At A Glance
Author	kyo
Contact	kyo@bme.anon
IAM	kyo
When	Three months ago

I had this preconceived idea that a navel piercing doesn''t really suite guys. But when I saw Efix's navel, I thought it was awesome! It was then that I chose to get a navel piercing, and to stretch it.

Do not try this at home. I did this because I think I can handle most problems that may occur, and I also plan on doing piercings professionally. Please read this for the information, and don't replicate it at home.

I had tried to DIY my navel in my early trials, yet I had never succeeded. Maybe because I wasn't convinced that I'd like it or what it would look like on me. I had never really had given any real thought to it. I finally took an hour and did the minimal research I had to do, reading experiences about DIY, scalpeling, and so on.

I looked into my tools and only found some 10a needles. It was bigger than I expected, but yet I wanted to go big fast (like I always do). I looked into my jewelry box, and found a 10ga plug. I was wondering if it would bother the piercing since it was straight, yet I found out that it was better since it was small, and didn't catch on anything.

I proceeded into cleaning my work area, staring at the 10ga needle. It was the biggest needle I''d ever shoved through myself. I was afraid to open the package, knowing that I''d have to use it. So I looked on BME and saw again Efix's 28mm navel. If he could do it, I could certainly get a 10ga needle through mine!

I took the needle, and my receiving tube, lined them up, and started to push. The pain on the lower part of the piercing was terrible, it was annoying like hell. I think the pain came from the skin squeezing between the needle and the receiving tube. I dropped the receiving tube, and used my fingers to hold the skin in place. I barely felt the needle. Slowly it was moving, yet the 10ga bevel was HUGE! I started to feel sick, my stomach was getting upset, and yet I was not giving up. I pushed with all I could, and after 5 minutes the needle was finally showing on the exit side of the piercing. I took the receiving tube again (a big mistake I've had to pay for later on) and used it again to keep the skin from slipping away. I couldn't get it to budge, then I took a deep breath, and pushed with all my might. There was no pain, but I felt like I had ripped my guts open.

It took me a good 5 minutes to recover and stop shaking. I took my plug and ran it behind the needle, put the O-ring on and it was over. I put gauze over it, since I felt like blood would follow soon. I went to bed and couldn't find a comfy position to sleep (I'm a belly sleeper and I just can't sleep at all on my back). I finally closed my eyes after an hour or 2.

The next morning I could see a lot of bruising around the exit hole, probably related to the misuse of the receiving tube. I soaked the piercing and left for work. At noon I noticed I had this odd swelling, but I didn''t give any more attention. It took days before I really start to worry about the swelling and hard crusties. I pulled on the crusties, and some pus started to ooze out of the piercing.

I was worried since I never had to deal with infections before. I looked into the information my previous piercer had given me and he recommended some tea tree oil. I switched the jewelry to a CBR since I was worried the O-rings would not allow the fluids to get out of the piercing. I got some tea tree oil and used it twice a day, over the 3 sea salt soaks. Within 4 days no more pus was oozing out of the piercing and after 10 days (from the initial piercing) I had no more crusties. The infection made the piercing migrate outward. I wasn''t sure if I had enough skin to do the stretching I intended to do, so I took it out after 3 weeks.

A few weeks later I retried to get my navel right. This time I only had 14ga needles. To avoid my receiving tube, I took my Pennington, and set them up. I started to pierce, I wasn''t really paying attention and got the whole thing crooked, I noticed as soon as the needle started to come out. So I backed up a little, and tried to straighten it up, yet it was too late. I ended the piercing straight but by the next morning some dry blood was out from where the needle had come out. And a few days later when it fell off, the piercing was more shallow than the first time.

I'm writing this about 2 months after I retired the last attempt to get my navel right, and it's currently still purple. This mean I need to wait a little longer, so the blood vessel and such things get back in place and allow me to have a good deep navel piercing so that I can stretch it later on.