftercare directions, wash with antibacterial soap and follow up with sea salt soaks, ¼ teaspoon of sea salt to 8oz of warm water, get off any extra crusties with a clean q-tip. The rings were standing straight out, but Aaron assured me that as soon as the tissue relaxed, they would settle down. I'd already paid ($80), so I was ready to go. Stupidly, I did not put my bra back on. I don't recommend that. Your chest will bounce (and I'm only a c-cup) and it will rub up against your shirt, and it will hurt. That night I had Rocky practice, and felt no discomfort. After the initial piercing, my nipples never hurt. I always wear slightly padded bras, and my piercings have never shown through any shirt. These are really discreet piercings. There are crusties, tons of them, so slacking on aftercare is not an option.
After I had my piercings for about 4 months, the right one had moved considerably. I kept hoping that it was going to stop and not reject completely, but alas, it wasn't so. Daily you could see scabs above where the piercing currently was, tracking its movement. Just a month after the piercing had started migrating, it had moved so much that you could see the CBR through my nipple. I finally went to my current piercer (Aaron has since moved to pierce in a different city) to get the piercing taken out, at which point it was just barely hanging in my nipple. This was two months ago, and I currently have a dent where the piercing migrated. I was hoping to have already been able to get re-pierced at this point, but at the moment I don't know when that will be. I've been massaging the area with olive oil once a day to promote the break-up of scar tissue and hopefully at least make my nipple look normal again. If I had it to do over with, I would have insisted that my nip ples be pierced with barbells of at least 12 gauge; preferably 10 gauge. I don't know if that would have prevented it, but it certainly couldn't have hurt. The left piercing is now moving noticeably, I will not let it get to the point that my other nipple did before removing the CBR.
Despite the rejection, I would go through with this again. I will be having my right nipple re-pierced at 10ga as soon as it has healed up enough, and the left nipple also if it continues to migrate. I would definitely go back to Aaron for work in the future, and most likely will.