I wish to write about my wrist surface piercing experience.
At A Glance Author quarkstar Contact quarkstar@bme.anon When A month ago Artist carl Studio bodz Location liverpool Before I begin, I would like to give you some personal background information on myself. I am not a teeny-bopper, but a 38-year old mother who is doing a degree in astro-physics, I have a six-year old daughter, and would class myself as "normal", in every respect.
My modifications include several tattoos, nostril piercing, multi-pierced ears, 0gauge earlobes, a labret, a Marilyn (Monroe, not Manson), nipples, deep urethral piercing, navel, and a newly pierced tongue.
I am not some crazy anarchist, nor am I seeking to rekindle my youth by doing "young people things".
I have been collecting my modifications and tattoos for about 30 years, the first ones done were when I was eight years old,ear piercing,and although she permitted this, it was done much to her chagrin, her opinion being that piercing ears was 'barbaric', and 'if one was meant to have holes in ones ears, one would have been born with them already present'. My mother was Oxford educated, and fairly eccentric, in a pedagogic kind of way.
Anyway, back to the subject in hand. I was perusing your exceptional site when I came across something which really floated my boat, and it was my Eureka moment; a surface piercing placed on the wrist. I thought it aesthetically pleasing, and toyed with the idea of having small gem-stones placed there, once healing had ensued.
I telephoned the best piercer in Liverpool, Carl at Bodz, and was jubilant when he said that they did surface piercing. Now, the day I telephoned the date just happened to be Friday 13th, and due to the inauspicious connotations of this date, he actually had no bookings that day, so I was able to go that very afternoon and have the work done.
I asked would it be okay if I brought my angel-faced daughter with me and he said it was not a problem, they knew the score, as they had children of their own.
So off I went, not at all nervous or fazed by anticipation. The studio itself is in a large, swanky department store, and is beautiful, state-of-the-art and wonderfully modern. The piercing room itself is superlative in its cleanliness and attention to hygiene and detail. He has installed an air-filtration system, which removed harmful pathogens from the air, so the room is completely sterile.
He has also created a lovely ambiance, so that you are being pierced in a very pleasant atmosphere, making the whole experience pleasurable.
He actually allowed my daughter into the piercing room, so she could stay with me and watch, which she found fascinating. She's certainly not squeamish anyway.
Carl explained thoroughly the whole procedure, the high chance of rejection, and could not stress enough the importance of NOT KNOCKING OR BANGING THE PIERCING. This was absolutely paramount to the success of the piercing, as even the slightest knock on one of these wrist piercing would trigger rejection.
He pierced me using a breathing technique which entailed me inhaling deeply, and exhale with gusto, akin to blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, and on this deep exhale he pierced. It truthfully did not hurt, yes, I felt a sensation, but it most definitely was not pain. By the way, you wont find any anaesthetics here, they are not needed, and do more harm than good. A good piercer does not need anaesthesia to gloss over his errors. Carl applied a Tegaderm occlusive dressing, (a clear waterproof dressing), and the aftercare was minimal: LEAVE THE HELL ALONE. Your body provides all the ingredients to heal a wound, just think about what happens if you accidentally cut or burn yourself, your body will heal wont it? Enough said. Also the additional caveat of being very careful with it, and babying it to the maximum.
All was going swimmingly, and after about 2 weeks, Carl said it looked fine, so leave off the Tegaderm dressing. Well. Sods Law was about to intervene. The very day I took off the dressing, I hit my arm about 4 times in the matter of a couple of hours. The first one was when I knocked my wrist bar on the shelf in the fridge, reaching for some food. Then I knocked it again removing laundry from the washing machine, then again retrieving crockery from the dishwasher, then again on the door of one of my cupboards. I could not believe my bad luck. Each time I knocked/caught my wrist bar it was excruciatingly painful, and resulted in me getting an infection in it.
I was very pleased with myself, as I self-medicated the infection with sea salt soaks (try saying that quickly after a couple of glasses of Zinfandel), and extruded the pus and nastiness which came out. But lady luck was not looking down on me. I noticed that the distance between the two balls was receding.
I remained in a state of denial for a couple of days, then resigned myself to the inevitable. I went to see Carl, ostensibly for my tongue piercing, but as soon as he saw my wrist he said it was rejecting, and that it was best removed.
He was very upset that it had rejected, but we both agreed that it proved an impractical piercing really. My lifestyle and a wrist bar are incompatible bedfellows, if I was able to lead a leisurely life, and be in the position to be able to rest my arm, and not allow too much movement of the piercing, well it probably would have succeeded.
All is not lost however, once the scar has settled down, we may have another try at a wrist bar, but for now I have the actual bar as a souvenir of my rather attractive and interesting, but impractical, foray into surface piercing. By the way, if any of you are ever in Liverpool, I cannot recommend Bodz highly enough. Carl and Shirley are both really decent human beings, as well as being excellent artists, because that's what they are-artists, not just body piercers.