Hating the waiting
Aug. 5th, 2023 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
christopher575I had to give up on my right nipple piercing recently. To catch you up, I pierced them both in college and stretched them up to 4ga, which if you're not familiar is the same as .204 inches or 5.189 millimeters. If you're not into body piercing, you might wonder why one would ever stretch a piercing or prefer larger jewelry that can also be heavier. Sounds painful, right?
The opposite is true.
Yes, the process of stretching is painful, but thicker jewelry hurts less to wear. The reason is due to physics. A larger object can't put as much pressure on something as a small object can with the same amount of force. Picture a cheese slicer that has a wire gliding effortlessly through a block of cheddar, then try doing the same thing with the long side of a pencil. So if you have a thin ring through your nipple, there's a greater chance it'll hurt you if it's bumped or pulled than if you had a thick one.
I took out all my piercings at the end of college in 1997 and mostly quit wearing jewelry other than the occasional earrings. Ten years later I was back from a trip to India and wanted to get my third tattoo ever three years after my first, but had to wait a bit for the artist to draw it up. The desire to do some kind of body modification that day was strong, so I walked over to a piercing shop and got my nipples done again. That time we used 8ga needles and immediately stretched them up to 6ga, so I'd only have one more stretch to get back to my original size.
That was always the goal because I have amazing custom-made 4ga titanium rings. I built a website for a piercing shop back in Albuquerque way back in 1993 or so, and got paid with those rings made by the shop owner's brother. It's interesting to realize that was definitely one of the first piercing shop websites, if not the first! I almost ended up working at that shop, but by the time they got around to offering me a position, I secured an incredible job in the computer labs on campus. No way I was going to quit that.
Probably sometime in 2008 I stretched those nipple piercings up to 4ga and got those fantastic rings back in. Unfortunately it wasn't long before the right one started migrating. If you're not familiar with that process, your body can reject foreign objects, and it does so with piercings by healing on one side and keeping the other side raw, and the healing side slowly pushes the jewelry through the unhealed side. If you don't remove the jewelry before it comes all the way out, you can end up with a scar or even a notch. My left tragus piercing grew all the way out in the early '90s and left a notch that remains to this day. I had it turned into a fish mouth last year.
I've had my left nipple at 4ga ever since 2008 and didn't have my right nipple pierced at all until maybe five years or so ago. I don't remember the original gauge, but I got it up to 4ga again, and shortly after it started going crooked again. Out it came until a couple of years ago, when I tried again, and it migrated again. I pierced it again about 11 months ago, and had to give it up a few weeks ago when it was dangerously close to coming all the way out on its own. It had shifted and I was going to try to stretch it to 4ga anyway and see how it looked, but it kept going so it had to go.
That's four attempts, so I'm not sure I'll ever try again. I'm wearing one of those custom rings in the other nipple for now. It's large and would look so much better with its mate on the other one, but the other one's just not cooperating.
That's a lot of information about a piercing that's not the actual reason I posted, but that one hasn't even happened yet. Here's where the TMI starts. You were warned twice.
Another piercing I got in the early '90s was a guiche, which is through the perineum. If you're not familiar with that term, you may have heard it called "taint" at some point. It's the area between the anus and the genitals on everyone, but it's much bigger and much more commonly pierced on men. The placement could have been better on that original piercing, and it definitely migrated a lot. Unlike my old nipple piercings, I kept it in its crooked state for a while and it healed very well; it's still there today! I tried wearing jewelry in it a few months back but it's just too close to the surface and I couldn't make it comfortable with any size or shape of jewelry.
Not long after that, I had to take that right nipple piercing out, and that made me want to try again with a guiche. I went to my current piercer Ben a few weeks ago for a consultation, and he agrees with me that the original piercing was a little too far back. It'll come as no surprise that I want it to be as thick as possible, and Ben said he can use a 6ga needle and immediately stretch to 4ga. He believes that's better for healing anyway, thanks to the jewelry having a snugger fit.
You might wonder if we could just use the other nipple ring, and sure, that's possible. However, I remember vividly with that original piercing that the ring flipping around would hurt a lot. We'll use a curved barbell, and I asked him to order one with very large balls on either end because more than any other piercing, a guiche can get a lot of pressure put on it and the last thing you want is for the bead to get forced inside the piercing. Bad news.
So now I'm just waiting for the jewelry we ordered to arrive. I'd really like it to happen as soon as possible because I have a hiking trip planned September 22. I'd really like to have a least a month of healing happen before that, otherwise I might just wait until after. I'm also holding off on getting my next tattoo or two until then, since you need to stay out of swimming pools for a while with fresh piercings even longer than with fresh tattoos. Ben wants me to wait six weeks. So really, it'd be great if that jewelry would arrive like right now.
And since I'm talking about piercings, I switched out two of the three pieces in my right ear this week. I generally take selfies in mirror mode which is why it looks like a left ear and the photo above looks like the right.
The opposite is true.
Yes, the process of stretching is painful, but thicker jewelry hurts less to wear. The reason is due to physics. A larger object can't put as much pressure on something as a small object can with the same amount of force. Picture a cheese slicer that has a wire gliding effortlessly through a block of cheddar, then try doing the same thing with the long side of a pencil. So if you have a thin ring through your nipple, there's a greater chance it'll hurt you if it's bumped or pulled than if you had a thick one.
I took out all my piercings at the end of college in 1997 and mostly quit wearing jewelry other than the occasional earrings. Ten years later I was back from a trip to India and wanted to get my third tattoo ever three years after my first, but had to wait a bit for the artist to draw it up. The desire to do some kind of body modification that day was strong, so I walked over to a piercing shop and got my nipples done again. That time we used 8ga needles and immediately stretched them up to 6ga, so I'd only have one more stretch to get back to my original size.
That was always the goal because I have amazing custom-made 4ga titanium rings. I built a website for a piercing shop back in Albuquerque way back in 1993 or so, and got paid with those rings made by the shop owner's brother. It's interesting to realize that was definitely one of the first piercing shop websites, if not the first! I almost ended up working at that shop, but by the time they got around to offering me a position, I secured an incredible job in the computer labs on campus. No way I was going to quit that.
Probably sometime in 2008 I stretched those nipple piercings up to 4ga and got those fantastic rings back in. Unfortunately it wasn't long before the right one started migrating. If you're not familiar with that process, your body can reject foreign objects, and it does so with piercings by healing on one side and keeping the other side raw, and the healing side slowly pushes the jewelry through the unhealed side. If you don't remove the jewelry before it comes all the way out, you can end up with a scar or even a notch. My left tragus piercing grew all the way out in the early '90s and left a notch that remains to this day. I had it turned into a fish mouth last year.
I've had my left nipple at 4ga ever since 2008 and didn't have my right nipple pierced at all until maybe five years or so ago. I don't remember the original gauge, but I got it up to 4ga again, and shortly after it started going crooked again. Out it came until a couple of years ago, when I tried again, and it migrated again. I pierced it again about 11 months ago, and had to give it up a few weeks ago when it was dangerously close to coming all the way out on its own. It had shifted and I was going to try to stretch it to 4ga anyway and see how it looked, but it kept going so it had to go.
That's four attempts, so I'm not sure I'll ever try again. I'm wearing one of those custom rings in the other nipple for now. It's large and would look so much better with its mate on the other one, but the other one's just not cooperating.
That's a lot of information about a piercing that's not the actual reason I posted, but that one hasn't even happened yet. Here's where the TMI starts. You were warned twice.
Another piercing I got in the early '90s was a guiche, which is through the perineum. If you're not familiar with that term, you may have heard it called "taint" at some point. It's the area between the anus and the genitals on everyone, but it's much bigger and much more commonly pierced on men. The placement could have been better on that original piercing, and it definitely migrated a lot. Unlike my old nipple piercings, I kept it in its crooked state for a while and it healed very well; it's still there today! I tried wearing jewelry in it a few months back but it's just too close to the surface and I couldn't make it comfortable with any size or shape of jewelry.
Not long after that, I had to take that right nipple piercing out, and that made me want to try again with a guiche. I went to my current piercer Ben a few weeks ago for a consultation, and he agrees with me that the original piercing was a little too far back. It'll come as no surprise that I want it to be as thick as possible, and Ben said he can use a 6ga needle and immediately stretch to 4ga. He believes that's better for healing anyway, thanks to the jewelry having a snugger fit.
You might wonder if we could just use the other nipple ring, and sure, that's possible. However, I remember vividly with that original piercing that the ring flipping around would hurt a lot. We'll use a curved barbell, and I asked him to order one with very large balls on either end because more than any other piercing, a guiche can get a lot of pressure put on it and the last thing you want is for the bead to get forced inside the piercing. Bad news.
So now I'm just waiting for the jewelry we ordered to arrive. I'd really like it to happen as soon as possible because I have a hiking trip planned September 22. I'd really like to have a least a month of healing happen before that, otherwise I might just wait until after. I'm also holding off on getting my next tattoo or two until then, since you need to stay out of swimming pools for a while with fresh piercings even longer than with fresh tattoos. Ben wants me to wait six weeks. So really, it'd be great if that jewelry would arrive like right now.
And since I'm talking about piercings, I switched out two of the three pieces in my right ear this week. I generally take selfies in mirror mode which is why it looks like a left ear and the photo above looks like the right.
