This is an update about my vertical tragus piercing that I had done less than a month ago. The piercing looked so good, and was pierced by a very good and competent piercer called Maxine.
At A Glance Author xinveighx Contact xinveighx@hotmail.com When A month ago Artist Maxine Studio Body Poppers Location The Forum, Sheffield, UK Everything was going fine until a week or so into the healing process. Now I have had piercings in many places and there was no way in hell it should hurt this much! I thought that it might be due to the location I mean a vertical tragus straight through cartlidge aint everyone's bag. So I just kept taking painkillers (which I hate to do!) and bathed it with warm sea salt soaks every morning and night.
It just wasnt getting any less painful...now the gunk started to come out. It was relentless and unlike anything I had ever had with any other piercings. The pain was unreal! It varied from a sharp shooting pain to a dull ache. This wasn't normal. I was damn sure that an infection had set in or that my body just didn't want this metal in my ear!
So I went back to where I had it pierced and talked to a piercer about it. (Maxine wasn't there) She said that it wasn't infected and to keep bathing it. This amount of swelling was normal for a piercing like this. Ok I thought I will keep bathing it....
The next morning I woke up to the shock of being more or less deaf in my ear! The swelling had closed my ear canal up and you couldn't see down it at all. Ok so now I was scared. This wasn't normal! I tried to get on with stuff that day which was hard because now my entire ear had gone kinda numb and red and very hot.
Casualty time for me. I gave up. I couldn't take it any longer! I handed myself over to a doctor in casualty after a 6 hour wait which involved me thumping walls, shaking, crying, bleeding, and then going into shock all due to the pain and swelling. The doctor took one look at it and removed it (well should I say fiddled a bit to get the ball off then ripped it out because it was stuck!)
I was sent home with 2 types of antibiotics and a large wad of gauze attached to my tragus! My tragus was infected but not too bad! I mean if this pain was of something that was only a little bit infected I would hate to feel what a really bad infection feels like!
I have now had my beautiful vertical tragus piercing removed for over a week. The pain did not stop with the removal of the piercing. Oh no! it gave me a lot of pain , swelling, and leaking of the tragus along with a very nice bit of hypertrophic scar tissue! The infection that I have got in my ear is called Otitis Externa which not only means my tragus was infected but all of my inner ear, conch, and other bits of cartlidge!
Iam on my second batch of antibiotics to make sure the infection clears up. All I can say is that I have been very unlucky. Vertical tragus piercings are very moody and hard to heal and keep. Iam a good healer and I can take pain quite well..but this really showed me that Im not really made of lead!
It's getting better now. Iam going to the doctors again to try to have my hypertrophic scar tissue removed as it is really begining to bug me! If you do want a vertical tragus piercing please be warned! You might have all the bits God gave you pierced and they might have healed fine but I really think that the tragus was not made to be pierced vertically! Thats why you hardly see anyone with it done. Its too rare and it can cause far too much pain!
I suppose that after this you would think that I have given up on piercing? Well until I heal up I have. Iam thinking about other projects that invlove flesh not cartlidge! In fact all of this has made me want to become a piercer as I know first hand of what to look for in an infection and what to do about it. I know some people say that removing an infetecd piercing is bad but when its down to the choice of either loosing your hearing or keep a bit of metal in your head then I know my choice! I loved this piercing but it had to go! I have the photograph that I will post up on here. It's a reminder that once it was fine and that it did look good!
If you want any information about this piercing feel free to mail me...but I figure this might have put you off!?!