At A Glance
Author	rebecca
Contact	rebecca@bme.anon
When	Two years ago
Location	Cambridge, MA

So my title is supposed to look like pierced nipples.. not so successful :P

I got both of my nipples pierced on a whim while wandering Harvard Square the summer after I graduated from high school. The piercer marked me while I was standing up, since I guess boobs change position when a girl is lying down! I was pretty nervous, this being my first peircing (other than earlobes), and before the first one I looked down as I lay on my back and the needle looked so huge next to my nipple! Especially since I have sort of small nipples... the piercer told me not to look and to take a deep breath. He pierced on the exhale, and it barely hurt at all – kind of a squeezing, pinching feeling. The buildup was definitely the scary part. The other one went fine as well, and they looked great – super hot. I bought a bottle of salt water solution in a spray container and headed back to the hotel where I was staying. Every time my upper arm brushed against the area, it was like a jolt – it was so sensitive. The next couple days in the shower were almost unbearable, because I couldn't let the spray of water hit the area directly – it was like sensory overload. To wash them, I would just cup my hand around the area and let the water sort of trickle in. After the shower, I would let them air dry (I surely couldn't touch them with a towel or anything!) and spray them with the salt spray. I would let this air dry as well and then I would put a clean piece of tissue in each side of my bra. I was completely paranoid about getting an infection – being 18 at the time, I couldn't possibly tell my mother I needed antibiotics because I had gotten my nipples pierced... So I salt-sprayed them a couple times a day and worried about them the rest of the time.

When I was about 12, I had gotten my earlobes pierced a second time and (possibly due to my not wearing earrings constantly, or who knows what) I developed keloids on the backs of my ears. So my bigger fear, even more so than infection, was that I would get lumps of scar tissue on my nipples. One the left side of the left piercing, the bar was a little deeper into the skin (it came slightly out of the areola). This was the area I was most worried about – after a week or so, I noticed a sort of gooey whiteish stuff after showering around this area. It wasn't like pus, more like wet scab tissue (gross, I know) but I was very anxious that this meant the area was going into "healing overdrive" and I would develop a keloid. I knew the more I poked at it and wiggled the barbell, the more likely that would be, but of course I had to constantly check its status.

About a month later, I was sent on a trip (a graduation present..) down in Ecuador. We were going snorkling, and as I examined my piercings in the horrible ship bathroom (between getting seasick) I worried and worried about getting some weird infection from swimming in the sea with unhealed piercings. I also couldn't stop worrying that as they healed, keloids would develop. I loved my little silver bars and I didn't want to take them out.. but finally, I asked myself Rebecca.. didn't you learn anything from the keloids all those years ago? I had had a rough time of it with that: I went to a doctor to have the lumps removed from the backs of my earlobes, and she butchered and mutilated my earlobes to the point that today that is the one thing I am most self concious about – my weird looking ears. (Later, the keloids reformed due to the scars from that surgery. I went to a different doctor, a couple years later [and after the nipple piercing incident], who simply injected them with a steroid that shrank the lumps into oblivion. So.. the whole first procedure was pointless and scarring, in more ways than one.)

At any rate, I was scared the same thing would happen to my nipples. It's one thing to have scar tissue growing on the back of my earlobes, but on my breasts?! I couldn't even stand the thuoght of it, especially since it was not something I could easily at the time go to a doctor for (awkward with parents). So I sadly took out my beautiful little bars. Now, about 3 years later, there is virtually no sign of where they once where beside a tiny light-colored mark on each side of the nipple – unnoticable unless you had been told it was there. I have since thought about getting them repierced, but I think that having been pierced once, they are even more likely now to have a scar tissue problem. So while it was fun while it lasted, and looked super sexy, I am happy with my nipples au naturel. But I would definitely recommend getting yours pierced if you are considering it – for me it was minimal pain, and they looked great.