I guess I will begin by saying that I am underage, poor, stupid, and have very conservative, closed-minded parents. I DO NOT RECCOMEND DOING WHAT I DID!!! Anyway, this is the story of my handweb.
At A Glance Author elizabeth Contact lze6621@aol.com When A month ago Artist me Studio my bedroom Location my house I was looking on BME one day and looked at the surface/unusual page. OOOO I thought to myself...handweb. Looks good, would be easy to hide, can be self-done fairly easily...what the hell?
So, I waited until that night when my mom had gone to bed. I took out my last 16g piercing needle (the other one had been used for my scrumper...long story.), some rubbing alchohol, and a flat-back labret. I unscrewed the ball from the labret and put both the post and the bead in a cup of alchohol to soak and went to wash my hands. When i got back, I cleaned my handweb with alchohol. Then I opened the needle and put it up to my hand. I started breathing, in through my nose, out through my mouth and counted to 5, then pushed. The pain actually wasn't as bad as I thought. However, I could feel it popping through every layer of skin. That part was not pleasant. The layer of skin on my palm was hardest to go through and I had to push really hard to get it out the other side of my hand. So then I had a needle sticking through my hand, both of which were shaking a little at this point. I decided to wait a little while before putting in the jewelry. After about 3 minutes, I decided I was okay and I took the needle out. I then put the labret in (with the disc on the palm side of my hand) and screwed the ball on the other end. IT LOOKED GREAT! I was in love with my new hand piercing. It looked like it was meant to be there. I cleaned it and put ice on it.
The next day it looked almost normal. Everyone at school either thought it was cool, wanted to touch it to see if it was real (which I DID NOT let them do), wanted me to take it out (which I also did not do), or thought it was gross and refused to look at it or talk to me for a while...oh well. For PE, so it didnt get pulled out, I put a band-aid over it (which probably wasnt a good idea). But even this didnt work too well as the one day in the year I dont want to use my hand, we play volleyball. Damn whoever invented that game. My handweb got hit and it swelled up and hurt like a fucker, but it was ok in the end.
I cleaned it with dial soap and soaked it in sea salt water every night and every morning for a week. I made sure to wash my hands as much as possible for the first week.
Then, a week and 2 days after the piercing, I went to a concert. MAJOR no-no. Of course I did not think of how easily it could get ripped or, worse, pulled out. So i went and with my luck, it got caught on someones fishnet and ripped all the way out. I was devastated. It didnt hurt that bad, but, needless to say, I was pissed. When I got home, I washed it and put neosporin on it and a bandaid over it. Now, a week later, I have a scar where it was, but it doesnt look that bad.
If you are considering piercing your self, I have some advice:
1)DO NOT BE STUPID! Research the piercing thouroughly before you do it! Make sure that you can live with this piercing, meaning that it fits into your lifestyle (an example being do not pierce your hand if you have a job that requires you to move unclean things or use your hands a lot)
2)GET IT DONE PROFESSIONALLY IF YOU CAN! I definitely do NOT reccomend self-piercing unless you are a piercer or are under the supervision of one or if you know enough about piercing to do it safely.
3)BE CLEAN AND CAREFUL! Do not use unsterilized equipment! Even boiling water does not totally kill 100% of bacteria.
Please be careful. What worked for me may not nessicarily work for you! I screwed up my scrumper big time by not using sterilized jewelry. All I have now is a scar, thank god, but be careful and make sure you understand all the risks involved.
In the future, I hope to get many more body mods including a labret, septum, bridge, madison, lobe stretching, daiths, inner conches, and anti-tragi (dont know if i spelled that right), and wrist pocketing. Body modification is a beautiful art form that has been around for thousands of years and is now used as a form of self-expression where it was once used as a right of passage or as a symbol of status.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me. Rock on and good luck! -elizabeth-