Torn to pieces…

By Charlotte, Manchester

I was really excited because after 1 year of nagging i was finally allowed to get my belly button peirced at the age of 13. I went into town with my mum and i was shaking and felt really scared.

My mum had to sign afew forms and i signed it. I read on the letter she gave me, possible problems: 1- heavy bleeding 2- Redness and soreness 3- crusty discolouring 4- blood disease and there was a massive big list of all the things that can go wrong with it.

I had wanted it for so long, I wasn’t the kind of person to just give up! So I went ahead, into the small clean room and met a woman called Alex, she told me there was nothing to worry about. I calmed down and grabbed my mums hand, she counted to 3, in it went, no pain at all just a pin prick.

2 weeks later it started swelling up around the top ball and it was turning red, it started bleeding loads, I started washing it three times a day and my skin was really irritated. My belly button looked so pretty when I first got it and I really don’t understand how this happened.

I think I was allergic to the metal. Anyway in the next week (3 weeks after my peircing) the skin around it started cracking and getting really sore. Soon the skin in between the 2 shiny pink balls had split in half. I was devestated.

It had looked beautiful the week I had got it, I took care of it and everything! My mum put said it was because I had been messing around with it, but I hadn’t even touched it, I was freaked out by the letter and I knew I was going to follow Alex’s instuctions to care for it properly. It was my worst peircing experience EVER, (I only ever had my ears peirced at 6 months!) I was totally devestated. It had looked so pretty before and its a mess now.