Now while going into the situation I knew that a learning experience was on the way I was unprepared for the fact that it would become two. I had been planning to stretch several piercings at one time, you know, get all the jewelry and take care of them at once. I had ordered some new jewelry from my piercer, enough to stretch seven piercings and preparing myself to haves as many done, or so I thought.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact heavilypierced@yahoo.com When Five years ago Artist myself Studio home While I was currently in the process of my first piercing apprenticeship I had no idea that the learning process was to become first hand. So the night comes, and the jewelry is in. At this point I am well stoked, having planned to have this work done for over a month.
Since I was apprenticing my piercer, this whole event begins at his home. He had stretched other piercings for me before so this was really nothing new, he sets up his equipment and so we begin. The first stretchings were my nipples, from 12 gauge captive rings to 10 gauge captives, no big deal, done within seconds. Next was my navel, stretched from a 14 gauge captive to a 10 gauge captive. A little different from the nipples, but still not bad at all. So far so good, I'm stoked and it couldn't be better at this point.
And now we come to the good stuff. Now although he was aware of the last four piercings to be stretched, I don't know if he just didn't want to stretch them or if he really thought that I should learn this process myself, on myself. With kind of a weird look and an equally weird feeling in my stomach I grabbed my tapers and my new jewelry and headed home.
So I set up my necessary items in the bathroom and begin a task that although excited about doing, I am also excited about accomplishing. Out comes the first two original pieces of jewelry, 16 gauge captive rings, which just a moment ago were residing in my lorum piercings. At this point I'm a little sweaty, not so much nervous as excited. Taper slides through with just a small amount of resistance, that which I was grateful for, being my first time working on myself.
And here comes the second learning process. The first was the initial stretchings, and the education in regards to how and when stretching is possible. None of these piercings were under a year old, so I was well healed coming into this. Nothing to worry about there.
Now the second process I learned while stretching my two frenum piercings. Although the two lorum stretched nicely, the two frenum did not.
Lesson two: overcoming the ability to work on yourself when things don't go so smoothly. Out comes the jewelry and in goes the, in goes the, in goes the taper. Well not so much as I had hoped. I'm sure anyone who has been pierced has had to deal with the event of lets say a a dry piercing through a dry whole or perhaps a situation where not enough lubricant was used to pass a piece of jewelry. Thats where I was, standing in my bathroom starting to sweat heavily, pushing and pushing on this taper, which now was so lacking in lubrication that i could not even pull it out. Add lubricant, push, push, sit. Feeling kind of light headed, stop for a moment, push. Stop. This isn't going as I had hoped. This whole process went on for about forty minutes until I was able to work the taper back out, which was nice to have out but I still had accomplished little.
So I'm sitting on my toilet sweating, on the verge of passing out and now two pieces of jewelry lighter than when I came in here. Back to square one... Lubricate WELL and increase my speed, instead of slowly working the taper through as I had previously done with all the other stretchings, as had worked before, I gave it a little more finess. Although I had resistance from the size increase it passed through...straight through. I ended up passing the taper through twice, and two more times trying to follow it with the new jewelry before I had successfully stretched, and replaced one piece of frenum jewelry.
So that was one. If you are at all interested as to how the second stretching went, scroll back up and read the previous paragragh again, for it went exactly the same. Step for step almost exact.
Having begun at my piercers home at eight thirty at night I concluded my learning experience at shortly before three in the morning after four spells of almost passing out and an education in how much I am able to take and, well, give myself.
My soreness lasted the better of a week simply from those two stretchings but I find it all to be worth it in the long run. If I may conclude with some advice a 16 gauge frenum piercing stretched to a 10 gauge may be a bit much for some, but if you do decide to jump that much at once make sure you know what you are doing, or even better, have a professional do it. A stretching with that increase I believe should not be done by an amateur piercer, they should in fact stay with single gauge size increases until more familiar with the body's possible reaction to such a jump.