Here's my experience,Which im giving a warning about, because it is a DIY piercing; I don't recommend DIY, just because it worked this time doesn't mean it's 100% safe.
At A Glance Author anonymous When Six months ago Artist myself Studio my bedroom Basically my family is NOT into the piercing/tattoo thing, but I'm really into it so I figured that I would start with hidden ones and work up from there. I tried piercing my bellybutton about 2 years earlier, but found that it was much to hard to keep hidden, because I still live at home and we have a pool and it follows from simple logic that my stomach would show, so that one didn't work out so instead, this past summer I pierced my nipples because I figure my family members never see those so it should work well.
Around July, I decided to try to pierce my nipples so I jumped onto the BME forum and checked out general nipple piercing, and some one the "do it yourself" piercings, and figured it was probably worth the risk, as long as I kept everything sterile and used lots of antibiotic ointment.
Now, I had heard from my friends that nipple piercings hurt a lot, so I was kind of worried that I wouldn't be able to do it myself, but once I had numbed them with ice, it actually wasn't that bad. I'm not saying it didn't hurt like crazy, but it wasn't like someone was slowly killing me. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do both of them so I decided to start with the left one, because my brain works like that , I think its probably obsessive compulsive but whatever. So I iced it for about 30 minutes, then got to work. I used needles that I had sterilized in the best/most ways I could think of, which I'm sure doesn't meet the standards of being completely sterile in any way/ shape or form. Basically I boiled them, put isopropyl on them,then re boiled them, put Listerine on them, and then used antibiotic ointment on them and hoped that I had sufficiently killed off all the germs.
Then I used clean pliers to hold my nipple in place, and proceeded to push the needle through. I know from reading other people's experiences, that the best method is to go fast, but I found that going a bit slower was easier. I would guess it was a 10-15 minute process, the hardest parts being the surface of the nipple, more than the inside of it. In fact I had to use the pliers as a hard surface to break the skin on the other side of my nipple, because the needle wouldn't go by itself.
Anyways, Hooray! it worked. Until I got scared that my parents had somehow found out, go figure I'm kind of paranoid. so I took the 1st one out for about a week, then decided that I was crazy to think they had found out, unless they had hidden cameras in my room, there was no way they would ever know. so I repeated the above process which hurt a considerable amount more, Because it was still recovering from the first time, but eventually it went through and I was again pierced.
At that point, I had decided that maybe just my left one was ok, but really I think it just hurt too much for me to want to repeat that again, plus I figured "it's probably gonna be really uncomfortable to sleep on this so maybe one at a time is best" so I waited about three weeks and by then i must have forgotten the pain...then repeated the above. the right one was a little easier on the pain level but a little more awkward because I'm right handed and my right nipple is (duh) a little closer to my right hand, so it was sort of an awkward procedure, but again it worked.
For healing I would say it overall went well, my right one got an abscess for about a week, but I kept it clean and dry and it went away pretty quickly. I put antibiotic ointment on them at night, and let them breath a little during the day. It's what march right now and I would say they are 99% healed. At first they were pretty sensitive, but as they healed they got less and less so. Right now I can even get bumped into and not feel pain in the slightest.
Now for the good stuff: I didn't tell anyone about piercing my nipples, mostly because I had my doubts that I would keep them in. I was pretty sure they would get infected, or shift or be crooked because it was a DIY, but none of that happened. Regardless, I never told anyone, until one of my crazy crazy friends was trying to embarrass me (I'm kind of a shy, modest character) and jokingly said "You should pierce your jumbles" and I was in a mood to shock him out of his life so I replied "I already have" and his jaw must have dropped a foot ha ha. he was struck speechless, which for him isn't very common. Then he asked "Does your boyfriend know?" which at that point he didn't, so I said no, and I explained how I was worried because at one point my boyfriend had mentioned that he wasn't a fan of nipple piercings, but my other friend assured me that once he found out he wouldn't care. ha ha sure enough he wasn't disappointed when he did find out, in fact his exact words were "wow what a pleasant surprise"
So in closing, It was overall a good experience, I defiantly like them although if I had to do it over I would probably get them done professionally just so they would be a bit more symmetrical (the left one is a bit lower than the right but not noticeably so)
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