At A Glance
Author	Hollie
Contact	Hollie@bme.anon
When	Three months ago
Artist	Glen
Studio	Studio 13
Location	Clarion, PA

About three months ago, me and my boyfriend were at the annual October Festival in Clarion, Pennsylvania when we pasted the tattoo and piercing studio. The name of the studio was "Studio 13", I've been there pervious times to get my daith and eyebrow pierced and a tattoo. My first piercing was my eyebrow when I was 17 and then when I turned 18 I decided to get my daith pierced. My mom told me no more piercing on my face after my eyebrow so I began looking at all the other piercing that were available. While we were looking at the different piercing that were displayed we came crossed the very unusual neck piercing called the "nape". I had seen the piercing before on a guy at this one concert that I went to and thought it was awesome, but I had never seen it on a girl. No one I knew had the piercing or better yet even seen the piercing before, so both me and my boyfriend decide it would be a cool piercing to get since no one else had it.

So we filled out all the paper work and picked out a plastic barbell. The reason for the barbell to be plastic was so it would be easier for the piercing to heal. Plastic is more flexible unlike metal and will also reduce chances of it rejecting. While picking out the barbells I didn't realize that the gauge would have to be a 12. This is what scared me and made me have second thoughts. I knew from experience before when I gauged my ears that a 12 gauge was definitely bigger than a normal 16 that you would normally get pierced with, but I picked out a barbell anyways. We waited a while for the barbells and needles to be sterilized. Meanwhile, I'm slowly getting more nervous and still debating on if I really wanted to go through with the piercing, but my boyfriend kept convicting me to go though with it. When it finally became time for the piercing Glen (the piercing artist) asked which one of us was willing to go first. Of course I wanted my boyfriend to go before me so I could see how bad the pain would be, and I could back out if it look really bad.

After convicting him to go first they began all the steps before the actual piercing. First they marked his neck with a marker and then asked him if it was too high or too low. Once the markings were where he liked them Glen then measured the length in between the two dots to make sure the barbell was going to fit and have enough room for swelling. Then they laid him face down on the bench and placed the clamps on his neck. Before we had gotten the piercing we were told that the clamp was the only thing that would hurt. Wow, they were lying. After the clamps were placed Glen counted to three and told him to take a deep breath. Then he shoved the needle through. My boyfriends face was enough for me not to go though with the piercing, but of course they wouldn't let me chicken out. So I decided what the heck and went through the same process.

I thought that I had a high tolerance for pain, but that piercing hurt. It only hurt for about 4 seconds but it felt like 10 minutes. Afterwards Glen explained to us about the after care and that it would take about 6 months for the piercing to totally heal. The only problem that I had with my piercing after wards was I had a stiff neck for the next few days, and it was a little uncomfortable to lay on at night, but the pain didn't last that long. Other than that I loved my piercing.

About 2 weeks ago I decided to remove my "nape" piercing because I still had a slight bump around the balls of the barbell and decided that I should take it out. It wasn't because of an infection or anything it was just the way that my skin was trying to heal itself around the barbell. My neck is slowly starting to grow shut and has two pink dots for the time being. I continue to put vitamin E on it for the scaring.

>From the time that I had gotten my nape pierced till I decided to take it out, I had gotten a lot of attention from it. People really liked it because they had never seen it around here before, and thought it was cute because I had change the plastic barbell to a metal on eventually after the swelling and everything went down. If you do get your nape pierced after a few months defiantly change your barbell to a bent one. This relieves most of the pressure that a straight barbell would make. I defiantly recommend it to any girl or guy that's not afraid of a little pain and dares to be different.