At A Glance
Author	Anonymous
Contact	anonymous
When	N/A
Location	UK

My eyebrow piercing is the piercing that first introduced me to BME and then to IAM. It was my first piercing performed at a professional piercing studio, my first facial piercing and it was my introduction into the modified community that I now frequent.

Since that single piercing back in July '00 I have found my addiction, I've been back to that same studio for more work; labret, butterfly tattoo, arm tattoo, chest piercing and tongue piercing. I've pierced myself; both nipples, Navel, Christina, two vertical hoods, 3 pairs of inner labia piercings not to mention the piercings I messed up.

Soon after getting my labret piercing I felt that things weren't quite right, there was something about my eyebrow piercing that was upsetting me and it had taken me over two years to figure out what the problem was. I didn't like how popular the piercing had become but it was more than that, I disliked feeling uneven. My eyebrow was the only piercing I had that wasn't reflected on the other side of my body making my piercings symmetrical. It was soon after coming to that conclusion that I removed the piercing; some said I looked nicer without it, some said I looked empty and others just knew I'd have to replace it with something else somewhere else sometime soon.

It was in July '02 that I finally removed the piercing, I was dubious about letting it go, this was of course the start of my piercings so it would always remain dear to me, but as time passed I forget about how I looked with it, how I felt when I had it and I even forgot why I had two small scars above and below my right eyebrow.

Weeks and months progressed until the anniversary of my piercing removal came around, 3 years since the piercing, a year since the removal and I really was missing that little silver curved barbell.

One evening in early August '03 I took a standard 1mm/ 18 gauge earring and poked it around the top scar of my eyebrow, I was surprised to see the stem disappearing into the brow, and more surprised when it reappeared through the bottom scar - how could this be possible, I didn't understand it, I'd had no jewellery in the piercing for a year and yet the hole was still open.

I removed the cheap earring from my eyebrow and found out an old piercing stud the sort that they use for gun piercings, the ones that hurt like hell and healed like a pain in the ass. The stud was slightly thicker in gauge than the previous piece of cheap jewellery so I attempted to push that through the hole, sampling just how healed the brow actually was, to my disappointment the stud refused to pass all the way through the brow, so I decided to leave it for another day and give myself some time to think about what I was going to do.

The next evening I tried once again to push the cheap stud through my brow, once again the idea failed so I moved on to my backup plan.

I had in my possession an unused 16 gauge (1.2mm) piercing needle, which I had bought from wildcat some months earlier but never gotten around to using. I removed the needle from it's sterile wrapping, left the receiving tube in place and placed the needle onto a piece of kitchen paper.

I found my old 1.2mm curved barbell that had always been my favourite piece of eyebrow jewellery and boiled it up - if I were to succeed in the re-piercing then this was the jewellery that I'd feel most comfortable wearing.

In my possession I also have a pair of clamps, so after cleaning them up in boiling water I clamped my eyebrow then once again pushed the cheap earring through to make sure I had the holes aligned nicely.

When I was satisfied I picked up the needle and started to push it through my eyebrow, I could feel some pain because I was having to go slowly, keeping the needle straight and in line with the current hole, a couple of minutes later the needle had passed through the hole and I had a small trickle of blood escaping the wound.

I pulled the needle out of the piercing, leaving the receiving tube in place, but I couldn't free the clamps due to the size of the receiving tube, so feeling somewhat agitated and crowded around my face I pulled the tube free, removed the clamps and wiped the blood away from my brow.

After locating the 1.2mm curved barbell I held it against my eyebrow, the swelling was well underway and I was unsure if I should proceed with putting the jewellery in place, but I was determined. After so long of being without I had come this far and I wasn't going to let myself fall at the last hurdle, I carefully started to push the bar through my eyebrow, the threading felt sore against the freshly cut flesh and at times felt as though it was snagging, but after what seemed like a lifetime when in face it was no more than 30 seconds the threading became visible at the exit hole of the piercing. Unbeknown to me at the time, getting the threading through this final little hole was going to be the most painful part of that evenings experience.

The flesh stretched as the threading tugged, as soon as the threading broke free another fresh trickle of blood ran down my eyelid, my fingers were too slippery from the blood to fasten the 3mm bead in place - a tricky job at the best of times but made much worse with a bad mixture of blood and long finger nails.. so using so with the aid of a cotton pad and antiseptic spray I cleared away the blood and tried my best to give my agitated eyebrow a good start towards it's healing process.

It took me a good five minutes to fiddle around and get the bead in place, due to it's size I kept dropping it, I couldn't get the tread aligned properly and when I did the bead would shoot up under one of my finger nails, so in a fit of temper I bit off the offending nails and successfully screwed the bead tightly in place.

The trauma to my eyebrow was visible to all the next day, tinted an angry shade of purple, the barbell looked too small for the swollen brow and there was a steady secretion of lymph but I refused to back down.

Sea salt soaks recommended by the BME Glossary were my saviour, cleaning the area twice daily with a solution of approximately 8oz warm water to a half teaspoon of sea salt. The swelling reduced and the bruising subsided, the jewellery went from looked small and cramped to elegant and snug and I've overcome the uneven feeling.

Please let me also state that any sensible person would have returned to their local piercing studio - but not me. I have always maintained the thought and attitude that self piercing isn't safe, I know as time passes I will continue to pierce myself but there are many factors that lead me to doing my own piercings.

I only hope that people who read this will take the safe option and decide not to pierce themselves, but to go to a professional, reputable studio and have their piercings performed correctly and safely.