"Just two holes" or the story how I pierced my nipples...
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Self pierced Studio At home Location Finland I had thought about piercing my nipples for a long time. The thought had been in the back of my head and every time I saw somebody with a nipple piercing I was thinking, "damn that looks cool, I wonder if it hurts..." I had heard a lot of different stories about it, ranging from "just a small prick" to "I yelled harder than ever before". One thing was for sure, I was going to do it myself if it was to be done at all.
My pierced friends say a pierced ear does not count, so I am a newcomer to the scene of body modification, the nipple piercings are my first "real" piercings. Although I have been surfing the BME website for about 10 years now.
I seem to have a problem about other people causing pain to me, but have no problem inflicting pain on myself. So the logical approach was to buy jewelry, a couple of needles and a bottle of iodine based sterilizing solution.
One Monday I felt like it was time to do it. I showered, dried myself off and wiped the nipple with iodine. I had put the jewelry into a small glass with some iodine in it to sterilize it. I thought I need not bother too much as I was going to do the piercing in my bathroom anyway, so a clean but by no means a sterile environment.
I first did my right nipple. I pushed the needle in rather slowly and pierced the skin, the pain was quite tolerable, a lot milder that I had thought. Slowly I went on, pushing the needle deeper into the nipple, somewhere deeper in there was wave of stronger pain that gave a big surge of adrenalin. The second wave of stronger pain came when the tip of the needle pierced the skin on the exit side. I had learned from my previous experience with my ear and used a pencil eraser dipped in iodine to help puncture the skin cleanly. It resulted in a lot more pleasurable experience than the ear. Ok I have to admit that it may not have been the most sterile and/or professional solution to the problem but it got the job done.
Unfortunately the needle I used was a bit too small to take the 1.2mm ring through when pulled back so I had to force it through.
Only time the pain was uncomfortable was when I pushed the jewelry through the skin on the other side.
I got a huge adrenalin high from the process and was quite pleased with my self for the rest of the evening, just lounging around in my bathrobe, admiring my new ornament and amusing the hell out of my spouse.
I cleaned the new piercing with water and some Q-tips approx. three times a day to remove the crust from the ball closure ring I chose for the piercing. That and a daily shower was all it took, went to sauna twice and took a swim in a hole in the ice, so a pretty normal winter week for a Finn.
I was rather amazed at how quickly it healed. It took six days for the ring to move freely in the piercing and the crust to stop forming.
Very pleased with the result and the look of my modified nipple I decided to pierce the other one too, just to balance the look.
So exactly one week after the first piercing I did my other nipple as well. This time I had modified a pair of tweezers to act as a clamp. Due to a slight misjudgment there was a problem with it. I had not taken into account that there should be a rather large tolerance in the holes compared to the needle. I could easily push the needle alone through the slot and the hole I hade made in the tips of the tweezers but when there was skin in between the tips all I could get through was about half of the tip of the needle. So I reverted to the previous method of iodine dipped pencil eraser.
The piercing experience itself was similar but the left nipple bled a lot more, as there was virtually no bleeding with the right one. Also there was a bit more pain involved, again nothing intolerable but slightly more uncomfortable than the first nipple I did.
The latter piercing is now five days old and it too seems to be healing very nicely. Today there has been almost no crust and after rinsing the nipple with warm water the ring moves freely and without pain.
I am very happy with the results, but as they say piercing is addictive, I'm unable to wear piercings on visible areas of my body as I work in customer service. I'm not quite ready for genital piercings (yet) and my spouse is against them as well. I am not going to do any genital piercing myself, that much is certain. Too much at stake I guess. Or maybe I need to learn what I need to know first.