At A Glance Author snowmellen Contact snowmellen@bme.anon IAM snowmellen When Two years ago Location Ottawa, Guelph & Toronto, ON History
My lobes were first pierced as a birthday present from my parents when I turned six. I remember parts of it vividly, but most of the experience has faded into the blurred oblivion of childhood memories. My ear lobes were gunned, one after the other, with "king-size" studs (my mother's idea; she then said that I could wear any size earring, and not experience pain when I put them in, as she often did). I sat in the chair, and was marked. I can remember the adults carefully making sure they were well-centered in my little lobes, and that first punch.
I can almost taste the next part, the memory is so vivid: starting in shock and crying out. The pain I don't remember, and I don't think I noticed; but the sheer surprise! It was enormous, and completely unexpected. I was allowed to get down from the chair and look at it in the mirror. I have an image forever burned into my memory: my childish face, nose now reddened and tears flowing down my cheeks, staring at the pink zirconium stud and being elated. And I remember being completely determined to have the other one done. I actually don't remember the second at all, nor much after that. I remember my mother helping to clean them faithfully with rubbing alcohol for the first little while, but after that I think we both succumbed to my childish forgetfulness and aversion to all things unpleasant.
It would be wrong of me to say that I would recommend either the procedure or the aftercare; both have serious problems, and probably led to their prolonged, uncomfortable and idiosyncratic healing process. They became, for a time, my early warning system for sickness- they would feel "thickened", sore and warm a day or two before I came down with a cold. Over the intervening years I would take change the earrings a million times, losing most of mine along the way. I would not wear anything in the holes for periods of several years, and then I would put some earrings in for some occasion and I would never have a problem- the holes never closed up at all. Then, one year, I cut my hair short, bought 3 identical pairs of small silvery hoops (so I could lose several and still have a matching pair) and managed to keep them in. The hoops had a thicker section (appeared around 14g), and a thinner post that went through my ears, which clipped up at the back. They looked nice, close to CBRs in fact, but I always had to be careful to keep them clean since they had a rather disgusting fondness for developing some unpleasant build-up in the parts of the hinge and the clip.
One day, I was out shopping and found some little 14g CBRs, stainless steel with purple acrylic balls. The girl who sold them to me looked at me suspiciously and asked what gauge my ears were. I truthfully had no idea, but told her that these would fit. Thank-you girl for your inattention. Thank-you self for excellent spatial skills. I suppose this was the beginning. I brought those 14's home and slid them right in, just like changing jewelry. No problem, no feeling at all. Basically from just wearing earrings and incessantly playing with my ears when I was small I already had 14 gauge holes. That was fine with me, I had what I wanted with no pain, no effort. Truthfully, I had never expected pain; I just figured they would fit, and that they did.
Those CBRs I wore for a very long time and loved them to pieces. They had no small parts to lose, they fit well and I was happy with them. The though of going bigger had crossed my mind on various occasions, but I am a creature of patience and figured I'd wait and be sure, and see if I still wanted to go for it a little while down the road.
That time down the road came, without me ever consciously deciding on it. About a year later, I was in university. One of the central buildings almost always has market-style vendors in it, selling books, CD's, candy, and very often jewelry (anything that caters to the appetite of students). We were browsing through the selection, and came across a vendor with a large selection of surprisingly good quality UV jewelry. It was colourful, bright, and best of all: inexpensive. He had little acrylic CBRs, $12 CDN for a pair, and they were just too fun to pass up. But the 14 gauge jewelry seemed quite flimsy and breakable, so I opted for a little larger and sturdier 12 gauge light-blue-and-clear striped CBRs. I took them home, washed up with some antibacterial soap, and slipped them in easily. Again for this jump it was as easy as changing jewelry, nothing like trying to forcibly stretch collagen-stiffened tissue. The 12's fit slightly more snugly than my 14's, but the diffe rence was so small as to be negligible. I discovered soon, however, the flexibility of acrylic at such small a gauge, and found that the beads were continually coming out as I slept, so I switched back to my standbys of the 14's.
Last Summer
Another period of time went by, and I found myself in the summertime, working to pay my rent and tuition for the fall. One of the places I worked was with a bunch of people my age and demographic, and we went on a staff outing to a piercing studio, and each of us chose a body part to be pierced. In the environment of an entire staff of pro-mod people dutifully performing aftercare on coffee breaks and discussing the ins-and-outs of the healing process on a daily basis, I started again to think of moving larger, and made the conscious decision that I would. On a shopping trip, we were browsing in a store that sells a wide variety of lovely quality jewelry. I found some deep blue acrylic talons that I decided that I would purchase, as a goal for myself. I deliberated for quite a while, and then purchased them in a 4 gauge. I knew that it would be a long time before I could do anything with these, but I liked them, had the money at that point in time, and found it a good g oal to set myself at. I also purchased some 10g SSS CBRs.
This time I knew I was going to feel the change. At home, I washed my hands, my ears and the earrings with antibacterial soap, squeezed some water-based lube onto a freshly opened piece of sterile gauze, placed the CBRs on that as well and proceeded to inspect what I was up to. The ends on the CBRs were smooth and slightly tapered to where they would meet the ball. I worked a little on trying to get the CBR through first my left ear; then, unsuccessful and not wanting to force it, I tried my right. In both I went from back to front, so as to see more clearly, and in both I could see the metal just peeking out; but for me, it didn't feel right to give that extra tearing push to get those 10's through. So I washed up my little acrylic 12's and put them in instead, to ease the jump and loosen my lobes. My ears were sore from my effort, in a way that they felt thickened back-to-front and warm for perhaps an hour or two, but this was gone by the time I went to sleep. I wore t he 12's for a week, before becoming too annoyed with the effort of taking the beads off every night or trying to find them in the sheets in the morning. I decided it was definitely time to try again. Again, my entire washing, lube-on-gauze procedure, and again I worked back to front. This time however, it worked; I was astonished at the difference made by wearing the 12's for a week. As I pushed slowly but steadily, I could fell the metal of the earring thread easily into my lobe to the midpoint, where it reached the constriction in the middle of my fistula that I could not pass earlier. I could see the tip of the CBR peering from my lobe. This time however, I didn't feel the same "wrongness" pain, and so continued to push. All of a sudden, there was a brief flash of a burning feeling, and it was through. I was elated.
The other one was the same. With the larger gauge in, I found the thickened, under-pressure warmth lasted for about 24 hours, before they quickly went back to being just my ears.
Fall
Back at university, and a friend and I stopped at the same jewelry vendor's stand where I purchased some nifty acrylic 8 gauge CBRs in light blue and UV yellow, the kind I had been thinking of getting and subconsciously looking for over the past few weeks.
I took my CBRs home and the next day, when I had some time, washed them and everything else up with some surgical scrub (Chlorehexadine solution, the same antibacterial agent as in Provon), a little Polysporin for lubrication on a gauze square and a mirror, and I worked on carefully getting it through. I started with the right one, and slowly began applying steadily increasing pressure. I could see the slimmer part of the CBR peeking through my hole, and it began to feel decidedly warm. I then felt an intensely burning "ring of fire" sensation right as is slid through. As usual, I stretched back-to-front so I could see what I was doing. The right one went in without a problem, but, much to my surprise and dismay, when I did my left lobe, part of the fistula was externalized in the stretch; there was now a reddened ring of skin in front of my hole. A blowout, and not something I was at all interested in keeping. So I took out the 8's, and popped my 10's back in to wait an d heal.
Winter
It's been months since I had the chance to thing about putting any work into my lobes. Term papers, exams, and the snowboarding season have kept me too busy; and the slow, delicate healing of an industrial has kept me from wishing any more trauma on my body. I did, however, manage to pick up a nice (cheap) 8 gauge acrylic spike with o-rings to use as a taper to ease the stretch, instead of relying on the rounded curve of the CBRs.
Summer
Finished exams, and out into the working world for 4 months. I wasn't planning on doing anything until I got back to school, but the job I have is very open and accepting, so wouldn't mind me having slightly bigger holes in my ears (they would probably be overlooked: my industrial is the real attention whore). So I was planning on finally putting in those 8 gauge acrylic CBR that I'd bought so long ago. I'd slept in this Sunday morning, showered and generally pampered myself; I was feeling clean, refreshed and done up. As I was q-tipping my ears, I decided that this would be an excellent time to upgauge my lobes. I went and took everything out from where it had been sitting in clean little packages for the past several months. Cleaned the CBRs and the acrylic taper with antibacterial soap, laid them out on some toilet paper (no gauze available this time). Closed the drain, washed my hands and removed my 10's from my shower-scrubbed holes (I found I needed to clean them very well daily to prevent slight, but annoying, ear funk).
I removed the o-rings from the little acrylic taper, lubed it up with Polysporin, and proceeded to slide in through, back-to-front. I started with my left ear, since it had been the problematic one. It slipped in easily up until a little over halfway. I could feel pressure on the brink of pain and knew that I could either back out or go for it. I took a deep breath and pushed, it slid smoothly, causing an increasing burning sensation, the "ring of fire" right around my hole; and then suddenly the increase in pain stopped and there was only a warm, dull sensation. I had reached the non-tapering, 8 gauge section. Now to get the CBR in. I put some extra Polysporin on the end of the taper, since it wasn't inclined to slide any further through my sorry abused ear. I slid the taper out, and then the CBR in, without issue at all, despite the fact that I wasn't able to follow it in as smoothly as I'd hoped.
The right side I followed the same procedure. It went more smoothly this time, with definitely less pain, and I was able to follow up the taper with the CBR better as well. Then I proceeded to wash my hands clean from the Polysporin and work to place in the beads. Thankfully, acrylic is flexible, so getting them in wasn't a problem and didn't move my ears around much, so it was quite pain-free. To my surprise, however, I discovered my hands were shaking ever so slightly, but enough that I dropped on of the beads into the sink (closed drain- remember?), but I picked it up, washed it again, and inserted it without issue. Two hours later, my ears were slightly reddened and sore when bumped, but otherwise no pain if they weren't disturbed. Within a day the right one was back to normal, and within about 3, the left as well. I found that the acrylic in the beginning was very snug, and caused some discomfort when I tried to turn the earrings without a bit of moisturizer, but after about 2 weeks I could turn the earrings with ease.
I've been keeping this experience for 8 months now, adding to and updating as I go along. My ears are by no means finished and in a way, their story will never be. I still have those 4 gauge acrylic tapers I purchased over a year ago, I'm planning on putting them in come the fall. I will be continuing to write and record my progress. One of the reason why I'm progressing so slowly is that I'm acutely aware of the fact that even if many peoples' lobes shrink upon the removal of larger-gauge jewelry, mine probably won't. I scar easily, and kept lobes open for years without earrings. As well- I have rest of my life to have my ears progress- I may as well enjoy the differently sized-jewelry as I wear it, as opposed to only wearing it for a month before going larger. . By taking my time, thinking about it, and doing it in such a way that I can minimize scarring I can do my best to make sure I'll never regret the decisions I've made.