*Disclaimer: Nothing listed here is to be taken as medical advice, I am not a doctor nor do I claim to be one. All facts listed here are based either on my own experiences or by doing research on the topics listed.*
At A Glance Author Steph Contact [email protected] IAM sweetcheeks When N/A My body, my rules, my choice, my way, from a female perspective."
Everyone has gripes about the way that society in general perceives their modifications. You would think that in today's day and age that would change. However sadly it hasn't especially when the medical profession let alone the media get's in the way. You team those two together and all hell is apt to break loose at one point or another. Of course chances are people, especially parents who have children that are almost to the point of desperation to get modified see news reports such as this one: The alleged piercing-related death of a teen in Canada . And of course there's this one too except this one is tattoo related. In the news- Another death blamed on a tattoo. Needless to say such stories influence people's way of thinking and make the modified community look bad.
It's quite easy for the medical profession to point out that getting modified is wrong, it can kill you and so on and so forth. Me personally I take precautionary measures because it's been said that it's likely more easier for you to get hepatitis as opposed to HIV/AIDS virus. Why? Because the HIV/AIDS virus basically dies as soon as it comes in contact with air so this makes it rare. Hepatitis on the other hand as my Doctor once described to me ( in a metaphorical sense) could be run over hundreds of times by a car in the pouring rain and still survive. Anyone who's educated when it comes to modifications in general should already know that information. Vaccines aren't impossible to come by and no they won't protect you from everything either. So what does one do when they encounter a negative Doctor who is anti modification?
Apparently in Germany you now have to buy a special type of insurance in case you get sick as a result of getting a modification of any sort. I did do a search for more information but seeing as how I can't read German I wasn't able to turn up any sufficient information but I did read a bit about it on Shannon's IAM Page. Thankfully I live in Canada and have provincial health care coverage. Which to my knowledge has no stipulations as to weather or not me being modified in any way will affect my chances of getting adequate care. So far this hasn't been the case and I consider myself quite fortunate for that. The only incident of me having an infection of any sort was the result of getting a very poorly done piercing. A piercing that had in fact gotten so infected over a very long period of time it caused near death for me at least by giving me blood poisoning.
I didn't want to go to see the Doctor about this because I did in fact want to be spared the lecture about how dangerous body piercing is. Not all studios are created equal and not everyone in this industry is competent either which is un-fortunate however it is a reality. However after getting my Medicare card back in order I went to get things looked at. Of course I got " the lecture" and I was told that my piercing was the cause of my blood poising ( well gee I already knew that!). No one except for me after the fact stopped to think that anything could have gotten in there seeing as how a piercing is a fresh wound and should be treated as such. Not to mention this one was being suffocated by a bra. Yes the piercing itself was botched and taking the jewelry out was a bad idea although Doctors generally tell you that's the first thing to do although in my case all I managed to do was trap the infection inside which in case you were all wondering I still in fact do have. Medication didn't clear it up and short of having some minor although invasive surgery to remove the leaky mass from my nipple I'm doubtful that it will ever go away.
It angers me to read certain news reports about cases such as mine when people are complaining that their tax dollars are being poured into health care for "someone like me" who chooses to do these "things" to themselves. Well I pay taxes too and I feel that getting hassle free medical care should in fact be my right. What about people who smoke and die of Respiratory complications weather it be cancer or something else. We all know that it's bad for you and it could kill you. However people get killed by walking across the street and getting hit by a bus. So why is this any different? I somehow doubt that society will ever get a clue and of course not everyone in the medical profession is anti modification either.
Another common question I stumble upon more often that not, in day to day life especially from women is how does your gynecologist deal with your piercings. More aptly the "sexual piercings" such as nipples and genitals. It's one thing to have your legs spread and have someone poking around in your genital area, however it's another when you've got piercings there as well. I've heard accounts where some have said their Doctors were merely curious about the procedure, how it was done and better yet how it feels. I've also heard other accounts about them being lectured about having their genitals pierced because of infection and so on and of course having your nipples pierced can and will affect your breastfeeding should you choose to have children and opt to take the route with said new baby.
Although I don't plan on having children myself I had to investigate this merely to satisfy my own curiosity and of course to aid any clients that I may have who generally ask that very question. I found some fairly decent information on the subject here and a few other places as well. So now I have a good argument for my next trip to the Doctors. I do advise people to take their piercings out while breastfeeding only because of the potential chocking hazard but other than that my Doctor at the time turned out to be dead wrong.
Although when I did go to the Doctors since I was a new patient of his, the look on his face while scoping out my magnificent art work was nothing short of fantastic. I was pleased that I didn't get the lecture but I did in fact get a lot of compliments on my extensive tattoo work on my legs. I was apprehensive about my VCH since he was about to be poking around up there. The only comment that I received was how nice my custom made barbell was and questions about the material and so on. So I got lucky with my Doctor not everyone does. If in the event that I had chosen someone to be blatantly ignorant about my modifications I would have told them to get more educated about the modification world. Advise them to learn to deal with it because it's becoming more and more common and they better get used to the fact that we enjoy doing what we choose to do to ourselves.
Not everyone does their research or checks the facts no matter how often this is stressed to someone, some choosing to ignore it. Sometimes the media is wrong, sometimes Doctors are wrong although most of us were brought up to believe that we can trust Doctors because they're smart and went to medical school. That may be true in some aspects but that doesn't mean that they have cultural smarts now does it? So if I ever get another Doctor more over a gynecologist that asks about my modifications in a condescending manner, I'm feeling inclined to ask them how they feel about staring at vaginas all day. I wonder if men have the same issues with showing their genital piercings as some women do. That I will leave for another time.