I left off this, http://www.bmezine.com/pierce/10-female/other/A40716/othchris.html, experience saying I would baby this piercing until it healed. This is the follow up of the events that took place from then till now.
At A Glance Author meow Contact meow@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist my boyfriend Studio his house Location b.c Upon arriving home from work two weeks later about to get into a nice warm shower,I noticed that I was having a little bit of a problem, the top ball was starting to sink into my skin. It looked as if the bead was only half the size, It was red around the hole and after washing my hands and giving my piercing a nice long soak I gently pushed the barbell up from the bottom but noticed no swelling. So, I knew the underwear or jeans I was wearing must have caused the problem to arise and I would have to avoid this in the future. Another problem I was having was that my pubic hair was starting to grow back, it wasn't particularly irritating to my piercing but it was irritating to me so I decided to leave the piercing for a few days to settle down and then attempt my first shave.
I woke up a few days later frustrated with the itchy hair I was accumulating and decided to give shaving a try, my piercing had calmed down considerably and only had a little bit of redness around the top hole, the bottom hole looked perfectly healthy. I jumped in the shower and quickly washed the rest of my body first. I decided that I would shave minus the shaving cream because I was afraid the shaving cream would irritate the piercing. But I picked up a product called Vagisil, a feminine hygiene wash so I wouldn't end up with razor burn and it is also hypoallergenic, so it seemed a better alternative to using soap which my body is very sensitive too. I lathered it on and began shaving gently and carefully, I tried to keep the soap away from my piercing and also made sure to wash the hair away from the area. I left what I like to call a landing strip down the center so I wouldn't have to worry about getting too close. Needless to say it was a very crooked landing strip. But who was really going to care.
Unfortuantely after getting out of the shower and drying the area I noticed the entire area was a little bit raised and bumpy and my piercing was secreteing quite a bit, it was also red and irritated. Hypoallergenic huh?! Yeah right! It got fairly itchy and was annoying for at least 2 days until I got a bladder infection! I found it horribly annoying to deal with both a healing and irritated piercing and a painful bladder infection. I went to the doctor and got some pills and stuck to my cranberry juice and after a few days it as dissipated well as the rash that cleared up very fast as the doctor said it would. Though this left my piercing quite irritated.
For the next few days I kept up on my sea salt soaks and babied it as much as possible, remembering not to wear anything with a seam down the middle and kept baggier underwear on. Eventually after about a week my piercing was beginning to go back to normal and looking good again. I was pleased and continued to treat it well until I noticed yet another problem. The landing strip I had shaved was starting to grow and to my horror a couple of hairs were growing straight down into the piercing hole. I moved the barbell up a little bit and tried to pull the hair to the side but nothing was working so as much as I was dreading doing it, out came the tweezers!
I got comfy on my bed and pushed the barbell to the side and quickly pulled the three hairs out. It was pretty uncomfortable but not too bad and my piercing bled a little bit, probably from me being a little too inexperienced with tweezing. It was pretty uncomfortable that night but I slept without underwear on and tried to avoid snagging it. I got up in the morning and didn't experience discomfort so I carefully put on a pair of jeans and headed to work.
On the car ride to work I was feeling a little bit uncomfortable. I adjusted my pants so the seam wasn't laying on my piercing but it wasn't helping. So when I arrived at work I quickly went back to my station (I am a body piercer, how convenient!) and checked out my piercing. I could barely see the bead at this point at all! There was a tiny bit of metal poking through my skin and I started to get annoyed. I grabbed a new 5mm acrylic bead and set it on a dental bib then I up-wrapped a brand new 10 gauge needle put on a new pair of gloves and tried to push my bead out to no success so I cautiously but precisely made an incision along the side of the bead with the edge of the 10 gauge needle and pushed the bead out of my skin, it barely bled at all and I gently cleaned up the blood with a bit of saline solution on a Q-tip then I unscrewed the 4mm metal bead and put on the 5mm acrylic one. Although the bead was big and and was prone to getting bumped a little more it allowed the skin underneath to properly heal back to normal and my piercing was again healthy.
It's been about a month and since then I have changed back to the 4mm bead. I have also had the area waxed and had my esthetician quickly plucked around the bead to prevent the hair from growing into the piercing hole again. I have to say she does a much better job then I did and there was no blood and no irritation caused to the piercing. It's looking very healthy finally, and as far as aftercare, for now I am leaving it alone most of the time and doing two sea salt soaks a day. I make sure to wear my comfy baggy underwear no matter how unattractive I feel in them, and I wear my jeans a bit baggier to avoid the seam. I find that if I am always conscious of the piercing I can work around it and make sure that when I sit and move there isn't anything creating pressure or rubbing on it. And so far, I think I found the most productive aftercare for myself and this particular piercing. Let's hope the next couple months are uneventful and my piercing finally heals!