I never really craved a belly button piercing from a young age. It wasn’t until I was 21 and working in the ER that I decided I wanted a piercing. A weird place to have a revelation huh?
I saw this one 40-ish-year-old lady in the ER who was dressed as Cleopatra… It was Halloween by the way. While checking her for injuries I noticed she had an amazing looking belly button ring and apparently had kept it in all this time. For some reason that experience made me want to get one. I did tons of research and waited a few weeks before getting one to decide if I really wanted to embark on this journey. After looking at tons of cute pictures of girls with belly button piercings onlineΒ and reading up about the care and healing processΒ I decided I was ready!
So during a school break I decided to visit my boyfriend in Florida and I told him about my “surprise.” He thought it was cool and sexy that I wanted to get it done so a couple days later we went to a Tattoo shop that he trusted because he got a tattoo from there in the past.
I was nervous as heck when I got there! I started thinking I don’t know if I want to do this. This is a mistake! But I signed the paper work and the piercer took me back to his little room and my boyfriend followed. The piercer was a quiet guy, not that informative. He did what he had to do. Cleaned it. Marked it.
Everyone says it doesn’t hurt. Most people say, “Oh it’s just like a little pinch.” Well… I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I never feared needles and as a kid I always took getting shots with a grain of salt. I’m the type that doesn’t want to take pain meds unless my arm is falling off.
So the guy puts the clamp on my navel and that was really uncomfortable. I was not expecting it to hurt. But the worst part was when he stuck the needle through my skin. It hurt like hell β
My boyfriend recorded the whole experience. The piercer struggled, and I mean really struggled to get the needle to pass through my skin. He had to put so much pressure on the needle for it to go all the way through and break the skin. This is why it hurt so badly! π
Even while he was pushing it through HE was surprised and he said “hmm you have really tough skin…” as he struggled to push it through. Such terrible pain! Once he finally got it through, he fed the barbell in and cleaned up. Then he had me get up to see how it looked.
So, I got up and looked in the mirror and I was pleased! In pain, but pleased. As I started asking him questions about aftercare, I started feeling a little off. And things started to get black. I got back on the exam table because I was literally about to pass out β
It was the weirdest feeling ever. I’ve never passed out before. Everything started to get black and fuzzy but I didn’t completely pass out. Luckily my boyfriend and the piercer noticed. The piercer got me some water and some skittles to try to snap me out of it. This is when I immediately started thinking “Oh gosh why did I do this?”
I was regretting my piercing big time. I started feeling nauseous. I felt cold. My arm hairs felt like they were standing straight up. I felt dizzy. And my stomach felt terrible! The entire time I was thinking “Oh gosh this guy pierced through my organs! I am bleeding internally!” Crazy right? π
You get irrational when you’re in pain. Then I started feeling heavy cramping. After that I camped out in the tattoo shop’s bathroom for about 10 minutes while my boyfriend helped me pay for my piercing. The cramping and pain in my abdomen didn’t go away until about 30 minutes AFTER we left the tattoo shop.
I’m pretty sure I had the absolute worst extreme reaction you could possibly ever have in the history of life from a belly button piercing β
Everything is all good now. I don’t regret the piercing. I did hate the experience and occasionally I go back and watch the video of the guy struggling to put a needle through me. But today I love my piercing! No pain no gain.
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