Everyone Needs a Good Sadist in Their Life This particular mod came out of an MSN Messenger conversation with my piercer which went thusly:
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist Jacob Studio NEXT! Body Piercing, Tattooing and Aftercare Location 1068 Granville Street, Vancouver BC, Canada Me: Hehe... speaking of which... how would you feel about scalpelling nipple rings?
Him: I'd love to. Stupid question.
Me: Weeha!The idea was floating back and forth between us for a few months after that - we were ensconced in finding comfortable jewelry for overly stretchy inner labia piercings (3/4" and counting!) and I was finishing up a chest tattoo. Eventually everything else was out of the way and it came down to the nipples again.
Oddly enough, scalpelling didn't phase me but I was petrified by the thought of a needles going anywhere near my nipples. I wanted 4ga., and even though Jacob said it might be easier just to pierce at 6ga. and stretch, I was adamant about the scalpel. I'm a difficult customer that way, but he likes making me bleed, so it all worked out. :)
After procedural considerations came jewelry - captives to start would be too heavy, we thought. I'm a bad healer and even barbells were too much to chance for rejection. We had some custom bars made up, inch long solid plugs with o-ring grooves (which weren't intended and pinched like a motherfucker going through - but that's later in the story) that seemed fairly light. And even though I thought 'An inch? You gotta be kidding me!' ... well, that was until I saw those babies SWELL.
In retrospect the date we set was probably not the best - my tattoo was still healing, one of the labia had accidentally turned inside out and ripped while stretching, I had a fresh hood piercing and was just generally sick. But, I'm impatient and stupid and bounced and pleaded and had Jacob agree to slice-and-dice me a few days later. Not that it took too much convincing, seeing as he was (almost) as excited as me.
Day of and I got on the bus feeling a bit fluttery. Not too nervous but with sort of a resigned 'this is going to fucking hurt' view of the situation. I met some friends downtown whom I'd arranged to have bring a camera and document the procedure. Somewhat stupidly (as I soon learned) we'd also planned to go out with a couple more friends later that night.
As usual I got less nervous as the moment approached. Jacob took us into the blue room at the back (I classify NEXT!'s facilities as The Gold Room of Doom, and the Blue Room of Pain, at this point) and starting setting up. As with my ear scalpelling, Nelinda came in to watch and play nursie - handing Jacob the appropriate instruments at the appropriate times. We spent a good while marking... or rather, Jacob spent awhile marking, and I sat and stood and generally maneuvered my boobs into whatever position he wanted them.
Eventually the marks were done and the clamps went on... and then so did the music. After a little fiddling with the radio, I ended up getting scalpelled to Anna Russell's parody of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. An experience like none other, let me tell ya. Sharp things about to go into your tits and you're hearing the voice of a woman quoted as saying
"To be a dramatic soprano, requires not so much the attributes of a singer as those of a successful auctioneer or hog caller."
Needless to say, I highly recommend it :)
Back to the sharp things, though.
Jacob was somewhat disappointed that I responded to the (very) tight clamps with 'You know, I can't really feel those.' But I'm guessing he felt better once the scalpel came out of the package. I insisted on sitting up so I could see what was happening, and also that he put the scalpel through REALLY REALLY slowly. I hate fast piercings. They quite simply freak me out. So, I watched as the tip of the scalpel slooooowly disappeared into my nipple. I breathed a bit heavy, and Nelinda said she saw my heart going pretty fast, but overall it didn't hurt much. The tip popped out the other side, then ran further through until the thick part of the scalpel blade was through both sides of my nipple. Still not much pain at all. I was giddy over the fact that it didn't hurt, and giggled and told Jacob I'd have to hug him once this was over.
The scalpel got pulled straight out (didn't feel it) and the clamps came off. We all held our breath waiting for a big gush of blood... but none came. Collective sigh of disappointment, there, and then it was time for the taper. Which went smoothly except for my cries of 'Slowly! Slowly!' and 'What?! No lube?!' Heh. The jewelry went in fine until it got to those lovely grooves. Yeowch. I certainly knew they were there. A tiny bit of blood leaked out, and then that side was done.
Jacob kindly asked if I wanted to sit for a bit before the other side, but I was flying high and wanted the next one done as soon as possible. What? I thought these were gonna HURT? They're fun! We'd marked both side previously and the clamps went on straight off. Still not bothering me and with Ms. Russell squawking away, the scalpel started going through the second nipple. Didn't hurt more or less than the first, but halfway through and Jacob had to shift his hands slightly. Still no pain, but because of where they were, I couldn't see the scalpel going through any more. On the long list of my piercing neuroses, 'not being able to see what's going on' is pretty high on the list. I started breathing a little faster and said 'fuck' a few times. It still didn't hurt, but I got a bit freaked nonetheless. Went I can't see what's going on, I keep thinking there's something hideously painful just around the bend, apparently :)
Despite my mild state of panic, the second went just as smoothly as the first. Until the freaking groove, of course. Still not enough blood to satisfy all us sick puppies, but the way the things swelled was plenty gruesome. And it wasn't even close to how bad they were going to get.
Jacob cleaned me up and we goofed around a bit more. He insisted on taping giant gauze pads over my nipples which looked positively ridiculous but he wouldn't let me take them off. Instead, photos were taken to document my shame. Oh, joy. I got a very careful hug from Jacob, and then myself, with friends in tow, headed out (but not before I ducked into the bathroom and ripped off the gauze) for sushi and random fun.
All was well and good for a few hours (though bouncing my braless way down the street was pretty uncomfortable), and I think I must have flashed about 20 people I'd never seen before. Just 'Hey, wanna see what a scalpelled nipple looks like?' and then a good yank on the front of my shirt. Heh. I was a *bit* more discriminating than that, actually, but not much. I had met most of those 20 people at least once before, I think :)
Four or more hours passed and we started walking to a bus stop to head... somewhere. Memory is failing me on that point. It was late at night by now and very cold. Needless to say cold + freshly scalpelled nipples = severe pain. I was close to tears walking up a hill (bounce, bounce, bounce) and left the group to jump on the nearest bus in the direction of home. Once there, I dunked the poor things into warm water first off. MUCH better. After I'd defrosted them a bit, I switched the plain water for a sea salt mix and soaked them for about 20 minutes per side. Felt much better but that was also when they decided to start bleeding.
I fussed and fussed and eventually figured that they were just going to do what they were going to do. It's not every day someone jams a scalpel through your nipples, and I decided to simply leave them alone and go to sleep.
I woke up a bit bloody and holyjesusfuckingchrist was I swollen! The inch-long bars I'd mocked Jacob for ordering were completely full. The o-rings were partially swollen over. Eeeech. I should have expected this considering how badly my scalpelled lobe had swelled, but... wow. It was impressive to say the least. A little bit of green-ish bruising too, oh joy oh rapture.
That is, the bruising was greenish UNTIL I soundly whacked one of them with my hairbrush getting ready that morning. Then that one turned black :)
That's the part of the experience I don't recommend, in case you couldn't guess. Don't be a clumsy jackass like me, or you will spend 15 minutes doing the UnHappy Dance of Pain all around your bathroom while clutching your boobie like you're worried it's going to fall off. Though, I have to admit telling people that story for the next few days provided vast amounts of amusement. Or as much amusement as you can get by watching your friends grabbing at their nipples protectively and wincing on your behalf :)
My aftercare was pretty simple and consisted of only one thing: ANATOMIC SOAP! Nectar of the gods for piercings. Especially for people who can't heal for shit, like me. Castille soap with lavender and tea tree and very possibly other things I've forgotten. I'd take a cotton ball wet it down in the shower, lather it up with the soap and swab down each nipple for a good five minutes or so. The bars, unfortunately, created a fair amount of nooks and crannies that were hard to get clean, and resulted it some unpleasant crusty issues unless I took great care to wash all parts of the jewelry and piercing carefully. I did this twice a day (did? Who am I kidding? I'm still doing this twice a damn day - refer back to me not being able to heal for shit) and the soreness and bruising were mostly gone in a week or so.
I had some sporadic-to-downright-unexpected bleeding over the next few weeks. A week or so after they were done, and only maybe two drops of blood in total beforehand, I looked down one afternoon to see my very white shirt stained with some very red blood. Heh. I was downtown harassing Syx at the time and he kindly painted over the blood with white-out to avoid any questions from family members when I headed home. This didn't help much, as the white-out just made it look like someone came on my shirt. Is this a liquid preferable to blood when dealing with your family? I think not :)
Moving swiftly along through several uneventful weeks of the same (little blood, little bruising, lots of cleaning) and I started having problems with the over-long bars. Now that I wasn't swollen to size, they were way too big and became a liability. Either I'd smack one end into something and jam a whole lotta crusties through one side of my piercings, or the end of the bar would actually catch and start to flip my nipple sideways, upside down or inside out. Ouch, ouch and ouch - in order.
I convinced Jacob to let me switch to rings, and he wiggled in two 4ga., 5/8" captives with minimal difficulty and only a little pain. They seemed pretty heavy, but didn't cause me problems for the first day or so.
A few days later I was in serious pain. The rings were NOT settling in nicely, one of my nipples was so pissed off it was hard to walk, move my arms, breathe, etc. and to top it off, I was in Ontario and far away from any piercer I trusted.
Luckily I'd brought the bars with me, and I ended up wandering down the street of the city I was in looking for a piercing place. I found two, and both were pretty damned sketchy. I picked the better of them (which wasn't saying much) and went in to talk to the counter-girl. She was... vapid. And didn't seem to know that captive beads were held in by surface pressure. She was fiddling with her lip ring and going 'Does this screw off, or something? Maybe you could tell me.' I waited a bit longer and the 'piercer' (I use that term loosely) showed up. I essentially told him that I needed pliers to get the captives out, but other than that I wanted to do everything myself and could he please not touch me? He'd never seen anything like what I had done, which didn't give me great confidence as to him handling it. The sterility of the place was also very questionable.
He offered to clean the crusties off the piercings, though, and I accepted. Except that he apparently thought rubbing alcohol made for a great cleaner on fresh/irritated piercings. Ow, and also FUCK. I handled the pliers myself and managed to get one of the bars in. The second wouldn't go and I ended up just letting him ram it through. Again with the ow and the fuck, as he really didn't know what he was doing. Such are the things that make me appreciate Jacob :)
After the mad fun of that experience, the nipples got steadily better. The bars were still a problem, but evidently not as much as rings would be at this stage of healing, so I figured I might as well tough it out.
Fast-forwarding two uneventful months in which they improved more and more. Except for the damned annoying bars. And the fact that any lover I had would be all 'Long bars? Yay! Let's wrench them back and forth for awhile! I'm sure all that whimpering means she's *enjoying* it!' Heh. Anyhow, they were very settled and only needed to be cleaned once a day, now. I found treating them with Vitamin E oil after my shower greatly improved the crusty situation and just made them that much happier all around. I'm guessing that part of what I interpreted as 'crust' was actually just very dry skin.
So, again I decided to try the rings out. I figured I was now thoroughly healed enough not to be bothered by a little extra weight. Back in my home town and everso thankfully near Jacob, I got him to wiggle the rings in yet again. It still hurt, but not nearly as bad. In the days/weeks/etc. since then (I guess it's been about... 3 weeks? Maybe a month.) I've had to move back up to two washings a day, as well as two Vitamin E treatments. If I miss one of either, they are NOT pleased. But, if I'm a good girl, they now act nothing if not healed.
In the future I hope to stretch them - at least to 2ga. if not to Oga.. I imagine I'd have to wear barbells at that point, and I'm certainly not going to attempt it until next summer (which will have been a year since the procedure was done).
In conclusion... uh? I enjoyed healing these even if it was a (literal) pain. They've been my babies to take care of for a long time, and I'm incredibly glad they've turned out so well. I suppose I should have mentioned earlier that the placement couldn't be better - Jacob's cuts were dead straight and centered perfectly. With the big, shiny rings in, now - they look amazing. I've wanted scalpelled nipples since I was about 14 - ie. when I discovered BME, and I've been very lucky to have such a great experience with them as well as such a great piercer.
So, thank you to Jacob and to BME for putting the idea in my head. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. And I'm gonna shut up now, 'cause this has gone on long enough.
800 words? Pffft.