I’ve spent a bit over a year now avoiding any body modification interests other than a little tattooing because my interest in body modification had become a potential liability in court and was being used to help paint me as ‘unstable’ (not a fun thing to have to defend to decrepit old judges!), but now that that’s over, I figured it was time to celebrate. One of my very first piercings — and one of my favorites — was my hand web piercing, and I’ve been missing it… So I decided to do that again!
It was all DIY of course, and I used a 10ga needle and a 7/16″ 12ga ring (which increased the initial bleeding, but made the follow-through and bead placement much easier). The placement was done carefully to both minimize movement of the tissue trapped by the piercing (there’s no shifting of skin between the points), and to minimize movement of the jewelry. The ring lies flush against the skin (rather than dangling centrally), and what little movement there is can be absorbed more easily by a ring than by a bar in my opinion. So yeah. New piercing, DIY, good placement, safe.
But I also wanted to mention something frightening. I was talking to a friend that left the industry earlier this year. Because they no longer need to use their autoclave, they stopped sending in their spore tests. The scary thing is, for four months — continuing until today — they’ve received a letter from the spore testing laboratory (a big name place with a good reputation used by hundreds of studios if not more) saying that their test came back successfully and that their clave is functioning properly. Even though they didn’t send anything in. Scary stuff. I wonder if this is a small clerical error, or if it’s large-scale fraud — gambling with people’s lives — by the company. I suspect the latter.
So that’s one of the many reasons I prefer DIY. How does this person know that their clave didn’t fail a year ago??? It’s certainly possible that a clave in this situation could a blood-borne pathogen, and, with the right sort of bad luck, thousands of people could have been infected with Hepatitis C… Statistically, if they’re doing this on a large scale, it’s surely happened already at some tattoo or piercing studio, hospital, or dental office.
21 Comments
Looking good Shannon!
I was wondering… a while ago you mentionned getting tattooed but waiting for healing to post the pictures… i’m curious to see what it is…
looks bloody lol
i hope you keep a update one the healing process!
I was working at my shop this weekend. Drilling out some holes in some stainless barstock. The clamp came loose and a corner of the bar raked across my hand and sliced the web right there open. I can’t imagine how many new hazards having this piercing would present for me. Good luck with it.
Oh, it’s bloody alright… Such is piercing with a needle a gauge larger in size. The nice thing is it’s good and loose because of it.
Amusing side story.
When I picked Nefarious up from school I had it covered up. I asked her if she could guess what it was (I’d told her a few days before I was going to do it), and she said “an injury?” and I said no and explained what it was. I said, “do you think that was a good idea or a bad idea?” and in an over-the-top ‘what a dumb question’ voice, she yells, “a GOOD IDEA!!!”
Thats exactly why i buy my own needles and DIY. My Uncle got Hep C from the very frist (and only) tattoo he got. Lucky for him he worked for the hospital at the time driving a bus so he got the new medicine at the time for muchless. lol Probably the main reson my parents didnt wanna let me get tattoo in my youth. lol
I for one am glad you were able to successfully defend yourself – Nefarious is lucky to have such a great dad. As a new mom, I get a lot of inspiration from your site. I hope to do tons of art, and craft projects, with my little guy as he gets older!
I got a papercut there the other day and it STILL hurts! I can’t imagine piercing myself there.
:)
Ouch-papercuts!
That is some pretty scary shit with the Spore testing. Its bad enough the state of some shops sterile rooms and now the fact that spore tests can’t be trusted, one really must be carefuly when getting a new mod. I haven’t had any mods or ink since I moved up here to BelleVegas due to this exact fact. Too many shops fail to see how important this is. On a side note: Its pretty funny that your mods were used against you by the person that now runs the largest modification ezine.Speaks volumes doesn’t it. Can’t wait to see the new piercing healed out!
that’s one of the few things that seriously makes me nervous. the good thing for me is knowing how things are kept clean in our local hospital. up until is july of this year, it was my job. the local hospital does its own biological testing and is required to do so by law in Pennsylvania. it’s nice to know that. I’m not sure if the same laws apply to piercing and tattoo studios or not. but where I go for body modifications, totem tattoo, is highly respected. the guy who does my work, Aaron is a good friend and he apprenticed under buffalo bill tarr. bill is (for lack of a better term) anal about cleanliness. so they are excellent with autoclaving and biological testing. I’m curious though, what company are you talking about? is it used by the united states? just wondering. I’m pretty sure that totem does its own biological but just on the off chance that they send out, I’d like to know. so they can be aware. I’m sure they would be concerned.
Congrats on the piercing!
the 2nd part is scary as hell… we need to be able to trust those people. i hope to learn more about this situation.
any leads/links?
Well, as High Prairie, Alberta has recently taught us, you can’t even be sure you’re getting a clean needle at the hospital!
To the DIY people: how do you know your supplies are clean? I was going to do a piercing myself a week ago, using a (play piercing) needle from bmeshop and a cbr I had around from a retired piercing. First I clean the cbr with chlorhexidine; then I boiled it; cleaned it with an antibacterial wipe and boiled it again, but then decided against it as I didn’t really know how effective it was.
In my case, I’m the only person that has handled the stuff other than the manufacturer, and it’s single use items anyway. So in my case the risk is effectively zero — certainly far lower than at a studio.
I see. What procedure would you recommend appropriate before using my old jewelry again?
If you are the one that wore it before, just clean it. In my opinion there’s no need to stress autoclaving or anything like that if it’s staying in the same person.
Thank you. If it is of importance: the pieces have been in a plastic bag for some years after being taken out of piercings which didn’t heal, and, if I may: do you know of anybody with psoriasis and piercings? I have, and I have not been able to heal my piercings; not even ear lobes! Scarification and suspension wounds heal just fine, so I’m not a bleeder or anything like that.
Personally I’d like to see a video of that being done. I imagen doing it one handed had to be a bitch! Nice placement.
I got it 90% of the way through and then whacked it with the TV remote. No kidding.
We spore test our two autoclaves once per week. About 3 times a year we “throw” a test…meaning we purposefully send back an unprocessed, or under processed, test. Have to make sure they are doing their job.
OMG!!! MINE DIDNT BLEED AT ALL…THAT LOOKS GROSS!
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[...] My initial entry on the piercing is here, but I’ll add how I did the piercing… I drew the dots on, pinching the tissue to feel for motion and so on. After a little adjustment I came upon what I thought was ideal, and pushed the 10ga needle through… It was pretty unpleasant, and I haven’t done a piercing on myself in a looooong time. After the tip was through the other end, which stung like crazy, I actually just gave it a couple whacks with a remote to get it all the way through!!! Follow-through was a breeze because of the drop-down sizing. [...]
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