I feel like I'm probably the biggest sissy you'll ever meet. I know that's not 100% true because a year and a half ago I walked into a studio (alone!), asked for a vertical hood piercing and somehow managed to survive it without moving. The fact that I had "survived" helped convince me to get my nipples done.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When It just happened Artist Ryan Corrigal Studio Strange City Location Edmonton, AB, Canada An ex boyfriend really liked having his nipples pierced when we were fooling around and one time I put a barbell through one of the piercings and we let it heal. I discovered that I really loved the barbell through the nipple! I could barely keep from playing with it all the time. I started to wonder if I might look good with pierced nipples. I like to keep my mods to myself, so the attractiveness and low-key nature of the piercing really appealed to me. I toyed with the idea for quite a long time, on and off, sometimes encouraged by my boyfriend, sometimes not. Slowly the idea faded away. Then I met a new friend (female) with pierced nipples and I thought they were really cute. I started thinking about it again, and had an odd itch for a new, somewhat secret, body mod.
Just the other day, my roommate said that she was going to get her nose pierced on the weekend, and I thought, "we can be piercing buddies!" and my year+ desire firmed up. I checked out a couple piercing places, talked to some pierced friends and decided on Strange City on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. They are extremely confident about the quality of their piercers and jewellery and the studio was clean and inviting. Much better than a dingy basement studio I'd just checked out earlier. I talked to them about our nose/nipple piercings and felt pretty confident. I went home and told my roommate that if she didn't want to get pierced there, we could have a road-trip style piercing day, but she liked the sound of it too, so the next Sunday, we made our way there with a couple friends.
After the id-checking and form-filling we waited about 15 minutes for our piercer Ryan to be ready. We went in together and left the guys in the waiting room. Originally I'd wanted them to come in too, but afterwards I appreciated that the studio rules probably helped prevent the piercing event from becoming a circus. I agreed that a 12-gauge was just fine because I figured that it couldn't possibly hurt anymore than a 14-gauge and I wanted to keep the odds of migration to a minimum. Strange City uses straight barbells for the initial healing so that as little pressure as possible is applied to the tissue. I liked how their focus was quality 100% of the way.
I had decided we should let my roommate go first because I didn't want her to be freaked out (her first piercing in years) by my likely-to-be terrible reaction. Ryan thought I had better go first because I was clearly the more nervous of the two of us (by a mile!). I had been anticipating the day with a pretty significant amount of dread. I wasn't very excited, really. Just nervous. I knew I wanted it done; I just didn't want to do it.
Anyways, after the preliminaries (nope, nothing wrong medically, etc) I took off my shirt and we spent at least 15 minutes making sure the placement would be perfect. I have to give Ryan huge kudos for taking the time to make sure it was exactly right. When he apologized for taking so long, I told him it was fine because I really didn't want to have to do it twice. Finally, we had the dots as close to perfect as possible. I lay down on the table and Ryan made me focus on my breathing. My roommate looked really worried for me, probably because my breathing consisted of horrible hissing sounds as I tried to take deep breaths through clenched teeth.
The clamping was fairly painful. I was really hoping that it would be painful enough so that I wouldn't actually notice the piercing. I was hoping in vain. When the needle went through, I felt it and it really, really hurt. I was thoroughly appalled. My adrenaline went through the roof and man did I wriggle around. I managed to keep my upper body relatively still but Ryan did have to nicely ask me to try to keep still. He quickly moved over to the other side and my brain was trying to produce words requesting a break, but before I could open my mouth the other side was clamped and there was the intense pain again. The second side didn't hurt quite so badly and I was still half in shock from the first one. Adrenaline was definitely running high. When the barbells were inserted I was expecting some serious pain (the jewellery insertion for my vertical hood piercing was almost as painful as the piercing) but with the internal threading and Ryan's expertise, I felt almost nothing. I was pretty surprised but also very thankful. It was over and they looked absolutely lovely. I was thankful that he had gotten to the second one so quickly because if I had managed to ask for and get a break between them, I'm not 100% sure I would have let him do the second one, or at the very least, the stress would have been hugely multiplied.
After looking at them in the mirror and ascertaining the loveliness of my new barbells I put my bra and shirt back on and watched my roommate get her nose done. She was way tougher than me.
All in all, Ryan was an incredible coach. The whole time we were in there he was so encouraging and friendly that I almost felt myself relax a little. It was much nicer than the professional but distant demeanour of the piercer who'd done my hood (different studio). At the end he told me that I done really well and was just so nice that I almost felt that I had been brave. In terms of being both a caring and professional service provider I could not possibly have asked for better.
So here I am, the next day and absolutely overjoyed with my courage (haha) and my pretty, pretty nipple jewellery. I can't wait 'til I can get nipple shields. Those were always one of the reasons I wanted to get my nipples pierced, but the barbells are more attractive than I'd realized they would be, so I'm in no rush. I've seen just a little bit of swelling, no redness, no discharge or crustiness and I'm quite pleased. They were pretty sore for the rest of the day they were pierced and this morning wasn't great (I think I slept on them) but today has been totally pain-free and I'm just excited for them. Admittedly, I get a funny feeling when I think about the piercing procedure (and it ran through my head last night a few times!) and it's still a little surreal that -I- have my nipples pierced, but all in all I am just so happy I got them done and I feel really lucky that I lucked out and got Ryan as my piercer. Yeah, it hurt horribly (and I mean horribly!) but it was really quick and I survived it and the benefits are totally worth it.