There is a tattoo artist in the town where I'm from. He wears the same shirt for work everyday, and the shirt reads "Hell yes it hurts!"
At A Glance Author RevBLK IAM revblk When Six months ago Artist Susan Studio Sacred Grounds Location Bradenton, FL Every time I read that shirt I think of my inner conchs.
It had been about a month since I had gotten my first piercing, my labret, done in my home town of Boise. I was now back in my adopted home of Sarasota, 3,000+ miles away, and I was beginning to sense a breaking point. However good my giant wooden labret spike looked, it wasn't enough. I needed something more, something distinct. My aesthetic was in serious need of more metal, and my physical image was in serious need of alteration. I did what any reasonable would-be pierced fellow would do. I went to BME. I got to looking around, and I began to ponder a piercing that I have long found to be exceedingly beautiful: the septum. On a whim, I picked up the phone and called my good friend Page to see if he was busy. As he was not, I inquired as to whether or not he would be interested in going with me to get my septum pierced. After a prolonged period of him berating me for wanting to get my septum pierced, he agreed to take me, and we began discussing where we would go. I decid ed that the shop where he had his lip pierced, a shop called White Tiger, would be good enough for me, if it lived up to reasonable standards of cleanliness and competency. I had already compiled a list of various shops around town, and as it was getting late, I decided that relying on the opinion of my good friend should be reason enough for me.
Page showed up 15 minutes later to pick me up, and we were off. We went to White Tiger, and walked in, only to be greeted with a large number of people in a relatively small room. I asked a few questions about their shop, and after being told it would be a 15 minute wait, decided to take that time to go with Page to the store and consider whether or not I wanted to do this. I was still very unsure of whether or not I wanted my septum pierced. I had my pros, and I had my cons. So we went to the store, and I wandered about very ambivalently, and as we left, it began to rain. I took that as a portent, and we went home.
Later that night I was up in the lounge of our dorms, and two of my friends came home having just gotten their noses pierced. How fortuitous - a sign! I asked them all about the shop, and when another colleague of ours, Gigi, showed up and noted that she wanted to get pierced, I pounced on the situation like a cat on a cheese-filled mouse. I sent her to check out BME and decide what she wanted, and I took that deciding time to go back to my room and double-check the decision I had made after my abortive septum run. Like Romeo's choosing of Juliet over Rosaline, I had decided to get my inner conchs done instead.
Gigi had decided to have her eyebrow pierced, and we decided to go the next day late in the afternoon. When the time came, we both realized that we each thought the other had a car, and had to make a mad dash to find someone with a car to get us down the road to get the aforementioned needling. Luck was with us, as we found my friend Crazy Steve. Steve drove us down to the piercing parlor of the hour; a shop called Sacred Grounds. There I was met with a glorious site - their gorgeous piercer, Susan. After the requisite paperwork, a lot of questions on my part, and a cigarette, we went into the back room to get started. Gigi went first, and after she was done, it was my turn. I got on the table, and waited. After marking my ears and checking with me, Susan prepared my first needle and came to my ear. She told me to breathe in, and out, and in, and then she shoved, and kept shoving, and I felt an immense tearing sensation, and ripping/popping sound as the needle tore through m y ear. And the first ear was done. Such an adrenaline rush. Being a little dizzy, I had Steve run to the pop machine to get me a Mountain Dew. Sweet caffeine. I chugged the sucker, took a few deep breaths, and told Susan I was ready. She marked my ear and prepared the needle, and told me to breathe. And we did it again. The second one hurt worse. Perhaps it was because I knew what was coming, perhaps because I was weakened from the first one. I don't know.
After cleaning up the blood that had sprayed everywhere from my ear, I paid Susan, and we left. We stopped at Wal-greens to pick up some relevant healing materials like ibuprofen, and antibacterial soap.
I had a headache for the rest of the hour or two I was up, and then I just decided to give up and go pass out. It was at that time I figured out what a predicament I had put myself in. I couldn't lay on either side to sleep, and being as I can't sleep facing down, I realized I would be spending the next extended period of time sleeping on my back.
Aftercare was not so much problematic as it was extended. It took nigh on 6 months to stop having crust appear around the holes each morning. On each ear I found that at one time or another they produced a bubble of some sort which friends have debated over its being a keloid or an infection, but suffice it to say a bubble filled with blood and pus. I treated this by lancing the fucker, draining it, and applying a paste of water and aspirin to it. The aspirin worked like magic. The keloid-things were gone almost overnight.
Would I say this piercing is worth getting? Absolutely. It is gorgeous, and bold. Despite how painful it was, and it was quite painful, I've never had anyone inquire as to how it felt to get it pierced. Most people are far more concerned with how painful it was to have my labret done (which it wasn't). So that's how my inner conch piercing went down. Hope yours goes well.