Hi, I'm Jon. This is the story of my chest surface piercings, it's both a happy and a sad story. A story full of smiles and tears, a story of piercing and rejection. OK, I'm being dramatic. Just sit back, and read. It won't be long, I promise.
At A Glance Author Jon Contact Jon@bme.anon IAM JonBoi When Six months ago Artist Georgina Studio Green Man Location West Hartford, CT First, let me explain that I don't have a very good history with surface piercings. I've had wrist piercings with surface bars, which were taken out and redone and taken out again, and surface piercings in front of my tragii that started to reject after only about two weeks. I was however optimistic that my chest piercings might work out.
I had decided that I want two surface piercings in the shape of a diamond, I wasn't sure where I wanted them, though. I had considered three places: above my navel, the middle of my back, below my tattoo, and the middle of my chest. I ruled out the back, and decided that I didn't want them above my navel, so I was ready to get them on my chest.
I already had the jewelry, 14 gauge steel surface bars (which I had used for my wrist piercings), each with one blue ball and one steel ball (1/4" ball size). I want the blue balls on the top and bottom of the diamond, and the steel balls on the sides.
I went to Green Man in early January with my surface bars in hand, well, in a little jewelry bag, and told Georgina that I was ready to get them done. I paid some money (I don't remember how much), and went upstairs.
Georgina got everything ready, sprayed my jewelry with CaviCide, and we were ready to go. I was wearing a shirt with a zipper, so I just unzipped it, she cleaned off my chest, and she started to mark it. She drew a couple lines, and then the dots, cleaned off the dots and drew new ones, and when she was happy had me look at them in the mirror. The only problem was that I had a freckle almost in the middle of the dots, and it was driving her crazy that it wasn't right in the middle.
She reclined the big blue chair so that I could lay down, and asked me if I was ready. Of course I was. She did the piercings freehand, she lined up the needle, I took a couple deep breaths and then a real deep one, on the exhale, she pierced. It was a really stingy (I don't think that's a word) sensation. She inserted the jewelry - not that bad, and screwed on my blue ball. Cleaned up a little blood, and did the next one. The second piercing was basically the same as the first. Pierce, insert jewelry, screw on ball. I sat up, and they started to bleed. It took a couple minutes for them to stop, but once they did, I couldn't stop admiring them in the mirror. I ran downstairs to show everyone, and left, elated.
Then began my saga of attempting to heal these "wonderful" piercings. They were fine for a little while, I did sea salt soaks twice a day. Then I got put in the hospital, when I got out, I resumed my soaks. The piercings seemed to be doing pretty good, aside from a little redness. After about a month, I started to develop scar tissue around the holes - keloids/hypertrophic scar tissue/whatever you want to call it. It wouldn't go away. I kept up with the soaks for a while, then went to doing them once a day, but my piercings continued to get worse. They then started to get red across the jewelry.
I kept them for six months, before I finally gave up on them. When I took them out, they had balls of scar tissue around the holes and red lines across them. I took them out because I realized they weren't going to get better, and I didn't want to have even more scarring than I already had. I would report on how the scarring is doing, but it's only been a couple weeks since I've removed them.
I don't really know why they rejected/scarred like that, I can only speculate that they might have done better if I had used a different material for the jewelry (something other than steel). Other than that, I really don't know.
I don't really have any advice for anyone who wants piercings like this, they might work out for you, they might now. You just have to try them and see; however, realize that they might reject and scar.
I do plan on getting more surface piercings, I will probably try other jewelry materials, especially titanium surface bars, and hopefully will have better luck with them in the future.