It was a morning like a lot of others. I was preparing for my first college of the year that was due the next week, and my mind wandered. I'd been thinking about a madison piercing for a while already. Since I did not want to spend the entire day musing over the social aspects of medieval plays, I rang 'my' piercing shop to see if there would be someone available that afternoon. Affirmative! I took the next train to Amsterdam, and from there to Alkmaar.
At A Glance Author Krynn Contact Krynn@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Suzn Studio Body Sign Location Alkmaar, the Netherlands When I got off the train I got nervous. Very nervous. I even considered just turning back. I mean, a needle through my throat? What had I been thinking?? I did some shopping. That took my mind off things a bit. I told myself I was being silly. All those people on BME didn't get their air pipes pierced as a bonus either, did they? Of course not. So I found myself in the shop a short while later.
The girl that was to pierce me was Suzn. She skipped the whole aftercare instructions part after I showed her my perfectly healed wrist surfaces, but she did warn me about the rejection risks of a madison. When I told her I wanted it vertically, with a surface bar, she repeated that warning even more strongly. Everyday movement in and of the area would make it really hard to heal this. I didn't really know much about rejection percentages for this piercing, but I didn't really care, either. If the piercing would hold, it would look gorgeous. Oh and hadn't I healed 2 piercings already that a lot of people had warned me about would reject? If the semi-impossible would happen, if this one would reject, I was planning on taking it out at the last possible moment so I'd have a nice straight lined scar where it had been. I'd be in a win-win situation. I liked the warnings though. They reaffirmed what I already knew about this shop: they're not in it for the money. I signed the waiver, my drivers' license was copied, and the fun part began.
The entry- and exit points were marked while I was standing. Next I was made to lie down. The nerves got back full swing at that point. I guess those nerves will make me say silly things every time I get pierced. Ah well. I barely noticed the clamp being applied. The needle going in was a different story, though. It hurt like hell. Stinging, radiating pain that would not go away even when the needle was through all the way. Lying still was an effort that seemed to last a long time. Oddly enough, the jewelry going through didn't add to the pain. It definitely hurt more then I had expected, and it bled a lot to boot, but when that had been cleaned away and I had had some water to drink, I could admire my new piercing.
To call it beautiful would be the understatement of the year.
As I walked to the counter to pay for it, the bleeding started again. Suzn cleaned it again, and said that, given the high-motion area, this was to be expected. She gave me some gauze in case it would start to bleed again on my way home. I paid, left the shop, turned a corner, and needed the gauze already. I considered sitting out the bleeding in the shop, but decided against it. They couldn't really do much about it, could they? I ignored the stares people in a busy shopping centre will typically give a passer-by holding bloody gauze to her chest, and headed for the railway station. It's a fifteen minutes' walk, and by the time I got there, such nice crusties had formed around the holes that, no matter how I turned my head, no more blood would come out. That was kind of a relief, because I'd gotten fairly light-headed. Not having eaten anything since breakfast surely had something to do with that too, though. Bloody nerves. I made it home without further problems, and despite the unexpected bleeding I was very excited. My father, however, was not. Before I knew it, we were yelling out our old argument on piercings again. Now guess what that yelling did to the piercing? Exactly.
Next, I went online. I wasn't really worried about the bleeding, given what Suzn had said and how well veined a neck must be, but I wanted some reassurance anyways. What caught my eye during that search was one of those little things you always read past because you don't think they apply to you. Alcohol. You're not supposed to have any of that in the 24 hours prior to piercing because it thins your blood. Man, did I feel stupid then. Since they had not left me with even the slightest next-morning fuzziness, I had all forgotten about the beers I'd shared with a friend the night before. I guess I will never forget that again.
The piercing procedure itself wasn't what I thought it would be, and healing did not go as expected, either. The piercing did not bleed again, but when I woke up the next morning there was an egg-shaped bruise about 2 inches in diameter surrounding the area. I was supposed to wash it and move the bar, but it hurt too much, so I gently rubbed off the crusts, and left it alone. On day 3, the bruise was gone to a point I could move the jewelry around and wash it with non-perfumed soap, so that's what I did. My little missy did not like that much, though. She went all red n angry around the edges, so after a day or two of trying I just left her to herself again. On day 10, the big itching began. It lasted 3 days, and got so bad that I wanted to rip out the whole thing at times. Itching usually means healing though, so I was happy.
I was not happy with the pinkish-to-red edges around the holes. They would pop up during the course of a day, especially on the warm and sweaty ones. Sometimes the red ring around the bottom hole would expand itself past what has become the regular 2 mm radius, and on one or two occasions, it even started to throb. Some days, the red edges would be gone after a shower. Some days, they would not. No puss ever came out, so I haven't done much about it as of yet. I'm downright lazy, and I've have healed a wrist surface without any of this trouble by applying exactly the same aftercare (barely any), so why would I bother? But I've come to realize this madison is different from a wrist surface in one important way.
When I keep my head straight, it rests in my skin just fine. When I bow my head, however, the bar will come out as far as the 90 degrees angle turning point. I don't think that means I was pierced wrongly, because when I look up to the sky, the pressure on my skin is just bearable. I do think the stuff that comes into the wound with the movement is causing a permanent almost-infection. At the point I have the piercing, my body never has a chance of closing up both of the holes for the day, something the wrists could do. It's been 23 days now, I have had this irritation at least half the days, and it hasn't left for the past 4 at all. I guess I will have to come off my lazy butt and start doing regular salt soaks n stuff, because with autumn (and the need to cover my throat) coming, this can only get worse. The good news is that the jewelry hasn't come up. In fact, it has nestled itself ever so slightly deeper, so I'm pretty confident things will be all right in the end. I just have to work for it this time :)