Piercing: Just another hole

When I look in the mirror I see a face, with two eyes, a nose, a mouth and brown hair that falls to the shoulders. I’m sure that if you were to see me on the street you would never guess that I’m obsessed with piercing. I caught myself talking about piercing’s all the time, even to my teachers, and I knew that I was addicted. I’m addicted to the needle, the jewelry, and the pain. I’m not the only one.

I walk down the halls at school and notice that piercing’s are becoming trendier than ever. I can’t help but wonder how they truly feel. Are these piercing’s a cover up for scared and hidden emotions? Do they actually like them or are they trying to be cool? Do they understand what they are doing? Do they know how to really take care of their piercing’s?

Rejection, Infection, Keloids. Most people who “dig” piercing’s probably have some idea of what this means. I’m sure that only the obsessed truly understand. Rejection. When I say this, most people confuse this with infection.

“Yea, I had to take out my back surface bar because it started rejecting,” “Oh really, that sucks, my bellybutton got infected but I didn’t have to take it out. I just cleaned it really well.” Like anything else body jewelry can be rejected by your body. For example, you fall off your bike and a pebble is embedded into your skin and you don’t know it. Eventually your skin will push out the pebble by a process called selective suicide. The skin cells that hold the piercing in your skin (over the barbell) will die and the skin under the barbell will push the barbell out. The piercing’s which are more at risk of rejecting are surface piercing’s, which are on any flat part of the body. Examples of surface piercing’s are the back of the neck, also known as the nape, back, wrist, below the navel, etc. Surface piercing’s are very important to look after and clean. The more a surface piercing is taken care of the longer it will stay in.

Unfortunately infection is also misunderstood. To be honest most infections are rare and are often confused with agitation or irritation. Most of the time people who never clean their piercing’s get infections. If you decide to get a piercing, you must understand the importance and responsibility of cleaning and taking care of the piercing. If you clean your piercing even once a day the chances of getting and infection are quite low. If, however, you clean less than once a day then your change of getting and infection is much higher. Infection is also confused with agitation and irritation because of over cleaning and soaking or allergies to soap or jewelry. Infections can usually be noticed by excessive swelling, bleeding, or green puss.

Most people do not realize that a piercing is like a wound. Like a wound it must be taken care of. Cleaned and nurtured until it heals. Only then will a piercing heal correctly. Hopefully this will enlighten the unenlightened.