getting prepared - my personal navel piercing experience

Now you're contemplating getting your navel pierced but you're so nervous about the procedure - having a needle stuck through a layer of skin?? How painful would that be?

source: http://fashionbyvamp-night.tumblr.com/post/114322023790

Naturally, you would try to put a estimation to the pain - googling the pain from a scale of 1 to 10 or the pain of it compared to other regular ear lobe or cartilage piercings you've got.

As intimidating as it may look, from personal experience, the pain from a navel piercing is nothing as compared to the pain I felt when i got my helix pierced. Now a word of caution, I do have extremely low pain tolerance! A tiny paper cut, splinter and normal flu jabs can make me cry :(

You may have heard that the pain from the clamping is the worst part of the entire process. That is somewhat true because the clamping really helps in numbing the area that will be pierced. The clamping feels just like a small pinch, there is barely any pain at all. 

I was totally freaking out while my piercer was getting all her equipment ready. I kept asking how painful it would be and if it would be worse than a helix piercing, cause that was really, really painful for me. (My helix piercing was more than just a throbbing / warm sensation, it was painful and extremely sensitive). She assured the clamping would help in the numbing so the procedure wouldn't be that much of a discomfort. I was honestly mentally ready to feel like I've just been stabbed in my stomach. 

Now your piercer will instruct you to take a deep breath and exhale. At this point in time, you will feel the needle very quickly being shoved through your skin but all you feel is a tiny, tiny pinch! I was really amazed at how fast the procedure was and how little pain I felt. I was expecting it to be more painful than a flu jab and equivalent to my helix piercing, but it was much less.

Putting in the jewelry wasn't painful - you can definitely feel something in your skin but it wasn't that painful. The entire procedure took less than a minute for me and after some cleaning I was ready to show off my new navel piercing!! 

This is what my piercing looked like the morning after and
there's hardly any swelling or redness immediately after

My piercer taught me how to take care of my new piercing, basically the usual stuffs like don't go swimming in a pool or the sea, avoid exercises that will move your piercing and not to change my piercing within 3 months.

I honestly do not think these advice are enough for thorough piercing aftercare, and I will teach you how I do my regular cleaning in my next post :) 

Hope this gave you enough courage to get your navel piercing!

FYI: I got my navel pierced at Exotic Tattoo at Far East Plaza, Singapore. My piercer's Nicol.