I signed up for a BMEzine account this month, and since then I've been browsing as much as my computer can handle. Obviously there are a ton of piercings you can get, but until I got the account I hadn't seen most of them. Seeing as how I'm really interested in piercings, I looked at as many pictures of as many piercings as possible, and came to one conclusion: I need more.
At A Glance Author Nina Contact Nina@bme.anon When It just happened Artist myself Studio my mom's bathroom Location Gurnee, Il I recently had my tongue web pierced after deciding it was real cute and easily hidable (my mother thinks I'm a freak for having one inch lobes, tattoos and piercings before I turned eighteen, dreads, etc.) so I went out and had it done. Well, to say the least, I wasn't satisfied with just that. Another easily hidable (with the proper jewelry) piercing was the scrumper, and wow that was cute as well.
For about three days, I sat around in my room and browsed through every single picture on BME, and found as many as I could on other sites. I noticed that some of them migrated out and I didn't want that to happen, so I made sure to study up as much as I could. I asked the girl at the tattoo shop I'm apprenticing at, and she'd never done one, nor had the owner, Jason. So, we looked up procedures and came to the conclusion that she'd have to freehand it. That made her way too nervous, on top of the fact that Jason didn't even want to sit in on us while it was going on, so she told me she'd do it on Friday (this was on a Monday). Well, Tuesday night rolls around, and all I've been thinking about all day was the scrumper.
I got home from my other job and talked to my mom, trying to hold back the excitement of what was to come. I'm real anxious and very impatient, so I figured hey, I've seen DIY scrumpers online and they turned out pretty good, and deciding that I've had a decent amount of piercing experience, I would do it myself. I realize that sometimes when people do thing themselves, things tend to get messy unless they know what they're doing. I work at a store that sells body jewelry, sterilized needles, clamps, openers, closers, you name it, we sell it. Lots of times younger kids will come in and get someone who's eighteen to buy the needles for them because they want to pierce their tongue or whatever. Personally I find it unsettling when I see someone trying to buy the wrong gauge needle and a three-quarters length, acrylic balled, barbell for their first tongue piercing. I try and tell them that they need a different needle, longer barbell, and surgical steel balls and post for it, but sometimes kids won't listen, and that makes me real nervous. Oh well, their tongue, not mine.
Anyway, ten-thirty rolls around and I had just finished changing out my tongue web jewelry when I decided I was ready. I gathered up all of my supplies and headed for the bathroom, trying not to skip all the way there.
At first I was a little curious about the pain factor, since my friend Trike was telling me how his hurt really bad and I would have a lot of fun getting it pierced. I tried not to thing about it, so I equipped myself with a sterile, sixteen gauge needle, sixteen gauge curved barbell, surgical marker, paper towels, and Listerine, my heart began beating faster and faster. I dried the inside of my upper lip and teeth. Making sure to get a straight shoot through, I marked where the needle would go through and come out with the marker, and then rinsed my mouth with Listerine and dried it one more time.
I grasped the needle firmly in my right hand with the jewelry ready on the counter, pulled up my lip, made sure everything was straight, and BAM, right through! I pulled the needle through with the barbell stuck in the end of it, secured the ball on the end of the barbell and rinsed my mouth out again.
All in all there was actually no pain, probably due to the adrenaline rush I was going through.It was an easy procedure, take away the fact that I was shaking like a leaf trying to put the ball on the end of the barbell when it came time, and the obvious difficulty of maneuvering under my lip while scowling at myself in the mirror.
I just went through with it, not even an hour ago, and there's no pain at all, no discomfort, and I can barely feel it. I can't wait to change the barbell out for a captive or horseshoe so I can show it off to my friends!