Pick your piercings: The good, the bad and the festering

Several years ago, a friend asked me to pierce her ears. I complied but suggested she buy gold studs in case she was allergic to nickel.

Allison decided instead to use the nickel studs, telling me she had worn nickel alloys in jewelry for years. I pierced her ears with a sterile safety pin and a leather belt backing, and in went the two dollar studs.

As it turns out, Allison was allergic to nickel - she lied to me so she wouldn't have to pay for more expensive earrings. A week later her piercings festered, and her earlobes turned a red-orange color.

My friends and I begged her to remove the earrings, but she said the infection would pass with the help of some hydrogen peroxide. The next day her ears had completely encapsulated the earrings and her tongue had turned black.

Her earlobes resembled puss-oozing marbles, and she was taken to the hospital to have the earrings surgically cut out of her engorged lobes.

The plating on Allison's earrings had worn off the metal and entered her bloodstream. This manifested itself in a black coloring of the blood vessels in her tongue.

As Allison's story shows, it is important that before you get a piercing you make sure you are not allergic to your earring. For your first piercing, it is usually best to use gold. A nickel allergy can cause irritation, swelling, redness and pain.

If your piercings are extremely irritating and you show any of these symptoms in an extreme fashion, you should see a physician or piercing specialist. You could be allergic to the metal or have gotten sepsis, an infection of the blood.

This is not to say that all piercings go wrong. Some people have a higher tendency than others to develop scar tissue.

You may notice thick bumps of scar tissue, or keloids, have grown around your piercings.

This is normal, as is non-serious infection right after the piercing. You have just stuck a piece of metal in your skin. This is a wound, and your body is fighting it.

Although it is easy to pierce the skin with a safety pin, ice cubes and a lighter, it is much safer to get it done professionally. It will undoubtedly be cleaner, faster and much more accurate.

With do-it-yourself piercings, things can go wrong; the needle can slip. Make sure to clean your piercings regularly, and follow whatever guidelines you are given by the professional.

Piercings can go anywhere on the body where the skin can be pierced. Choose carefully when you plan to get pierced.

There's a variety of places that you can pierce, but not all of them are the best options. Be careful if you're getting pierced, even if you think you know what you're doing.

Here are some guidelines on what you can expect of the most popular piercings.

The ear:

This is the easiest piercing to get, because the person piercing your ear will most likely use a gun.

You choose the stud, the piercer marks the spot and bang! You've got pierced ears, and you probably didn't feel a thing.

The ear takes between six and 12 weeks to heal.

The nose:

This is a nice, blatant place to stick a shiny object, especially if you want to look artsy or have an extra hole through which you can blow things.

If you're going to get your nose pierced, be careful when you wash your face at night or blow your nose.

One drunken night you might pull out the stud without even noticing and have to sift through the trash to find the ring again.

Piercings on your face take between six to eight weeks to heal.

The bellybutton:

Be particular about the clothes you wear if you plan on getting a piercing in your navel. Try to avoid clothes that will chafe the piercing or keep it moist; these will prevent normal healing and could cause infection.

A piercing here could take up to a year to heal, depending on how well you treat it.

The eyebrow:

Getting a quality eyebrow piercing can be tricky. It can either look very cool, or it can look like your upper face is rotting off. Be careful.

Many piercers will suggest you start with a hoop, but in my experience it is better to have a barbell. There is always the possibility that you will roll over in your sleep or catch the hoop with your clothes while changing. This could make the hoop to lie flat on your face, which would cause the piercing itself to start migrating.

The tongue:

Think twice before you get a tongue piercing. As anyone who has seen Rat Race can tell you, a tongue piercing can go seriously wrong. A barbell piercing can chip your teeth, impede speech and make it difficult to masticate.

Take special care of these piercings. Any piercings that are inside the mouth take between three and six weeks to heal, and they have a much higher rate of infection.

There are a lot more bacteria in your mouth just waiting to get into your blood, and if your tongue becomes infected, it could swell to almost the size of an egg.