Fun With Dermal Punches

At A Glance Author Dannyshmanny Contact dannyshmanny@hotmail.com Artist Paul B. Studio Inkvision Location Boise, ID

I dig piercing. A lot. When I left my home town of Boise,ID and scored a piercing apprenticeship in Olympia,WA, I was completely giddy. With all the spare time I have sitting around waiting for customers at the shop, I do a decent bit of piercing pondering. And now I have large gauge cartiledge piercings on the brain.

Every year for my birthday, my girlfriend gets me another piercing. My birthday is the day before Christmas, so we were back in Boise visiting our families this year. While checking out Boise's finest studio, I noticed that prices were drastically lower than the two shopped Olympia. Competition is a good thing. Even with my nice shop discount, the deal I struck with Paul, piercer at Inkvision, couldn't be beat. We decided on a 2 gauge dermal punching on my ear wherever it would work best.

After checking my ear for viens, we were left with only two placement possibilities, a spot on the helix or smack dab in the middle of the conch. I picked the conch because I wanted to be able to put a large diameter 10 gauge CBR through my earlobe plug and my soon to be conch plug.

I had a seat on the examination table and prepared myself. As I meditated on the table, I found I was able to reach a state of relaxation that would normally take a good half hour in a matter of moments. "I'm ready. How about you?" I asked Paul.

"All systems go" he replied and started prepping my ear. I looked over to my girlfriend, Heather. She seemed a little worried. I looked to Paul and saw him coming at me with a dermal punch. He informed me he was just marking the placement.

A line from Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue" was playing itself over and over in my head. "He went down but to my surprise he come up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear". Sick, sick, sick.

"This isn't going to go through quickly like a normal piercing, you'll need to breathe nice and deep while this is being done," Paul informed me. On that, he began. I watched Paul grunt and push and watched my girlfriend wince at me, but tried not to pay any attention to the sensation coming from my ear. After a few moments, my ear made a loud popping sound and the punch broke through to the other side.

I wouldn't call the feeling pain. Have any of you ever eaten a piece of squid sushi? You know the way the squid sort of splits under your teeth? That is the best way I can describe the whole deal.

Now comes the reason why I got such a good deal. Instead of rushing for the jewelry, Paul goes for his camera and begins snapping away. I smile prettily, dermal punch firmly lodged in my ear. After our photography session is complete, Paul starts to insert the jewelry. He found it a little dificult and decided to pass a taper through to ease the insertion. I noticed the blood trickling down the side of my head as Paul finished putting in the jewelry.

After watching my piercing, Heather was moved to get something for herself also. She went with a 12 gauge septum piercing. As Paul was cleaning up my blood and setting up for Heather, we talked about the pros and cons of piecing the septum with a septum clamp and doing it freehand with a recieving tube. In the end, we reached the conclusion that we work at different shops.

Heather hopped up on the table and assumed the position. She seamed a little nervous. I reassured her that the septum is one of the easier ones and that she would do just fine. Paul cleaned the area and placed his clamp. Then came the needle. Heather winced a little and her eyes watered, smudging her eyeliner and sending black trails from her eyes to her ears. The jewelry was put in and that was that. As Heather was fixing her make-up, she called me a liar. Paul then snapped a couple pictures of her new piercing.

Paul gave us his card and we exchanged email addresses. He later sent us all of the pictures. Being the inflated guy I can sometimes be, I framed the pictures and hung them in my bathroom. Maybe I am just twisted.

In retrospect, I wish I would have went with the full price and not have had the procedural pictures taken. Although I was fine at the start, I was finding it very difficult to bare towards the end. It made me twitch a little. Se la vi.

It's been a week since the piercing and I can tell it is going to be a fast healer. I soak it in sea salt water and then wash it with dial and apply benzalkonium chloride to the piercing twice a day. I also take huge dose of zinc and vitamin C in hopes of accelerating the healing process. Heather's nose isn't giving her any problems either. All in all I am very, VERY pleased with this years B-day present.