Title: Surprisingly Easy DIY Navel
Author: Tammy
Complications: None yet
End Result: It's doing fine, but I've only had it for 10 days
Happy with the Result: Yep :D
Date Done: Feb 12, 2004
Story: I've kinda wanted a belly button piercing ever since I was 13, but never actually thought about doing myself. Or better yet, asking my mom to get it professionally done! (I've never even brought up the subject... eek.) My friend did hers herself with a safety pin and used that as the initial jewelry. I've contemplated doing the same, but having a navel piercing was like a fantasy. This year, I became more rebellious and decided to do it myself.
Fortunately, I got smarter (I'm 16 now) and bought some piercing needles, a curved barbell, and clamps off the Internet. The pain wasn't a factor, as I've pierced my left cartilage and 3rd set of lobes in my ear. Anyways, after procrastinating a bit, I decided to do it! I marked the entrance and exit holes and clamped it. Grr, my navel became a bit sore from the teeth on the clamp. I made sure it was lined up evenly with the holes and pricked my skin with the needle. It didn't hurt, so I slowly pushed the needle through as hard as I could. It took forever- my skin was so tough! But it didn't hurt a bit, just felt like pressure probably because the clamps were on so tight, the area kinda lost circulation. When I finally got it through, I lubricated the needle with Neosporin. I then held the barbell behind it and the jewelry slid through easily. That made me pretty happy... usually the needle is a real bitch to push out.
My belly button was sore for a few days, so I was careful not to bump it. (The one thing I was worried about was rejection.) I clean it with liquid antibacterial soap and do sea salt soaks, which seems to help a lot. Right now, the piercing isn't even red or sore and it's been healing nicely so far. Hopefully it will remain that way, and maybe in 6 months I'll submit an extended DIY navel story to BME, saying I had a SUCCESSFUL self pierced navel.
After a month, my navel hasn't been showing any signs of infection or rejection. I was so worried about rejection especially. The top hole got red and crusty once in a while but I think that was normal. The only time I got worried was when I stupidly decided to change the barbell to this dangly one, just to see how it looked. Changing it was pretty easy, but the threads irritated my piercing. Also the dangles put pressure on the top hole so I quickly changed it back to my old (boring) barbell. A few salt soaks later, it was fine.
By the way, I'm REALLY happy with it and I truly hope it doesn't reject or anything. My parents haven't found out and I don't have the guts to flaunt it anyways... I just like having metal through my body :D
Needle: Piercing needle
Gauge: 14g
Purchased: can't remember... bought it off the Internet
Cost: $9.95 for a pack of 5
Jewelry: SS curved barbell
Gauge: 14g
Purchased: bodyartforms.com
Cost: $3.99
Aftercare: Dial antibacterial soap and sea salt soaks once a day
Purchased: Walmart and Hot Topic
Cost: Don't know... the salt was $3 though
TOTAL COST: Ahhh too much math :x [it's $16.94]