Tololy's Box

Piercing Migration and Why I Hate 2008

It’s just been a day and a half into the so-called “new” year, and I am as pessimistic as never before. I hate 2008 because of a revelation I “experienced” this morning.

What’s there to like in a year that starts off as badly as this news: prices will double, money value will shrink, confusion would embrace confusion, personal future is unknown and yet is very complicated any way you look at it, and you might lose your most precious piercing which you have been taking care of for the past six months to a mishap in the name of fashion? I’ve probably never said this in a post but fuck it.

I am experiencing what is known as piercing migration. This is a process where a surface piercing’s jewelry starts to move, or migrate, towards the surface of the skin. There are a number of reasons why this happens; and it is pretty common in navel piercings to want to migrate. Sometimes they settle in a more comfortable place, and at other times they continue to migrate until they break the surface skin and leave a scar, completely leaving the body.

Now my piercing was healing perfectly well up until November. At which point, I decided I wanted to decorate it some more and went to Claire’s and bought this beautiful dangling bellyring:

…which was the mother of all troubles. I took it off after a couple of days because it was too heavy and uncomfortable. I put my original ring back in but I believe it started migrating because it just couldn’t fix the problem generated by the dangling ring, which irritated the puncture holes and sort of stretched them. I didn’t notice this until recently when I started feeling that the ring was a bit loose as compared to before and noticed other signs of migration.

Up until today, I was denying that I might be experiencing piercing migration. I take excellent care of my piercings and they have given me the usual nuisances associated with inserting a foreign object under your skin, but never have I imagined that my body would so resent a piercing that it would actually border on rejecting it! I solemnly believe though that this is not a case of my body rejecting an object, because it healed perfectly well before November, but that it is a case of ill-engineered body jewelry which I foolishly purchased at a high price, both financially and emotionally.

I am crushed…utterly devastated, so much so that I cried and cried and cried this morning when I recognized that I might have to remove my bellyring and let the area heal and close up. I went through a lot to get pierced in the first place and I loved every second of it, and now this! Tears literally ran down my face when I was telling my sister about the potential catastrophe of losing my piercing and I am so sad thinking about it now. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

If I don’t remove the ring and it continues to migrate, the fistula, which is the piece of skin above the piercing, will eventually break because it cannot hold the weight of the ring and the ring will fall out. This would leave a scar that I do not want. On the other hand, if I remove the ring, the fistula will heal and skin will regenerate inside the puncture holes and the area will go back to being a normal, dull belly button again. I can get re-pierced there as soon as it heals completely, but the question is where and when I will do it again.

In a feeble attempt to combat The Migration, I bought antibiotics to help the fistula heal. I am giving this plan three days and I am putting the piercing under close monitoring to measure any changes. If the fistula does heal and I believe the migration has stopped, I will keep the ring in place. If nothing happens, I will remove it lest it pushes its way out through my skin. Then I will start planning my next trip to New York to go back to Big Joe & Sons and get a new navel piercing, maybe a nipple ring too if I am in a particular mood at the moment. I will have a navel piercing no matter what happens.

If this was a gross post, I won’t apologize for it. I am too absorbed in mourning. I don’t feel any pain as the ring migrates, and the only pain I do feel is in my heart because I love this piercing so much and it means a lot to me. I don’t want to lose it. Please, Gods of Piercing, let me keep this ring. I will be extra good to it from now on, I will not wear any of these stupid dangling rings, and I will never touch it. Please!