It was March 21st 2006. My 16th birthday was 8 days later and I decided as an early birthday present to myself I would get my nape pierced. I had done all the research about it, talked to a bunch of people who have had it done, and I was so stoked. I went into the shop and talked to him about what I wanted. He was hesitant to pierce a 15 years olds' nape but I guess I talked him into it, I guess that the fact that my mom was there to approve of the whole thing was a plus too hehe.
At A Glance Author NotAChance Contact NotAChance@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist Sam Studio name unknown Location British Columbia There were three different length surface bars and three different sized balls. I chose the medium length bar and the largest balls (they were a little bigger than a popcorn kernel). I was very happy to see his surface bars were not straight ones, but curved, because I have seen very gross pictures on various websites about what straight bars do. After he went over exactly how he was going to do it and a few cleaning procedures we were ready to go.
It took us a while to find a comfortable position in the chair but I finally found one and after he 'washed' my neck off with this brown stuff, he took out his marker and started dotting away at the back of my neck. Finding the perfect position for the piercing actually took about 10 times longer than the piercing itself. After about 5-10 minutes he found a good spot and I sat backward in the chair with my head down. He put on his pretty purple gloves and pinched my skin a few times before deciding on the right place. Then he took his little clamps and put them on. A lot of people told me that the clamp hurts more than the piercing itself, but to be completely honest I didn't feel any of it, not the clamp or the needle. I guess I have a high pain tolerance because after he took out the needle, put it through (at this point my mother left the room) and put on the beads and said 'all done' I asked if he was serious. That was it? After talking to me for a while about more cleaning procedures I went home incredibly excited.
My week old piercing was doing well except for the fact that I felt like the bar was too long for the actual hole itself. One side of the bar would always stick up out of the skin and I would have to push it back in. Another week later it seemed to have fixed itself and it lied perfectly.
It took about 3 months for me to realize something was wrong. A ball of pus was forming on the right side...it wasn't directly on the hole but just beside it, and it wasn't uncomfortable at all so I ignored it. After about a week of babying it (sea salt soaking it twice a day) I had to go back and see my piercer because it wasn't getting any better. He advised me to start taking Vitamin E and come back to see him in two weeks to see if it had improved. It only took one week though for me to realize again, something was very wrong. My mom described it as I was 'feeding' the puss ball. It was getting bigger and more painful every day even though I was taking the proper amount of Vitamin E. I was soaking it once a day and cleaning it with antibacterial soap each morning. The last week of having my piercing was unbearable. Every time something would touch it, it would kill. I started wearing tank tops all the time because the collars of my shirts were bothering it so much. It was kind of silly that I waited so long to take it out but I just refused to let it go. Eventually it got so painful I just wanted it gone and out of my body. At work one day I put bandages on it so it wouldn't be irritated by the high collar of my work uniform but they kept coming off because my neck moved around so much. By the middle of the day I was crying because it hurt so much each time something grazed it even slightly. I ended up leaving work early because I was crying because of the pain. When I got to the shop, my piercer and I were both sad to see it go, because it was almost the perfect piercing. It wasn't rejecting and it hadn't migrated, he said that a little bit of bacteria probably got in there and made it angry. So even though it was almost perfect, just that one painful ball made it unbearable. So he took the surface bar out and I saved it in a little bag because once my nape heals I'm going to try again.