I had my left nipple pierced just over three months ago at a place called Angels in Middlesbrough and it went more or less completely wrong. My older brother had had both of his nipples pierced and nothing had gone wrong with his, so I saw no problem with getting mine done, I'd wanted a nipple piercing for a while and after a family bereavement and decided to get it done the following day.
At A Glance Author Nichola Contact nicholaxmarie@hotmail.co.uk When Three months ago Artist Not sure Studio Angels Location Middlesbrough, North East England My first choice was the place where I usually get my piercings from which is Metal Guru in Stockton because everybody is helpful there, you get talked through what's going to happen and once you're done and have the aftercare sheet Mark or Tanya explain to you fully how to look after your piercing. I experienced none of this at Angels. As I walked in with three other friends who also wanted to be pierced that day we all received glares by the woman behind the counter, when we got to the counter we explained what we wanted and we were told to return in about an hour.
On our return we were told to sit on the sofas as the female piercer got ready, by now we were all a little nervous (especially my friend Georgina who had her last piercings go wrong by an inexperienced piercer) nothing was done to calm our nerves, no one spoke to us. Danny was the first to go up the stairs and he was there for a quite a while, when he came back he proudly lifted his shirt, took off his dressing and showed us his rather shrivelled nipple, next up was me and Georgina, I went first to have my nipple pierced and I wanted mine done diagonally, the woman didn't quite understand how I wanted it and took a few attempts at drawing on the dots in the right place (she couldn't get them straight) I asked her a few questions about piercings and her knowledge didn't seem too extensive and then I realised that the only piercings she seemed to have were her lobes, I asked her if she had her nipples pierced and she hesitated before quietly saying "yes" she was quite clearly lying. It seemed to take her longer than it should to actually pierce me, I think she enjoyed inflicting pain and then she said "You can shout and swear if you want" I turned my head away, closed my eyes and said "Nah I'm okay" and then I texted my boyfriend to take my mind off it.
After we had all been pierced and had paid we left the shop and went to McDonalds, we all sat and talked about what had gone on and then I realised I had not been given an aftercare sheet, Holly for some reason had been given two and out of all of us who had been pierced only one of us had been instructed how to look after our piercings correctly, Danny had been told to use Nipple Spray from boots and a saline solution, so that's what we all did. None of us had been told how thick our bars were or what length the bars were.
A week or so later Danny went to Metal Guru to get something else pierced and told Mark about his experience at Angels, apparently nipple sprays are oil based and should not be used on new piercings and Holly and I had had our nipples pierced like how a boy would have his nipples pierced, both mine and Holly's nipple piercings took a while to heal and recently began to show signs of rejection.
I strongly advise against going to Angels for any sort of piercing and if at all possible, go to Metal Guru instead, because they know what they're doing and Angels clearly don't.
Its been a good few months now and my nipple has really improved, for the first couple of weeks I'd wake up each morning with my nipple bleeding but after a while that stopped and it started healing properly. It went well until it started to reject, I went to get it checked out and I was told my body was just pushing the bar to a more comfortable place, it's now stopped its rejection and bleeding and has almost completely healed.
I wish I had actually gone to Metal Guru instead of Angels but Metal Guru was closed and I really wanted this piercing that day. I'd suggest that if you want a piercing don't just go anywhere, go to someone you know you can trust with a needle, and don't be scared to ask questions, because if you don't you may end up with a dodgy piercing, and don't try and change the bar before your nipple is fully healed because you might not be able to get it back in and it may cause more problems.