Three in my left ear, one eyebrow, tongue and foreskin. So six altogether. Kind want another one, but I’m not sure where I want it.
I got my bellyring in January 2, 1998. I’d had a lousy 1998, so it was sort of a New Year’s re-invention time. Few people know I have it. It’s something I just got for me. I like it.
On the downside I was fostering two baby raccoons. While I was feeding the louder one with the bottle, the smart one climbed up my pant leg, grabbed the not-fully-healed belly-ring as a “good, solid hand hold” and pulled. She didn’t pull it out but she did mess up the healing a bit. Rather than healthy tissue, it is scar tissue which is must less stable.
In the end it’s no big deal, but interestingly if I’m really stressed out or coming down with an illness, my bellyring gets mildly infected the way they are during the mid-healing stage. Works as an early warning sign for illness so I know to take it easy for a bit before I get genuinely sick.
Miller Delayed gratification!
That’s what the guy said. Three months. Now he might be playing it very cautious, but I don’t want to be guy explaining to the emergency doctor why his nipple has swelled up to the size of a…(I can’t even think up an analogy).
Everyone knows about the increase in sensitivity, but I forgot to mention the increase in size. I look at them now and think, “They’re the size of girl nipples!”. Almost the size of an eraser on a #2 pencil. You kid’s still know what a pencil is, right?
Also I dreading the first trip to the airport. They dont look all that big, but who knows what that detector wands pick up.
Ok, tried to post an answer and the boards went completely down. Second time’s the charm.
The walk though dectecters won’t pick up anything and neither will a cursory wand scan. If you’re flagged for a more intensive search (like I was when I missed a flight a flew stand-by), the wand might pick it up. Happened to me once and the very sympathetic female security guard asked me if it was underwires. I told her what it was and she did the back of the hand pat down. Very untraumatic…
Only one in each ear, I’m afraid, but my question is do any dopers have a Prince Albert? My friends and I are in shock that people can do that to themselves… Does it not hurt like firey flaming fire?
I first got my ears pierced when I was 4, but they swelled up and got infected so my mom took them out a little while later. For years my mom told me it was because I was allergic to the metal. Either I grew out of the metal allergy or that was just an excuse my mom made up because she didn’t clean my ears properly (I was four, what was I gonna do?)…
My first piercing since the childhood pain-and-swelling-and-quitting ear piercings was my left cartilage when I was 15 (My reason? Taylor Hanson got his left cartilage pierced… god I loved that boy. 
). Had that for several years, then got my lobes and another left cartilage hole when I was 18. Those were all done at the mall with a gun (stupid, yes). When I was 19 I got my left eyebrow pierced – the first time I got it done was kind of spur of the moment, it was not a good job and it grew out in less than two weeks. A few months later I went to a different place and got it redone, and it lasted for over a year and a half, until about two weeks ago, actually, when I took it out for my new job.
This past March, I was feeling that the left side of my head was a little more overwhelmed with piercings than the right, so I got a 16 gauge industrial in my right ear (I wanted 14 but they didn’t have the right length bar for my ear in that size). Hurt like bloody hell, but I loved it… unfortunately I had to take that out for my new job too and while the hole in the front, on the most forward part of my cartilage, is still open and has jewelry in it (hidden with my hair at work most of the time), the back hole managed to close itself up almost completley less than 48 hours after I took the bar out. I left the bar at work on my desk accidentally on a Friday, and when I realized this and bought new jewelry on Saturday and tried to put it through, the back hole started bleeding and hurt like hell and I couldn’t get it through. So for now I’m just gonna leave it alone for a while, I suppose, since getting it repierced would be futile unless I got very tiny unobtrusive jewelry, as if anyone noticed at work it would have to come out and would close up again.
So currently I have two cartilage and one lobe piercing on the left, lobe and the one remaining hole from my industrial on the right, and the scars from my eyebrow and the other industrial hole.
For the record I utterly love piercings on guys. Nipples especially, but anything else is nice too. 
What’s wrong with those? Is it a safety or style issue?
Safety. Your usual mall-stall piercing gun cannot be completely sterilized – the jewelry/studs are supposed to be sealed and sterile, but a little alcohol wipe it about the best they give the gun, generally. If you get pierced at a reputable piercing parlor, it’s done with a single-use needle and all the needles, the jewelry, and all other tools (clamps and such) are autoclaved for much better sterility and therefore less chances of picking up something nasty.
Also, AFAIK, guns are especially bad for cartilage because there is the chance that the pressure from the gun could crack the cartilage, which would not only be incredibly painful but could permanently deform your ear.
[QUOTE=AntaresJB]
Safety. Your usual mall-stall piercing gun cannot be completely sterilized – the jewelry/studs are supposed to be sealed and sterile, but a little alcohol wipe it about the best they give the gun, generally. If you get pierced at a reputable piercing parlor, it’s done with a single-use needle and all the needles, the jewelry, and all other tools (clamps and such) are autoclaved for much better sterility and therefore less chances of picking up something nasty.
[QUOTE]
Ah. Well, I got my earlobes done a week ago, and no infection yet. I got them done the same day I started taking Bactrim (an antibiotic) for something else. Figured, why not? This way I can help prevent infection.
I know. After I got mine, I started noticing chicks with nose rings everywhere, and they were all in the left nostril. I don’t know the difference between the two, but having my right nostril pierced makes me feel… unique. Or something.
Well, I’m sort of into the pain - all I can say is that the clit hood piercing was a primal experience. It wasn’t as quick and painless as I expected - I thought the hood was such a thin piece of skin, but it sure didn’t feel that way when it was pierced. Was it worth it? Sure, any new way to adorn my body iincreases my happiness. Sexually? Yes, it’s increased sensitivity some, but not enough (in my experience thus far) to have it pierced for that reason alone.
I do think it looks very attractive no matter what. I just get this feeling like, it’s in the wrong side, no it’s not, she wants it there. Ask a personal question: are you white? Because as pretty as Indian girl look with Indian clothes/jewelry, I think white women look even better sometimes. It’s the combination of the fair skin with all those vibrant colors.
…for me. Had my nipples done about 4 months ago. Kind of an early mid-life crisis thing, I guess (I couldn’t afford a Porsche). The GF loves them, which was part of the impetus. I had told myself I’d get a tattoo if I got my stuff together and lost 30 pounds (which I did), but couldn’t ever decide on a design I liked, so I had the piercings done instead.
As a side note, several people have mentioned the rings “growing out”. Can you tell when this is happening? Anything I should do to avoid it?
10 earrings (4 in each ear lobe, 2 in the cartilage in the right ear)
1 nose ring, left side
1 belly ring. (10 years old now!)
The absolute worst was the nose ring. The girl doing it messed up a little (the best part was watching her face get more and more scared til finally she called another guy over to help.) Yeah - it hurt, a lot. I thought that I would be fine (after all, I had all those other piercings!) but I don’t think I’d do it again…
And on the nose-ring-side-thing…an East Indian coworker of mine said that if you are Hindu you pierce the left side, and if you are Muslim you pierce the right side.
(didn’t matter for a pasty white girl like me - but I thought it was interesting)
Lost Horizon, that’s called rejection. It depends on where the piercing is, the type of jewelry you’re wearing, etc, etc.
Just for clarity in case any of the above is unclear: the needles are sterile and are usually in sealed plastic before they get to the piercing parlor – this prevents less scrupulous parlors from autoclaving the needles and re-using them. I know that’s what you meant by “single-use needles” above, but just in case… The person doing the piercing should unwrap the needle from its packaging in front of you. If they have an already unwrapped needle you should ask them to start over and let you watch it come out of its sterile pouch.
Once used, the needles are put in one of those yellow, “Biohazard” buckets, like the ones in the hospital and are disposed of, never to be used again.
I used to work as a body piercer for a while at my friend’s tattoo studio in Prague. My first piercing was a nostril piercing that I kept in for a little over ten years; my others were two tragus (tragii?) piercings and a frenum piercing, except on the top instead of the bottom. My frenum piercing rejected, partially due to the unusual placement and partially due to a minor infection. It was odd; the skin just sort of unzipped like a zipper. I still have a small scar. My nosril piercing was the last to come out, the day before I started my first job after graduating law school.
Thanks, Mirror Image.
Filter at work is blocking that site, but I’ll check it out when I get home.
I currently have the traditional ear piercing, plus a cartilage piercing and a navel piercing.
I’ve gone through different piercings through the years… The only lasting one is a gold ring in my right nipple…
Got it in 1980… So, coming up on 25 years in a few months…
Geez, I feel old…
:eek: