Does DaVo do Dermal Anchors?

The long one is that I do not do pocketing or other extreme body modification. Such as Branding, Sub-Dermal Implants, Tongue Spliting, Teeth Filing, Pearling, Penis Spliting, Nulification or countless other procedures that should preformed by a licensed Surgeon or Dentist. For the same reasons that you wouldn't go to a piercer for more extreme plastic surgery procedures such as breast augmentation. Many would say that dermial implants and pocketing(which is what you are actually doing) are not as extreme or prone to risks like infection and scarring but basic the concept is the same. Save one difference, the implant has a hole to attach jewelry to. 

For those that don't know what pocketing is, so here's a basic step by step:

1. First the area is cleaned with a surgical scrub and marked
2. A large gauge piercing need or dermial punch is slow pushed into the tissue to make a 90 degree cut or smiley face unlike a piercing which is done with one quick motion from one side of the area to the other.
3. Then the  dermis layer is separated from the connective tissue with a taper pin or elevator to create a pocket area the shape of the anchor.
4. Like a button on a shirt, the anchor is forced into the tissue length wise and then pushed into place.

Though the method has changed from those used for surface bars, it is basically the same. Since dermal anchors don't involve two pockets, there is a reduced likelihood of migration. Also there is less stress on the pockets as there would be with a heavier bar. However, the chances are that if the body is given a choice it will reject the piercing.  This is the fact that the body will have to product more tissue to seal or grow the pocket of skin around the anchor than it would with a traditional piercing. Unlike a piercing where there are two sides and the piercer can adjust the dept of the piercing to reduce rejection, with a pocket the dept is not as adjustable and thus more prone to migration or the pocket never forming and closing the wound.

It comes down to one of the most basic principles of piercing, placing a foreign object into the body in a way where it is easy for the body to adapt and accept the foreign object then it is for it to reject it. One the body accepts the object it will begin to grow tissue around the object to close the wound. With pocketing and anchoring often it is easier for the body to reject the piercing than to heal or it will not completely accept the foreign object and slowly migrate the object out of the body. Add to that stress to the jewelry like catching on clothing, towels, bedding, or physical abuse like sleeping on the area and you will have a faster rejection.

The current method of Dermal Anchoring has been around since 2003 or 2004 and I first started seeing examples of pocketing around 1995 or 1996 but Dermal Anchoring has only really started to gain popularity since 2009. At the writing of this article I have yet to see one that has lasted more than a few years and hasn't needed to be redone. While there are piercings that I did as far back as 1994 that still show no signs of rejections. As a piercer ethics have to play a part in how I pierce, what piercing I'm willing to do and what is best for the long term health of my clients. Doing a procedure that is not will likely reject and thus produce scarring in often very visible parts of the body goes against my ethics.