About three months ago I woke up one morning and decided I was going to have my nipples pierced. Nipple piercings have always been part of my overall plan, but for one reason or another I have never really done anything about it, until one day I asked myself "what the hell am I waiting for?" Anyway I attended my TAFE classes in the morning then came home and rang Jase at Westside Tattoo & Body Piercing. Jase had dermal punched my septum several months before and I couldn't be happier with it, also he has lots of experience with larger gauge piercings so I knew I could trust him with my nipples. I asked him about the prospects of 4ga nipple piercings, and he said that wouldn't be a problem at all and we would pierce them at 6ga then immediately taper up to 4ga which sounded good to me.
At A Glance Author brendan Contact comeseemycage@hotmail.com When Three months ago Artist Jase Studio Westside Tattoo & Body Piercing Location West End, Brisbane A few days later I came into the shop to have my septum stretched up to 2ga and we discussed jewelry options for my nipples. Jase suggested titanium straight barbells, as weight would be an issue at such a large size and titanium is a good deal lighter than stainless and would make healing easier. I decided on dark blue titanium bars and put down a deposit. Being semi-employed at the time, money was a bit of an issue for me so Jase said it was ok to pay him in smaller installments. We stretched my septum up and I went on my way.
I was both excited and nervous for the two weeks while I waited anxiously for my barbells to arrive. One afternoon I was in the Southbank area and decided to go and visit the shop and upon speaking to Jase he informed me that my bars had arrived that day but he wouldn't be able to pierce me then because he had hurt his back the day before. This was fine by me as it only confirmed my respect for Jase, in that he isn't willing to pierce someone unless he is 100% confident that he will be able to perform well. It didn't stop my nervousness though.
In the next week I rang the shop several times and AJ informed me that Jase couldn't even make it into work because his back was so bad. Poor bloke, I am well aware of how much back injuries suck. Anyway the next Saturday I rang up and was greeted by Jase's friendly voice and he was very apologetic that he hadn't been at work for the previous few days. Since he had missed a few days, he needed to catch up on some things and would be coming into the shop the next day and asked if I was able to come into the shop on Sunday afternoon. I told him that would be great.
I woke up on the Sunday morning and was extremely nervous and excited. I caught the bus to Katarina's house in Highgate Hill and spent the morning there, then in the afternoon we bummed around Southbank until about 5pm when Jase rang my mobile and told us we could come into the shop. As soon as I hung up the phone I started shaking and needed to put on a jumper as I suddenly felt very cold.
We made our way to the shop and it appeared closed which was normal because they don't open on Sundays. I knocked on the door and was greeted by Jase, and the first thing I noticed was that his hair was cut into a horrible style. We had a few laughs about that and put on some nice heavy music and got everything prepared. We were the only ones in the store which was unusual because there are normally several artists hard at work there at all hours of the day. Jase asked for the bars and put them into the new super quick statim autoclave that the store had purchased a few weeks earlier. He then set up a large massage table in the middle of the room and drew the curtains. Then he cleaned up my nipples and spent about 5 minutes marking and remarking them, then cleaned the area again.
The jewelry came out of the oven and I saw the 6ga needles for the first time and was a bit taken aback by how big they were. We were going to pierce at 6 then taper to 4 and put the bars in with o-rings instead of balls for the first few days to keep weight to a minimum. I lay down on the table and Jase checked his markings and put some new gloves on, then lined up the needle with my right nipple and asked me to take a deep breath. On the exhale he pushed the needle through which took probably less than two seconds. The sensation was very different to being pierced with a smaller gauge needle, it felt more like a knife cutting into my nipple than anything else. Painful, but not unbearable. I was lying there with a huge needle sticking out of my chest when Jase commented that it would make a great picture, and realizing that the shop camera had no film in it, we sent Katarina up to the shops to buy a disposable camera. While she was absent we tapered that nipple up to 4ga an d put the bar in and stuck the o-rings on.
Kat returned and we took some pictures of that nipple and then prepared to pierce the second one. Jase again checked his marking and changed his gloves, and got me to lie down on the table again. This one was slightly more painful, but again nothing unbearable. Kat got some photos as the needle went through and during the stretching. The taper seemed to take a few seconds longer on the second one and it bled a lot more for some reason. Jase got some q-tips and cleaned up the blood and we got a couple more photos before I put my shirt back on. I was high as a kite by this point and was pacing around the room while Jase cleaned everything up and disposed of everything that needed to be disposed of. After that, I thanked him for everything and paid and tipped him. He let us out, commenting that my nipples would ache very badly later that night. I didn't think much of it, as I couldn't really feel anything at the time because the endorphins were still going crazy.
I walked Katarina home and was planning to stay at her house, but my shirt was getting a bit bloody so I opted to go home and get cleaned up first, so I got on the bus which takes about 20minutes to reach my house. It was not a pleasant ride, the bus kept going over what seemed like thousands of bumps, each one bringing a dull pain to my now sore nipples. I walked in the front door of my house and my father asked how things went and I told him it all went well and hopped in the shower. He thought he would be funny and turn the hot water off while I was in there which caused me extreme agony and I yelled out a number of violent curses until he turned it back on. I was exhausted by this point and rang Kat and told her I would be staying at home, and then I cooked something for dinner and began to realize that Jase was right about the aching. It felt like someone was pinching my nipples very hard and it was getting worse. I decided the best course of action would be to take a f ew panadol and go to bed.
The next few days were fairly uneventful, with only a little bit of dried blood when I woke up in the mornings. After about a week I took off the o-rings and put the balls on, as my nipples had grown quite noticeably bigger and there was no longer enough room for the o-rings to fit on. Aftercare is pretty simple, I just cup my hands under them in the shower and let the hot water collect and soak my nipples. There is no need to rotate the bars, as any lymph normally comes off easily in the water.
Now, almost two months since I had them pierced, my nipples are very happy. They are healing nicely, and I only ever get a tiny bit of lymph when I wake up in the mornings. They have grown considerably to accommodate the large bars and are showing no signs of migration or rejection, which I believe is due to good placement and jewelry choice. Many thanks go to Jase at Westside, and the lovely Katarina for being an impromptu photographer.