The events of 9/11/2001 had a huge impact on my life as I knew people that were in the Twin Towers that day. While they all did survive, the experience of that did cause me some pain. A couple of years after 9/11, I decided to get my nipples pierced as a way of remembering the pain that I experienced to my heart that day. I thought about just getting my left nipple pierced but decided to get both nipples pierced as I liked the look of both nipples pierced a lot better than I liked the look of just one piercing. It would have felt asymmetrical and I know that I would have later gotten the right nipple pierced as well.
At A Glance Author anonymous When Two years ago Artist A dude Studio Hot Rod Location Pittsburgh So on September 11, 2003 after I finally had convinced myself that getting my nipples pierced was going to be my tribute in a way to 9/11, I left my dorm room at Duquesne (yes I am a good Catholic girl that got pierced) and headed to a local piercing studio, Hot Rod.
I walked into the studio, told the guy at the counter what I wanted done and we discussed the procedure and aftercare for a bit. I paid for the piercings, was given a container of some sort of cleaning solution- I can't remember what it was, I'm afraid. Behind the scenes, I guess that the piercer got things prepared while I waited.
Eventually, I was called in. He finished getting prepared and I took my shirt and bra off, which was something I was a bit shy in doing. He then took a look at my nipples and spent some time finding the best placement to do the piercings, which were done with 10 gauge CBRs.
First he pierced the right nipple which really hurt, more than I expected. Seeing the needle in your nipple is kind of a shocking experience and though I had tried to prepare myself for it, nothing can prepare you for it. He then pierced the left one, which hurt even more. I put my bra and shirt back on after he was all done, thanked him and then left.
When I got back home, I took another look at my new jewelry. I cleaned the piercing with the solution that they had given me.for several months afterwards and tried to do the best job I could to let them heal, something I was unsuccessful with.
These piercings was such a pain literally to deal with. For one, I am not quite sure that they ever fully healed. Looking back, I may have gotten a mild infection that maybe I should have gotten looked at as my breasts as well were at time painful (possibly due to swelling in the milk ducts). Apparently what I did (trying to keep the piercings clean and using some Neosporin which isn't recommended) eventually worked as that pain went away. Another problem was caused by the rings themselves. The rings would get pressed into my breasts, leaving indentations from the rings that were constantly irritated. Eventually, I decided to try to protect the skin better, so I would put Band-Aids over that skin to help deal with that problem. This really wasn't much of a solution, but by the time I realized that it was a problem, I didn't live near any piercing studios and didn't really know what to do (as I look back, maybe going to bmezine.com would have been a good idea as maybe I could have found more information on how to deal with the problem better). The balls of the rings in particular seemed to cause problems with the indentations and also due to the concern I had about them showing, eventually I removed the balls and just left the rings in, as by this point, I didn't really care about the piercings all that much.
Eventually, one day when getting into the shower, I realized that the ring on the right side was no longer in the nipple. My best guess is that it had either rejected or had simply just fallen out of the holes. Either way, the piercing couldn't be reinserted. At that point, because of how frustrating this piercing had been for me, I didn't really care that I had lost the piercing; in fact I was kind of glad it was gone. Eventually, the left ring also fell out and I just left that one out as well.
Eventually both holes healed up fine, and while there is a bit of scaring, both nipples hardly look like they were ever pierced. The nipples are harder than they were before got them pierced, but also a lot softer than they were when I had the rings in. If I would get my nipples again, I would definitely get them pierced with barbells as some of my problems were due to the rings pressing into my skin.
At that point in my life, getting the piercings was kind of therapeutic for me. But later when they caused their own sets of problems, I questioned why I had gotten them in the first place. Why I can see why this is a piercing that many women really like having, in my case, having my nipples pierced wasn't something I enjoyed, due to the problems I encounter, some of which were certainly of my own doing..