At A Glance
Author	vicky
Contact	vicky@bme.anon
IAM	vicky-dreamer
When	A month ago
Artist	Mike
Studio	Colour Me Custom
Location	Banbury, UK

A surface piercing is something that has intrigued me since I first discovered them on BME. It was one of those piercings which I knew I wanted, but before I could get it I needed to find some more courage, I found that courage by simply waiting for a year and taking that time to research all that I could, finding this page especially useful.

When I finally felt that I was ready to embark on the journey of getting and healing this new piercing I took a trip into Banbury and went to Colour Me Custom to set up an appointment with Mike. Mike has pierced me twice before, and also tattooed me so I trusted him to perform this piercing on me. We had a quick chat and agreed I'd return in an hour so I headed off into town to complete a few errands.

I arrived back at the studio at 2pm and Mike walked through to the waiting room, his customer followed him through to take a break from being tattooed whilst Mike pierced me.
I walked into the back of the studio and Mike pushed the bolt across the door behind me, I removed my jacket and hung it up on the back of the door then took a seat in the chair.

Piercing Process:
I sat down and made myself comfortable and Mike pinched the skin to check that there would be enough flesh to accommodate for such a piercing, thankfully he told me I had just enough and so he walked away to set up the jewelry, needle and clamp.

We discussed the placement and I showed him where I thought I would like the piercing, with the bottom hole at the top of my cleavage and the top hole approximately 20 - 50 millimetres above that, depending on the length of the surface bars he had.
Since I knew where I wanted the bottom hole he took a black marker pen and started to mark me up for the piercing, he drew a vertical line to determine if it was in the centre of my chest and then a horizontal line to form a cross hair which would represent where the bottom hole would lie.
A pair of calipers were used to measure the jewelry and then to transfer that measure on to my skin so that we had an exact placement for the top hole, again a cross hair was drawn to represent this placement and as soon as I'd looked in the mirror and agreed that it was all as I wanted it to be, we were ready to pierce.

The back of the seat was adjusted so that I could lay down and make myself comfortable and then Mike sprayed my chest with Dettol to clean the surface area and to prepare it, he took a pair of clamps, carefully aligned them with the cross-hairs marked on my chest and clamped the skin for a minute or two whilst discussing the procedure and migration risks with me.
After the couple of minutes had passed and the blood flow to the piercing area had been reduced he took the needle which had already been removed from it's packaging and lined it up with the ink cross-hairs, a felt the needle break through the skin and carefully Mike manoeuvred it through, slowly bringing it back out of the skin straight through the centre of the top cross-hairs
He then carefully fitted the jewelry and started to thread the balls in place.
Next he sprayed the area once again to make sure that it was clean and stepped back to admire his workmanship. Mike commented that I hadn't so much as flinched during the procedure and asked me what it felt like, but the only way I could describe it was like a deep, slow, dull pain but not an un-bearable or uncomfortable pain.

I sat up and took a look at my new piercing and felt very happy and impressed, I'd achieved my long awaited goal. We had a quick chat about aftercare which I'll mention in a moment and then he asked me to return at a later date to get a few photographs of the piercing, to which I agreed to do paid him the money I owed, £40 and left, ready to begin the healing process.

Healing Diary:
During day 1 there were only slight amounts of blood that were produced by the initial piercing, but the blood soon dried and was removed whilst the piercing was being cleaned, although at the end of day 2 there were some very slight signs of bruising, a yellowish tint was barely visible around the piercing and the skin was becoming ever so slightly tender to touch.
By the time day 5 had arrived the bruising had turned into a prominent shade of yellow, but thankfully the tenderness had since disappeared and as time was passing and day 9 arrived there were some slight secretions of lymph, some minor redness around the entry and exit holes but no pain at all; day 12 however wasn't quite so good, I'd forgotten about the piercing and caught it on my seat belt soon followed by a bad experience with a jacket zipper, so needless to say there was a large amount of blood and lymph as a result of the two rather painful incidents.
Three weeks later and the piercing had made it to day 21 with barely any visible healing tissue and all signs of redness reduced to nothing and as I'm writing this on day 26 I've had no lymph secretions for a few days and no tenderness at all; the piercing looks considerably healed and settled.

Aftercare:
My aftercare routine was simple, no touching, poking, playing or fiddling in any way, shape or form. Cleaning with sea salt soaks twice daily but without moving the jewelry at all for the first week. Allowing the jewelry and piercing to settle with as minimal amount of movement as possible would increase the chances of healing it successfully and decrease the chances of any migration or rejection.

Things to be wary of:
Mind out for low cut tops that will catch the jewelry and give you a very sharp and painful shock.
Be extra careful with your seat belt, if possible try to wear the crossover strap underneath your arm so that it won't cut across your chest and catch on the jewelry.
Drying after a shower - remember that new piece of jewelry; rubbing vigorously with a towel is going to hurt.
Long hair will get tangled around anything and everything when sleeping, including that new piercing.
Cotton wool fibres will try to get caught and wrapped around the jewelry when cleaning the piercing.
People will poke between the balls to try and feel the jewelry beneath the skin, it does hurt and done hard enough will cause more bruising and hinder the healing process.
Zippers and jewelry aren't the best of friends
An uncommon piercing such as this is rarely seen, people will stop, stare, point, pull stupid faces, ask dumb questions and look at you as though you need to be locked up for crimes to your own body.
Cover the jewelry well in cold/freezing weather, the jewelry gets colder than skin and can cause frost bite.