Your done already? My Tragus Piercing Experience

At A Glance Author madame a Contact avery.wittkamp@colorado.edu Studio Tribal Rites Location Boulder, CO

I've been a huge fan of BME for the past year, ever since I had started researcing for my tattoo, but that's an entirely different story. A couple of months ago, I decided that I really wanted to get my tragus pierced after examining many of the ear piercing pictures on BME. Also, I had a friend or two with this piercing, and I really liked the way it looked in the ear. I thought it was definitely not an extremely common piercing, but definitely a beautiful one.

I already have two helix pierings on my left ear (done by ear piercing gun, oh the horror of it all!), a helix piercing on my right ear (done by a professional), and two lower lobe piercings, the bottom which are stretched to a two gauge. I decided to pierce my right tragus, because I thought it would complement the single helix piercing. I had read many experiences about tragus piercings and was expecting to have somewhat of a painful, bloody, cartilage crunching experience. I knew that I wanted the experience to be done by someone with experience (and would have enough strength and agility to push the needle in quickly and swiftly) and at a clean shop.

I chose Tribal Rites in Boulder, CO (I go to school here) because it was the cleanest, most professional shop located here. I decided to go with one of my friends who wanted to get her tongue pierced, because I really didn't want to go by myself. I wasn't afraid of chickening out (After my 2.5 hour tattoo experience over my spine, I'm not afraid of pain for the most part.), but it was nice to have someone to go with. So, we headed out to the shop and went in to ask if we would have to make appointments or if there would be time to take us that day. They said they didn't need to take appointments, so we headed across the street to get something to eat before our piercing experiences. Especially for my friend, she wanted to get something to eat, because she probably wouldn't be eating anything solid for a week.

After dinner, we headed back, and I told the shop girl what I wanted to get done. She asked me what gauge I wanted, and I replied 16 gauge. She warned me that if I wanted to wear a barbell in it that I would have to stretch to 14 gauge, but I replied that I knew that I would probably never wear a barbell in it. I picked a dark blue ball for the CBR, and she took my jewelry in the back to sterilize it and let the piercer know what I wanted, and let him set up everything in the back. I flipped through a wall of flash for a while, noting that many of the designs were exactly the same as flash in VA (where I got my tattoo) which I thought was pretty funny. Just a side note: If you get a tattoo, try and get it custom, I mean do you want the same thing someone else has? Unless your a flash junkie or something and that's your thing.

Anyways! My ID got photocopied, and I read and signed the waiver, and then I was called back to the piercing cubicle. It was very sterile and my piercer had me lay down in the chair. He cleaned my ear off, marked it, and made sure I liked the placement. I agreed, and he told me to sit back down and start breathing. At this point, I thought he was clamping my ear, but he was so quick I felt pressure on my tragus, and he said, get up and look. I was in shock! I heard no crunch, pop, anything disgusting and did not feel this excruciating pain! I was so happy. I guess it bled a bit, and he wiped it off with some q-tips, but I got up and looked at my beautiful new piercing. I was given aftercare instructions, a pamphlet, his card, and was set on my merry way. I paid him (and I got a discount from a coupon I had!) and made sure I tipped him for his awesome job.

I use diluted bactine/ear care solution, because I know that my ears heal fine with this. I use a q-tip and clean off the crusties every am and pm and will continue to do this until they stop forming. I also made sure to not sleep on it (I still try not to), try not to touch it or play with, and rinse all the suds from my ear after my shower. It's still healing, but it has been doing very well so far. I recommend this piercing to anyone, and don't ever let the fear of pain stop you from doing something you want. Pain is relative, and you never remember it anyway once you get through it. My future piercing plans are a septum and scrumper piercing, and possibly a nape piercing (I'd love to get one done by Luis in Philly!) but that's all in the future. Write me if you have any questions about anything!

Happy piercing!