I have a habit of getting too many impulse piercings, but this was probably one of the few piercings I actually though about beforehand, looked through BMEzine and one I saw this, I was dead-set on it, I wouldn't have it any other way (stubborn). Reading some experiences, I tried to hunt down a recommended place in Melbourne -- And I honestly couldn't be bothered traveling into the City, and then BOOM. Found out an acquaintance of mine had one, and she recommended a place for me -- Since it was pretty close by I decided to check it out.
At A Glance Author Koneko Contact Koneko@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist Can't remember his name. Studio Essential Beauty Location Southland Shopping Centre, Melbourne, Victoria. The place seemed pretty clean and decent to me, and I had looked over the other somewhat "uncommon" piercings they had done, I was satisfied with the circumstances and decided this was the place. I Went to ask about it and the piercer talked me through quite a bit to make sure I was aware of what was going to happen, even though I was incredibly nervous, I was still dead-set on my answer to all his questions as to if I was sure. I figured I would be happy to have it as long as it lasted. (Which turned out to be quite true)
Marking out the placement he asked me if that looked decent enough, I said yes and it was all for the go. His advice was "DON'T LOOK!" I couldn't help it, I just had to watch. I braced myself for the pain, but surprisingly it wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. At first it was just an amount of pressure, and then a pinching feeling. It was unusual though to feel the needle crawling through my flesh, I could feel every movement of it, so far so good... Except the exit of the needle was unexpected to me and hurt a little bit, still wasn't as bad. As he threaded the surface bar though, I couldn't help but cringe a bit because of the way the bar was shaped, but afterwards when it was all over, I was all smiles and couldn't help but beam at my reflection. It looked AMAZING.
It wasn't that sore for the first day, but waking up the next day it was so sore I could barely stand straight without wincing, it began getting really dry around the edges and quite sore with certain movements, like getting into a car, let alone just walking. --which was a little surprising because I consider myself to have a somewhat high pain tolerance-- a couple of weeks later the soreness was subduing but it seemed as though infection was setting in as pus began seeping from the edges and the sides of the entrance wounds became redder and a little inflamed. I figured it was nothing much to worry about, because some of my other piercings had gotten infected before and healed alright afterwards.
Surprisingly, although I normally slack off with aftercare, I was determined to stick with it, I also took the time out to wear looser clothes, and tried to stop myself from accidentally knocking it.
(There were a number of occasions where I'd accidentally whacked the side of the bar, and the unexpected pain just shot through my flesh and I had to curl up in a ball and curse, that wasn't very pleasant, ha -- half the time it was while I was sleeping.)
Nevertheless, I still got a great number of compliments as well as comments like "oh wow! that's so hot! I've never seen anything like that before"
After about a month and a half though, I noticed that the surface bar was slowly moving outwards as the sides of the bars which were closer to inside the flesh, in that makes sense, began to protrude more and more. Eventually the slightly red entrance wounds spread to the center and it continued to grow out. It continued to grow out where it got to the point it did not look so great at all -- Decided to go back to have the piercer check up on it, he suggested that they put in a flexible plastic bar to help it moved with my body more, unfortunately within the next few days the bar grew out so much that I could see the actual bar through my skin -- the skin was transparent over one side of it, and one day it just broke through the skin and hung off from the other side. Tad graphic huh?
I had to say goodbye to my beloved bar, now about 3 months later, I have a pretty nasty looking scar sitting beneath my navel -- and I still miss it terribly. I don't regret getting it pierced, but I do feel disappointed that it rejected, although it was short-lived, I'll never forget having it.