The following is a written summary of my scrotal piercing, the scar tissue that quickly developed around my scrotal piercing, and the many ways I tried to get rid of it. This story ends in the eventual removal of said scrotal piercing. Weep for it.
At A Glance Author quinn Contact quinn@bme.anon IAM .quinn. When Three months ago Artist deid Studio body graphics Location jersey About three months ago I decided to get my frenum pierced for the second time – I had pierced it years ago, but it never healed because I was having too much sex with it. I've since become less young and less stupid when it comes to piercing aftercare, though, so I decided to try it again. My piercer was in the process of marking me when she mentioned how huge my gobbler was, and that I could pull off a nice scrotal ladder if I wanted to. Since I could have sex with a fresh scrotal a lot easier than I could with a fresh frenum, I decided to put off the frenum for another few years and just have her give me a scrotal instead. She marked me, deciding on a 9/16" area of skin for the ring to fit under, and slid in an eight gauge needle followed by an eight gauge, 9/16" SS ring. It looked cute. I was happy.
A week later I noticed that a lump of scar tissue was starting to develop on the left side of the left hole. Being obsessive compulsive about having symmetry in my piercing, I got really upset at this. I had been using dial soap for aftercare, but decided that switching to salt water might be a little easier on the piercing and help lessen the scar tissue.
Two weeks later I saw no improvement. In fact, that scar tissue got a little bigger, and began to bleed ever so slightly every so often. So I broke out the tea tree oil. I tried using it undiluted, diluted with grapeseed oil, and diluted in a salt water solution, and nothing helped the scar tissue. I figured that there must be a problem elsewhere.
I narrowed the possible cause of it down to two things – the diameter of the ring and the weight of the SS jewelry. My piercer agreed with both of those as possible culprits, adding that the piercing could just be irritated from my ball sweat, since it was nearly summer and all. So we switched my 9/16" SS ring to a 3/4" titanium SS ring with silicone o-rings to hold it into place. She even armed me with some lavender tea as per Todd Bertrang's advice, and I began soaking the piercing three times a day for two weeks. I even put a dab of tea tree oil on it every morning to help reduce the scar tissue.
No dice. The lump hadn't changed, and it was still sore to the touch, although it had stopped bleeding. So I decided to scalpel the fucker off, knowing full well that there was a chance that it could come back even worse than before, but hoping that since the weight and the pressure had been removed from the piercing via the new jewelry, that wouldn't happen. It came off pretty easy and painlessly, and it bled a whole lot, but the day after home surgery it looked brand new. It was beautiful. Four days later it looked and felt great, and I nearly wept at the sight of it. The day after that the scar tissue came back, this time on the right side of the left hole. I had had enough.
I removed the ring that day and soaked the area with lavender until it had closed a few hours later. Not wanting to have nothing to remember the experience by, I irritated the hell out of the area in an attempt to make the area scar well; so far so good. I have two little circles orbiting my sac, and they're very cute.
In short, I can only assume that my lack of patience was what caused the whole thing to go awry – maybe if I had kept up the lavender soaks for a couple more months it would have helped, or maybe if I had just stuck to one form of aftercare rather than trying every one in the book for a week or two, I could have saved the piercing from dying like it did. Or maybe I should just accept that my body lacks the ability to properly form a fistula within scrotal tissue without forming scar tissue to protect the area. Or maybe jesus just hates my scrotum. I don't know.
At any rate, I hope that at least you learned something from this.
Oh, and please note that any dangerous home procedures, i.e. my wielding a scalpel near my testicles, were done in as sterile a field as I could manage to provide myself with while in the comfort of my own home. I don't, however, recommend any of you taking scalpels to your privates, no matter where you may be. Thank you.