At A Glance
Author	Gregg
Contact	Gregg@bme.anon
IAM	Solaris
When	Two years ago

Where to start... By this point in my life I had gone through a multitude of piercings and other body modifications, so the idea of having my hand pierced seemed like something new and different. A piercing to push forward boundaries, rather than walking back over a well trodden path. Or so I imagined at the time. Obviously I know now that it is not so unusual and many piercers and pierced peoples have tried this at sometime or another.

I originally went to my friend with the idea and asked him if he would do it for me, he said he would, based on the fact he had performed it not only on himself but also on his sister. This made me feel better; I relaxed as I can get very anxious before a piercing. Though by this point I had undergone 10 hours of experimental Flesh Removal and had been pierced over thirty times, I am still a big enough man to admit that I severely dislike needles and the sight of my own blood. It was around this point of mild relaxation and minor adrenaline rush that my friend told me that his sister had fainted and cracked her head on the floor on her way down. At this point I would like to advise sitting down during any piercing, standing can give you concussion! Anyway I digress, I was bricking it now, his sister wasn't even scared or anxious by needles and was generally pretty butch and scary (made me feel unmanly). Alas I rose to the challenge anyway and proceeded to go and scrub my hands thoroughly with anti-bacterial handwash.

At this point in my dialogue I would like to remind everyone reading this that I do not condone or advise piercing yourselves or being pierced by someone who is not a reputable and seemingly experienced body modification specialist. Though I have never followed my own advice, as I trust my friend implicitly and we learnt how to pierce on one another.

Back to the story! Ok so I sat down and he gloved up and sterilized the area and got a pair of forceps similar to those in the Bmeshop http://www.bmeshop.com/ProductCart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=8&idproduct=1468 with a slotted end to allow the forceps to be removed from the area with ease. Gavin (my friend, sorry for him not being introduced earlier) then got a Canular needle out of its sealed packet and poised it ready on the upper part of my hand webbing.

The actual sensation is nothing in particular, a mere scratching as I found. This as I know is not always the case but luckily for me, it was. The jewelry we chose was a small 1.6mm ring, I cannot remember its diameter now but I remember it being smaller than 6mm. I went home and cleaned the area with simple salt and water and went to bed without any feeling of discomfort.

Around a week later it was settling in nicely. I'd taken it easy on my hand and was enjoying the funny reactions that old ladies behind the cigarette counters in my local Tesco were giving me when I handed over the money with a nice ring poised between my thumb and first finger. All in all I was quite pleased with the result. Not much pain, easy to clean although I did so often as I was working on the assumption that more dirt would accumulate on my hands then anywhere else. I had also heard many stories by now of others who had had the piercing done and it had rejected because of the strain caused by placing hands in pockets or getting caught on things. This is obviously a sensible assumption in hindsight but it never truly occurred to me at the time. It was around this time that I caught it properly for the first time, the agony is really something to behold, the dried blood and lymph that any fresh piercing exudes was spun inside the hole and caused me extreme discomfort, all because I had shaken hands with someone a bit too vigorously. From then on I seemed to catch it or knock it all the time.


After three weeks my hand webbing had dried out considerably, the skin became cracked and sore. I couldn't quite fathom why but added moisturizer religiously, which seemed to help a lot. I made sure to avoid the piercing itself as it was still weeping when it got caught and I didn't wish to stop any of this from escaping as this could cause me problems later.

The final injury came as I left college for the day and unslung my rucksack to get out a cig before getting the train home. I grasped it at the bottom between thumb and forefinger and the strap slipped through my grasp, a normal thing to do but I had forgotten about my piercing and it spun the ring around which caused me such pain and slipped the ball from the bcr (cbr if you are American). I was in agony, the end of the ring had stabbed through inside somewhere and I prised it out tenderly and decided the best choice was to keep it out altogether.

The healing from this point on was quick and painless. The hole healed over swiftly, my skin recovered well so I no longer had to take moisturizer around with me, much to my relief. All in all I was glad of the piercing, it was great, it just wasn't practical and sometimes you have to put practicality over aestheticics. A shame but that's the price you pay for beauty.