Nipple piercing is a favorite among many well-adorned body art fans. Healing this area sometimes requires patience, but you will probably find it well worth the effort.
A piercing in your nipple can highlight the area in an enticing way and may add a whole new dimension of sensation and enjoyment.
1. Overview:
For male nipples, 3 to 4 months or longer to healed.
For female nipples, 6 to 9 months or longer to healed.
Initial jewelry style: ring or straight barbell.
Initial jewelry gauge: 14 gauge minimum, 12 gauge for rougher play or larger anatomy, and 10 gauge only on highly developed anatomy
Initial jewelry size: highly anatomy-dependent, for barbells, 1/16 to 1/8 inch should be added to the post.
For men, minimum ring diameter usually 9/16 inch(14mm), but 1/2(12mm) inch may be suited for small nipples that are not flat.
For women, minimum ring diameter 5/8 inch(16mm), 3/4 inch(20mm) is common, and larger is sometimes used.
2. Nipple Piercing: Placement
Virtually all adults’ nipples- even tiny flat ones- are pierceable if they are pliable.
Whether you prefer the angle of your piercing to be horizontal, vertical, or somewhere in between, it will work best if it is placed in the natural creases of your tissue.
If you want a pair of piercings and you have large, protruding nipples that are uneven in size, is it sometimes best to pierce at the natural base of each nipple rather than making one piercing shallower (or deeper ) in an attempt to make them match.
3. How to do the nipple piercing?
If you wish to have a pair of nipple piercings, you may wonder if it is preferable to do one and let it heal before adding the second, or to pierce both nipples during the same session.
One advantage to having them done at once is that your piercings are complete after a single studio visit and healing period.
Also, depending on the skill of your piercer and the amount of alteration in your tissue as a result of piercing, which can be substantial, it is easier to get more symmetrical results if you have them both marked and performed in the same session.
Then again, an advantage to sequential piercings is that you will still have one nipple to play with while the other is mending.
Women may find that their nipples are more sensitive just prior to menstruating. Take this into consideration when scheduling a nipple piercing.
4. Nipple Piercing Jewelry: Nipple Rings or Nipple Bars?
Nipple rings were the standard initial jewelry style for nipple piercings for many years.
Over time they acquired a reputation as being bad for healing, but this is because piercers often insert jewelry that is too small in diameter.
When you wear a hoop, the part of it that passes through your piercing must be relatively straight.
If the ring is too snug, it will pinch your tissue at the entry and exit and cause irritation, discomfort, and healing problems.
Piercees are frequently surprised that a safe diameter for a nipple ring is much larger than they had imagined.
When properly sized, both nipple bars and rings can be suitable options in traditionally placed nipple piercings.
For nonhorizontal placements, barbells are superior.
Your jewelry, whether ring or bar, must have some extra space for the tissue to relax to its widest natural state, and to allow for swelling or tissue development.
To accommodate a piercing that measures just 3/8 inch across, a 1/2 inch diameter ring will be too small if there is average development.
5.Multiple Nipple Piercings
A nipple can be pierced only once in a session; however, after healing, depending on its configuration and dimensions, it may be pierceable a second time.
Few nipples are substantial enough to accommodate more than two piercings.
Typical arrangements include two horizontal piercings (usually with a horizontal piercing in front and a vertical behind it ), or an X shape formed by two diagonal piercings.
Exceptional skill is required to accurately place additional holes in an already-pierced nipple.
6.Nipple Piercing: Concealment
Male nipple piercings may be discernible under a lightweight white dress shirt, but adding an undershirt does a lot to diminish the visibility of average-sized jewelry.
For women, wearing any but the sheerest bra will usually make it difficult to see nipple jewelry through clothing.
Using a cylinder-shaped bead instead of a round one in your captive ring can eliminate the appearance of a second nipple protruding below your own.
Snug-fitting barbells capped by small balls or discs are effective for concealment under clothing in most situations.
7.Nipple Piercing: Breast Health
There is no medical evidence that piercings increase the risk of cancer.
Kelly Shanahan, MD, chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Barton Memorial Hospital in Lake Tahoe, states, “I am aware of no evidence that nipple piercing increases the risk of breast cancer.”
Nipple piercings will in no way interfere with breast exams or self-examinations.
In fact, they may even remind you to pay attention to your breasts. They might also encourage a partner to assist you with regular breast exams.
Health-care personal routinely require that all metal be removed from the area prior to a mammogram or other medical procedure.
See your piercer for a nonmetallic jewelry alternative such as acrylic or inert plastic to keep your piercing open.
8.Nipple Piercing and Breastfeeding
Many pierced mom express concerns about breastfeeding, but there does not appear to be any evidence that nipple piercings negatively affect the ability to breastfeed.
A normal female nipple has a multiplicity of up to twenty porelike mileducts, rather than a single spout.
Therefore, a nipple piercing of ordinary size and uneventful healing won’t block them all.
The ability to nurse could be impaired if a troubled nipple piercing causes excess scarring.
When jewelry is removed from a well-healed nipple piercing, some colostrum or milk might seep or flow from the empty channel.
Leaving out your nipple jewelry during breastfeeding is safest for your infant, although some mom do successfully nurse with it in place.
Jewelry removal eliminates the most serious risk of your baby choking on a ball, ring, or bar that becomes unfastened.
You also diminish the potential for other nursing problems such as difficulty latching on or damage to the soft tissue of your infant’s mouth.
Another concern is that body jewelry might be a source of bacteria that could enter a baby’s system.
Some women have had success nursing with flexible jewelry like PTFE barbells instead of metal.
Do not wear a retainer that has an O-ring closure because it is not sufficiently secure to stay on during nursing.
If you decide to take out your jewelry and leave it out until you are done nursing, the piercing may shrink or close up by the time your baby is weaned.
If your piercing is fully healed, there is some chance the hole could remain open.
It may be possible to encourage a well-established channel to stay viable by passing a small, clean insertion taper through it on a regular basis.
If the piercing has sealed shut and you wish to be repierced, it is best to wait at least three months after you stop nursing to allow the tissue to normalize.
9. Nipple Piercing: Changing Jewelry
Some piercees are comfortable changing their own nipple jewelry once the piercing has healed.
This is not particularly challenging for the deft, though the tightness of the skin can make moving your existing jewelry difficult.
Try a warm water soak or compress to loosen the tissue first, and use sterile jelly or emu oil for lubrication.
Don’t dally in the middle of a jewelry change; nipple piercings are notorious for being among the quickest to shrink and the most difficult to reinsert once left empty, even momentarily.
If you run into trouble, an insertion taper can help you to open the channel and stretch the piercing enough to reinsert jewelry.
Unless you feel sure about what you’re doing, it is best to visit your piercer for help.
10.Nipple Piercing: Stretching
Nipple piercings are not easy to stretch, and the tissue responds irritably if you attempt to expand too quickly.
Wait a minimum of nine months to a year from the initial piercing, and don’t force it or you are more likely to end up with a rejected piercing than a larger gauge.
An enlarging schedule of one gauge per year is steady pace.
A double stretch (from 14 to 10 gauge, foe example ) is seldom possible, even if the piercing has been healed for many years.
Unless the next size slides right in without pushing and the thicker one does not need to be forced, keep to the one-size-at-a-time plan, with time and patience, however, nipples can be stretched to very large size.
11.Nipple Piercing: Retiring
Expect some permanent modification to the area from piercing your nipple.
If you have had tissue development, much or all of it may remain, even if you abandon the piercing.
A divot at the entry and exit may be the only lasting marks if you do not experience tissue changes.
Do not impulsively remove nipple jewelry.
It is much easier to keep in an existing nipple piercing than to get a reinsertion or repiercing later.
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