I'm fairly particular about the piercings I get as I want them to be aesthetically pleasing both to me and to anyone who ends up unfortunate enough to see/experience them. With this in mind, I usually come up with something that is completely unrealistic or at the very least difficult to accomplish. Case in point: my dydoe. I have a frenum that I wanted to make more interesting. I was wearing a barbell in it but wanted to put a large CBR or circular barbell that would sit up behind the glans but that still seemed a little ordinary so I started looking around for something to add. I liked the look of the dydoe and thought that I could get one with a barbell and use the back ball as the capture bead for a CBR. With this end result in mind, I went to see my piercer.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist Wendi Studio Kingpin Studio One thing I really appreciate about Wendi is that she won't do a piercing she's not comfortable with. I've seen and heard of too many people that will take your money and leave you with a migrating ring or an infection or a badly placed piece of metal and I have yet to see anything like this from her. If anything, I've had her talk me out of a lot of things that would have made her some money and left me sore and unhappy. I explained to her what I wanted and the first thing she told me was that it wouldn't work. She sat me down and drew me a picture. She showed me that anything that would fit while flaccid would be small and uncomfortable when erect and anything that fit perfectly when erect would put too much pressure on the dydoe when flaccid and eventually force it to migrate – neither of which sounded good to me. She also said that it could be a fairly painful piercing and that although she had been approached about it a number of times, she had never done one due to the cost and the likelihood of rejection/migration. Unfortunately I had already thought about the dydoe enough that I wanted it regardless and I was secretly pleased that I could give her an opportunity to try something she hadn't done before.
Wendi made some calls to determine what kind of jewelry would minimize migration and was told that a straight barbell would probably work best. I decided to go with a single 14-gauge stainless steel 9/16ths barbell centered through the top. It seems like most people who get dydoes prefer to have sets of three or five or pair them like venoms but I wanted to start with just the one. I figured one of two things would happen: I would either like it enough to go back to get more or I wouldn't and I'd only have to heal a single hole.
After setting up, Wendi called me back into her piercing room. I'm very comfortable with her and the other tattoo artists in their shop, everything is immaculately clean and seeing their ritualistic glove changing, I'm confident that I'm getting the best they have to offer and have few worries about any cross-contamination.
As this was a learning experience for her as well, Wendi took great care in her preparations. The first thing she did was check to see if she could use clamps to assist in lining up the pierce. Unfortunately she couldn't so she began to mark up the entry and exit holes. Although I find that it gives me more time to worry and try to talk myself out of what I'm getting done, I like the fact that she takes the time to make everything perfect. This is one of many reasons that I go to Wendi and won't go anywhere else – if she stops piercing, I will probably not get anything else done.
She finished marking me up, I checked the dots and everything looked fine. She had me lay back on the table and asked if I was okay. I took a deep breath and told her that she could start any time she was ready. She told me to start taking deep breaths and she would start on three. She was going to pierce from behind the glans forward as she wanted that hole as low as possible and thought that lining it up the other way would be more difficult.
But here's the part that I was unprepared for. I should have suspected something as on my way into the room, her boyfriend (who is a tattoo artist there) said "Good luck". I figured it was sarcasm or a joke, but I asked Wendi and she said that dydoes were something he had considered getting a while back but had decided not to because after getting his apadravya. He didn't want to go through having the head of his penis pierced again. Not a good sign.
The pain was not quite what I expected. I have a number of other piercings and have had a wide range of experiences with regards to pain. Everyone is different I guess and for me, this was pretty painful. We ended up doing the piercing in three steps.
The first push went through the back of the glans as close to the shaft as she could get it and probably halfway through to the other dot. From there, the tissue got much tougher and Wendi was having a difficult time getting the needle through so I asked her to stop for a moment to let me catch my breath. She wiped off the blood and told me to let her know when I was ready.
The second attempt took the needle to the other dot but she still had some problems with tough skin and could not get it all the way through and again, I asked her to stop. She did and wiped off the blood.
The third try finally got the needle through the skin and as we both breathed a sigh of relief, my endorphins finally kicked in. She wiped up the rest of the blood and sat back in her chair, and I eventually released my death-grip on the table. We noticed later that I had bent up the foot rest on the table trying to keep from moving while she was piercing me, but a couple of good whacks with a hammer ended up getting it straightened out.
She let me sit for a moment before putting in the jewelry. It stung a little – more like what I had expected the piercing to feel like – but was overall pretty uneventful. It looked great and I was very pleased with the placement and how the barbell sat. It burned a little but didn't bleed at all after the piercing was finished. I drank some water and gave her a big hug and then we went through the aftercare again. She said it was considered a surface piercing and to treat it as such. I should expect it to take approximately 12-16 weeks to heal completely and I should not start cleaning it until the next morning. She gave me some betadine wipes and told me to use those only, twice a day, for the first week. After the first week, she told me to wash it with warm water and antibacterial soap like my other piercings and to not have sex for a couple of weeks and to use a condom afterwards. She was shaking a little with excitement and had hurt her hand trying to push the needle through the last layer of skin, but she said she was very pleased with how it ended up. I sat for a little while in the lobby and then drove home.
For the first couple of weeks, the piercing looked great and was only mildly tender. I had no problems with the aftercare and everything seemed like it was doing fine. I started having some problems the third week though. The barbell was starting to migrate to the left and looked like it was trying to grow out. I went back to Wendi and she took a look and said that it was probably going to migrate some more but that if I wanted to take it out, the scar tissue would help anchor the next one if I decided to replace it later.
It continued to move to the left and became shallower. Some days were better than others as far as pain and irritation, but the migration was pretty consistent. I think this is due to a couple of factors: the clothes I wear and the placement of the piercing. With it being centered on top, the skin of the glans over the piercing is constantly rubbing against my underwear and sitting at work keeps the barbell pushed to the side. The skin also stayed irritated much longer than it would if I had worn loose boxers and/or looser clothing. If I had the piercing done on the side (or diagonally across the top) I think it would have rubbed less and migrated less – probably one of the reasons that it's not normally done as a single piercing.
I've had it for about 3 months now and although it has twisted quite a bit and has grown out a little more, I think that I will end up being able to keep it. It has not been as red and irritated, and adding regular salt-soaks to the normal aftercare has definitely helped. All in all, I'm pleased with the piercing and I am very glad that I had it done. The only advice I would give to anyone considering getting one would be to think about the placement on more than just an aesthetic level and to try to wear loose clothing to give it as much room as possible to heal.
Wendi, of course, gets my sincerest thanks and my highest recommendation.