Thinking about doing a home piercing? Read this, it shows that it really isn't so hard or so bad.
At A Glance Author Joe Contact whocar1570@aol.com Artist ME Studio -Done at home- Location Allentown,PA This whole saga began about 1 1/5 years ago. My uncle's girlfriend had the idea to pierce her mid-fore-arm, pretty close to the wrist. She did it herself, and when I met up with them it had been a few weeks. I usually go out to visit my uncle at his place at LEAST once during summer break. Anyhow, one night she decided to put a small barbell through the hole. Out came the safety pin, and in went the barbell. No problems, just straight through. Eventually the spot became slightly infected as her body rejected this new "addition." In a smart move, she removed the barbell and let the area heal. Then came my visit this summer....
I had gone back up there for a one week visit (my new job only permitted me to visit for this very short period of time). The night before I was to head back here to NJ, we all got the crazy notion that we should go pick up (COUGHstealCOUGH) some safety pins and give this whole forearm thing another shot. The biggest ones we could find came in a mix pack with 1.5-2.5 or 3" safety pins. We grabbed 'em and headed home. I had recently performed my first piercing, which was on myself, which was a standard ear lobe with a sewing needle deal. It went great and I scrounged up some ear care solution and had that with me. So we "cooked" the safety pins (a 2.5 or 3" cant remember for my uncle and a 2" for his g/f) and soaked them in the ear care solution for a while. My uncle's g/f is a bit squeamish, so I got stuck with the job of jabbing this sucker through a three-fourths inch dot to dot in my uncle's arm. We marked the dots and in went the pin. No problems starting but a little trouble breaking through the other side. No blood, and he quickly swabbed the general area with ear care solution. I grabbed the Digital Camera and took a picture (PIC COMING SOON, EMAIL ME FOR IT!).
Next up was my uncle's g/f. The same procedure was followed as above, but this time I threw the digital camera into MOVIE mode, and got a great 45 second clip (ALSO COMING SOON) as "evidence" :). My uncle prepped the area, and pushed the safety pin into her wrist. He went quite quickly, which seemed to keep her pain down to a minimum. The depth of her piercing was definately not quite what it was on my uncle, as there was only one , yes ONE , extra large safety pin in the pack. She seemed pleased with it anyway. He did a good job, and she didn't bleed either. Again, same cleanup procedures as before, and she was happy with it.
I know this whole deal was very "botched" but it worked, and everything was kept as sterile as possible with the available resources. We are dirt broke (Poor? yeah I guess so) so we couldn't get this done professionally (err didn't CARE to have it done professionally :) ) , and anyway it's more fun to do it at home, and it's a great lesson in pain tolerance and sterility. Would I do it to myself? I don't know, as it seems a bit painful, but that's what I thought about piercing ears until I did my own ear. Also, I don't know if my job would permit this, or my school, or my mom...you know the drill. Unfortunately, I don't know how the piercings are doing, or if they're even in anymore. I keep forgetting to ask! If you want the pictures/movie clip, email me and ill try to hook you up with them.
In all, this went fairly well. I imagine that the piercings are doing nicely, as I feel that they were deep enough to resist being "pushed out." I don't recommend doing this at home, but if you insist, if you keep things as clean as possible and so forth, everything should go well. I suppose this could also be performed with some sort of "clamp" and a piercing gun, although the whole situation might get too complex to deal with and you might wind up just using a safety pin to finish things off anyway. This piercing is quite wide, and I don't think any kind of normal barbell would work. I suppose perhaps a large industrial type piece of jewelry might work, but I think the safety pin looks and functions best. Sick of lame tongue piercings? Give this a shot! :)
Happy Piercing! -JOE