I've been into piercing and since second or third grade and body mods for about three years now. I got my first piercing when I was a freshman in high school and since then I've had at least 30 go in and out, but now I'm down to 5. Now I'm working on a ladder, this is my newest project that I have wanted for some number of years now
At A Glance Author Nick Rhine Contact Nick Rhine@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Me Studio My Bedroom Location Williamsburg, Va I was originally going to start my ladder two weeks ago, but I had made plans to go out and didn't have enough time to complete the piercing. I had started out with a syringe needle because all my good piercing needles were dirty. I just checked where I wanted it to go in and come out, pinched the skin up, clenched my teeth and pushed it through. It was surprisingly painless. I didn't even know that the needle broke skin until it poked through the other side. Then came stretching with a duller needle from one of the sewing kits I get my good needles from. I got it through the hole on one side and with some effort stretched it and got it through out the other side.
Then came the ring. This was a different story, I got it through the first hole just fine, pushed it to the other hole, and then it wouldn't come out. I finally got it to show at the other hole but there was a layer over top of it that wouldn't allow it to come out more than about 1/16 of an inch. I tried about another twenty minutes pushing, pulling, wiggling it around and nothing worked. Right when I was about to give up my ride pulled up so I took the needle out and left. Unsuccessful.
About a week later I decided that it would be a good night to try again, being that the first hole was healed. This time I knew what to expect, and had the relief of knowing that it wouldn't hurt. So I went right at it. I did the same thing. Started with the syringe (freshly cleaned and sterilized), and then I went to a similar but a little differently shaped to stretch and this time I left the needle that I used to stretch the hole a little longer this time thinking that might help a little. Wrong. Same little membrane or whatever that little red layer is was there. I tried giving it a little pressure to see if it would pass through and it wouldn't. I tried putting the ring in from the other side and had no luck there either.
About this time I wanted to make sure the hole would stay big enough until I could figure it out so I put the big needle back in, thinking I would have to do each side separately because I couldn't get the ring through so why would the needle go though, and the damn thing went through with no trouble at all. About this time is when I started getting a bit angry at the piercing. Why is this not working I kept saying over and over to myself in my mind. So I pulled the needle out and went in with the ring as fast as I could. It still didn't want to work. I figured I'd teach this little red layer a lesson, so I got out my Buck knife and went all around the ring with it. I was sure the razor sharp beauty would fix my problem but I was wrong. I cut as hard as I could but little red was holding the ring for dear life. After about ten minutes of that I gave up on cutting and put my knife away.
I figured now would be a good time to keep the hole stretched and put the needle back through. This is when I discovered the secret. When I put the needle through there was resistance and some of the skin bunched up in the middle when I pushed it through, but when I put the ring through it just slid in with no problem at all. I take the needle out and grab the ring again. As I push the ring through I use my fingers to give the same amount of resistance the needle gave. The worst possible thing happened, it went through no problem at all. After an hour and ten minutes of problem solving and stress, all it took when I figured it out was about twenty seconds. So now at least I know what to do next week when I take the second step. So far I have just been cleaning it like any other piercing and i'ts shown no sign of irritation or infection. After I'm done with this I'm going to put a couple of beads in it. This is going to be a fun month.
A word of advice. Don't use a knife when piercing, I'm sure it's dangerous.