I have 6 piercings. My lip, my medusa, my eyebrow and both of my ears. Below you can read about them and see a few pics. In the future I plan to get more piercings, although I am undecided as to what!
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Ear Lobes
I had my ears pierced in a mall when I was about 9 years old. I had a pair of little gold birthstone studs. They were done with a piercing gun which is really bad because they basically shove the blunt jewelry right through your ear, and the guns harbor bacteria – as in other people’s blood & skin, ew! Much much later, at age 17, I started to stretch them and they are now at 3/4 of an inch (19 mm) – see chart below. I would say that stretching is rather painful if you rush it, and only slightly uncomfortable if you do it right. Never stretch more than once every two months, this is how I did mine. Actually, I’d sometimes wait as long as 6 months before going up a size. Just listen to your body! It is often recommended that you wait 4 months or more between stretches when you reach large gauges over 1/2 inch, since there is a greater difference between the sizes. When you stretch, use tapers – they are way easier on your ears. Dead stretching can lead to all sorts of nasty things. Eventually you could use PTFE, bondage or electrical tape to gradually stretch instead of tapers, which get expensive and hard to find in larger sizes. Oh, and stretching (sometimes called “gauging”) your ears should never cause pain, bleeding or ripping. Trust me! A great resource for people looking to get into body modification are the messageboards at bodyartforms.com. They also sell quality jewelry, and cheap stretching kits for like $5!
Here are the outdated images. I’m not sure of my size here, but I was probably around 00g:
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Eyebrow
My eyebrow piercing was my first true body mod. I got it done when I was 15, so I’ve had it for quite a while. The pain is minimal. I’d say it’s the same amount of pain as an ear piercing – you won’t cry or anything, haha. I don’t care for it so much anymore. It’s very overdone these days, but since eyebrow piercings are surface piercings, it will eventually “grow out” and I’ll have to remove it anyway. Update: I finally said goodbye to my eyebrow piercing, at age 20. I ended up losing my jewelry for it, and decided to just leave it out.
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Lip & Medusa
These are my favorite piercings. I got both of them when I was 16. My lip was done first, and my Medusa was done a few months later. I originally wanted snakebites (both edges of your bottom lip) but only had a small amount of cash. So I got the center done, which looks just as good. Pain is eh – mild? It’s hard to say because I have a high tolerance for pain. I’d say if you’re nervous about the pain, you really don’t want it bad enough. I wear a CBR ring in my lip, and they are a pain in the ass. I never take it out because it’s so difficult to get back in for me. I have nails, so… yeah.
The medusa is technically called a philtrum piercing, and this one hurt pretty badly. It wasn’t like horrible but it did bleed and made me tear up. Not for the faint of heart! Remember, the skin above your top lip is pretty fleshy, and it’s hard to get the ball on the jewelry with this piercing as well. Once it’s done though, absolutely gorgeous. I’ve yet to meet another with their medusa pierced. That’s a good thing ♥
