The first time the idea of having large holes in my lobes came to me when I was about 12 years old,
At A Glance Author Lex Contact Lex@bme.anon IAM crazybrujo When A month ago Artist Mr X and Mrs N Studio Not allowed to tell Location London
I was living in Colombia at the time and I saw native indians with large hanging lobes. I looked into tribal body mods and saw the usual, septums, lobes and labrets. All were rites of passage that cam with the coming of age.Now years later (5 years) I felt that I was old enough to undergo these mods as my "rite of passage" into adulthood, first came my 14ga/1.6mm septum piercing in october and then a 14ga/1.6mm medusa in november (which I had to retire because it was badly done), but I had felt that I had finally arrived at the age where Iīm expected to grew up, and to mark this occasion I decided to get both of my lobes pierced.
At first I came to BME to do research by reading experiences, I decided to go to a large size initially and then stretch with slightly heavy cbrīs or circular barbells, but first i had to get the holes in my lobes first. Dermal punching straight to 3ga/5mm was my initial plan, so I asked around on IAM and somebody reffered me to Cold Steel in Camden, I contacted them via e-mail enquiring wether they could dermal punch at 3ga/5mm, but I recieved a reply a few days later saying that punching lobes at that gauge would mess up the lobes. So at this point I was kind of disappointed, I even thought of getting someone to pierce at 10ga/3.2mm and either let the piercing heal and then stretch, or immeadiately taper the piercing up to 3ga/5mm, but this would cause to much trauma to the new piercing and might leave the placement of the initial jewelry unbalanced.
The next week I attended a BME meet in London and met Mr X (The procedure in this country is ilegal in this country so Iīm not going to name names), who is very well experienced in holes and tats, a week or so after the meet I e-mailed and asked him if he could dermal punch my lobes for me, he said yes. I decided on going straight to 3ga/5mm, when I asked him about the price he quoted me 40 pounds and I had the get the jewelry my self, no problem.
I looked around online and went to Wildcats site and saw that they sold flesh tubes from, my mom was taking a trip to Brighton (where Wildcat is located) and she paid for my ticket as long as I took notes about a property for her, which I did, anyway, I made my way to Wildcat, and once I got there I decided to get 2ga/6mm jewelry instead of 3ga/5mm flesh tubes. On my way back home I called up Mr X and told him that I would like to go 2ga/6mm instead of 3ga/5mm and he was Ok with it, but instead of dermal punching my lobes he would be using a cautery gun. This was the first I had ever heard of cauterizing lobes, but I went along with it because whatīs a mod worth with out any pain?
I called up Mr X on a monday and asked him when would be the best time to go through with the procedure, he said that he could do it the same day, I agreed, thinking I could get the cash, but I couldnīt because the person who was going to give me the cash had gone away till thursday and hadnīt told me about it, so when I found out about this I called up Mr X and told him why I couldnīt make it for that day, so we re-scheduled for friday at 6.30pm.
Thursday came, I got the moola and prepared myself for the next day, no drinking or drugs, I had some cider but not enough to screw up my lobes for the next day. I called Mr X and confirmed the appointment and got ready for the procedure, I waited for my brother to get back from school, he was getting his eyebrow as a birthday present from me, so at 6pm we made our way to the studio and explained to the staff on duty (Mrs N) why I was there and she called Mr X to come to the studio, she asked me wether I had bought my flesh tubes with me and I passed them to her, she autoclaved them, some disinfectant on the o-rings and put the flesh tubes in something sterile. While my brother filled out the form to get his eyebrow pierced she asked what I had to eat and drink before coming out, I told that I had a vegetarian lasagna and some milk. She told me to drink something with glucose, I went and brought a bottle of Lucozade (a glucose sports drink) and drunk it while my brother had his eyebrow pierced, which was quite well done.
Mr X arrived with someone else who ran another division of the studio elsewhere, anyway, him and Mrs N prepped the area, the end of the examination table was turned into the diagonal position, she told me told me to sit on the examination tables facing toward hel so she could clean my lobes and then mark up the area to be cauterized, I checked them and was slightly un happy with the positioning so we moved them slightly further up, the ultimate size to which I would stretch was a determining factor so the mark were in the middle of my lobes and slightly higher up off the centre point. Mr X got his cauterizing unit out and plugged it in, he talked about how when dermal punching is used it loosens the surrounding area and stretches the skin slightly and makes the lobes look odd, this is why he cauterizes, so he can control the effect that the hole will have on the rest of the lobes.
He told he that the cauterizing gun would hurt a lot and I would smell the burning flesh, but I didnīt really mind as I feel that sometimes a painless mod is slightly less tribal, so I lied back on the examination table and he held on to right lobe and began to cauterize, the pain was immense but itīs really not that bad when you think about something else, so after about 5 minutes of burning he worked from the back of the lobe to the front, he finally made the hole and put an o-ring on one of the flesh tubes and slid it through the hole and then put the o-ring on the other side, the process was very similar on the left lobe, but this time I knew what to expect and I kept my cool. So after the second flesh tubes was through and the o-ring fixed I recieved the aftercare advice from him and Mrs N, as with most flesh perforations using a sea-salt water soak twice a day was appropiate, using cotton buds soaked in water and squeezed between fingers to clean the surrounding areas was also good advice. Mrs N told me that my lobes would be hyper sensitive to heat and cold, heat would make them feel weird and possibly hurt whereas cold would make the lobes feel good. I was also told that I would be in pain for 2-3 weeks and that a mix of panadal and ibuprofen would kill the pain.
That night I lost an o-ring, smoked dope and slep on my right lobe, not smart moves. Itīs been about three weeks since the procedure and I suprisingly havenīt felt any pain (except for when I hit them on get them caught on clothing by accident), I havenīt been hyper sensetive to the temperature and the only problem Iīve had so far is the discharge which was quite high because I sleep on my sides and this aggrevated them so they have off a lot off discharge (my advice, donīt use light coloured pillow covers, mine was white with round discharge marks, so I changed to a dark green pillow cover and I try to sleep on my back.
I use sterile examination gloves when I clean, as to avoid infection and sometimes when the tubes slip out (I remove the rings for cleaning) I see that the lobes has healed nicely around the jewelry, but they arenīt completely healed yet, but when they do Iīm going to begin stretching up to 10mm or possibly 14mm.
This is not a procedure for people not willing to experience pain for such extreme mods, Iīms not even sure what to call this mod, because it really just a burn, not a piercing. I have some slightly fuzzy photos on my IAM page. Iīll submit some high res ones to BME soon.