At A Glance
Author	Kirsten
Contact	Kirsten@bme.anon
IAM	Kirsten
When	Six months ago
Artist	Me
Studio	Home
Location	Pennsylvania

Having read Shannon's article on self piercing, I thought I would share my most recent, and only failed, self piercing experience.

First of all, while I am very much in support of self piercing as an option for piercing minded individuals, I do not support people who pierce their friends, their friends' friends and so on. I do not support piercing with rusty safety pins and I do not support piercing while intoxicated. I'm sure there are other caveats I could add, but that basically sums up my disclaimer on the subject.

Earlier this year (2002) I started to feel that I needed to expand my modifications. The summer before I had added my lip ring, my first (and so far only) facial piercing and my nipple piercings. I had recently added another ring to my right ear, bringing the hole total to 10 but this was all much too subtle. I needed something that was both me, noticeable without being "offensive" and delicate. I decided on the webbing between my right forefinger and thumb.

First of all, I should mention that I am obscenely right handed. The only things I can do with my left hand are shoot pool and weed the garden. I can't even brush my teeth left-handed. It was important to me though to pierce my right hand. I did not think ahead overly critically as to how this would affect the function of my hand. This would be my first mistake.

In order to do this right, I decided to order supplies online and procured a 14 gauge needle, sterile wipes, small cbr rings (14 gauge), ring openers and closers and some other bits and pieces. I waited anxiously until my supplies arrived and then spirited them upstairs when they did. I hadn't told my husband what I was thinking about doing.

That night I washed both my hands fastidiously working with a nailbrush and rinsing with hot water. I used a surgical marker to make dots on either side of the webbing of my hand and clamped it with the forceps I had purchased. I gloved my left hand, ripped open the sterile package the needle was in and took a deep breath. It took some time and some tricky maneuvering, but I finally got the needle through the flesh in my hand. For a moment I just sat there with the shaft of the needle sitting in the delicate space of my very small hand, breathing through the pain and thinking about how proud I would be when it was done. Eventually I had to get the jewelry into the hole and go to bed. Working very slowly and deliberately, I followed the needle with a 14 gauge ring until it was through. I loved the look of the ring in my hand web and got ready to secure it with the hematite bead. Did I mention that I am NOT left handed. This was the trickiest part of the entire procedure and easily took four times as long as the actual piercing, but when I was done, I had a small, delicate little ring in my hand and I loved it.

The next morning I showed my husband Will and he loved it. Every night I soaked it in a sea salt solution and I kept it meticulously clean. However this was also early summer, and I'm a gardener...

I used gloves whenever I went out into the garden, but the tools I use in planting, weeding and pruning are all wielded by my right hand, and even through the heavy gloves, the piercing would get irritated and bleed. I was getting very frustrated so I changed out the jewelry and used a bent barbell with micro balls. This worked very well and didn't get caught on many things, but the balls kept falling off. I was not having good luck.

Eventually I had to shake hands with my boss and knew that the jewelry in my hand would ignite another round of making fun of me for being "weird" like my lip ring had. I took out my ring (I had changed back from the barbell) for the meeting I knew would end in a handshake and couldn't get the ring back in after I got home from work. No matter what I did, the pain that attempting to reinsert the ring caused was just too much. It shot like lightening up my arm and caused me to break into a cold sweat. This is not what I feel piercing is about. Yes there is pain initially, but that should be transitory, not something that comes back with a vengeance four months later. I had to stop trying.

So I was left with two little holes on either side of my hand webbing. This was irresistible to my fidgety nature and I would pick at them. I know, a horrid thing to do, but it is a terrible habit of mine. Every day I would scratch and pick and pull and open the holes again. I have tried to reinsert jewelry, as to this day the piercing itself has not been allowed to heal entirely, but the pain is just as severe once I get beyond the very edge of the hole. I believe I must have placed the piercing near a nerve, and the thickness of the ring causes pressure that inspires the agony. So while my piercing in effect still exists, there is no jewelry I can wear in it with any comfort.

In the end, what I have been left with is a hole in my hand that while offering hours of juvenile amusement while I pick at it, is somewhat detracting from the aesthetic appeal of my tiny hand and is the only piercing I have ever had to abandon.

I have to admit that in the future, I will more than likely stick to self-piercing my ears, but I will definitely go to a professional for more involved modifications.