At A Glance
Author	aj
Contact	adamjamieson@hotmail.com
When	It just happened
Artist	myself
Studio	my house
Location	canada

Okay so here's my story:

I originally had my nipple pierced in the summer and it was in for about 3 months. The original experience was good. It was done at Fat Cat Tattoo studio in Aurora, Ontario. (Canada for those of you who don't know) The shop was pretty new but they were really clean and friendly so i decided to give it a try. My piercer (sorry I don't remember his name) was awesome and really professional. He opened everything new in front of me and washed his hands and changed his gloves a lot. He cleaned the spot then marked it, checked with me, cleaned it again then told me he was going to put on the clamp. He told me this was what most people said was the worst part so when I could barely feel it at all I was quite happy about how things seemed to be going. I don't know whether he told me that to calm me down or just cause he thought it would be funny but it was a blatant lie. The piercing hurt quite a bit more than the clamp and he pushed it through nice and slow. I figure that made sure it was accurate and that was good.

I immediately went to Shoppers for some extra strength advil. It wasn't really my nipple that was sore so much as my entire left side of my chest. But anyways I only ended up needing to take the advil once. When I woke up te next day I felt nothing. It was a little tender for about 2 days but after that nothing. Everything turned out PERFECT and although it hurt a lot when i caught it on my seatbelt and it bled a lot too, it was healed enough for me to change the jewelry myself within about 2 weeks (whether that was a good idea or not I don't know but I did it a lot anyways).

So anyways the piercing was in for about a little less than 3 months when i took it out in a drunken stupor one night and lost track of the barbell. I'm still confused about exactly why i took it out but that's beside the point. Being broke and unable to afford another ring and not having the original ring with me the piercing healed over within 2 days. I left it alone and let it continue to heal for just over a month.....until tonight. I don't know why I left it that long. I regret it because I know now i'm going to have to go through the full amount of pain again since it is completely healed.

Truthfully I have tried to re-pierce it myself before with the blunt CBR but that was too hard and painful. So tonight in a blaze of stupidity I boiled a straightened out paper clip (paper clip....that's how you know this is a dumb idea. I didn't even have the common sense to use a needle that might be...oh I don't know...sharp?) to sterilize it and went to the job of re-piercing my nipple.

I will be very honest when I say I know how stupid this is but i honestly don't seem to care. I can't afford to have it pierced professionally and i want it back again so I did it.

So i lined up the paper clip and pushed it through really slowly just like it was done when i first got it. It hurt. A lot. But I kept pushing. Finally i got the paper clip through to the other side and i was done!!

Or so i thought.....now i had the task of stretching the hole to fit the 14 g ring I have (much bigger than the paper clip). So this was more difficult because the ring was curved (obviously) and the piercing is fairly deep and this part was even more painful. The worst part was that the ring wouldn't come out the exit hole. I had to push really hard and finally it popped out. What a relief!

Now that it is over I am looking back (about 20 minutes back) and thinking that I really like the idea of piercing myself and plans are already in the works to continue with the self piercing. However I do think I will try and wait until I can afford some proper hollow needles, clamps, and more jewelry.

This is by far one of the stupidest things I have ever done but I am relieved and happy that it is over and I once again am pierced. I will continue to be happy probably until my nipple get's infected and falls off. (knock on wood)

Oh well.....wish me luck and I wish all the best to anyone else brave enough to self pierce. It's really not as bad as you'd think and it's very gratifying to be able to tell people you pierced yourself if for nothing other than the pure shock value. Thanks for listening to my story and I hope someone somewhere learns something from it.

-aj