Let me start off by saying I don't think before I jump into things. I work at a tattoo & body piercing parlor, and I try t stay ahead of the game. I like to get things done before most people have them done, or even think of having them done. I got my industrial done about 4 years ago, before anyone I knew had it, now I remember that it hurt really bad for a while, but I lived. I always thought about getting my right ears industrial done but I recall the hell I went threw with the left ear and I'm like no. So I was like its time for the vertical Industrial from conch to conch. Now that I'm just writing the name down it sounds like it hurts, not to mention that I'm a diabetic, so I'm not exactly the best healer.
At A Glance Author Judgement Contact Judgement@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Craig Lucas Studio Freedom of Expression Location Blasdell, NY So about 3 weeks ago, we had moved the shop to a different location, and we finished at 2:30 in the morning. To celebrate are move I decide to get that vertical industrial done. So I sit down on the piercing chair, and Craig gets out all the jewelry , needles, and what not. He tells me there is going to be 2 pops, one threw the top and one threw the bottom, well he was right and it hurt. I told him to follow right away with the 1 ½ inch barbell, just to get it over with. Well it was pretty, it was crazy looking, it was right up my ally. Went home went to bed, woke up cleaned it the best I could, but it was kind of snug in there and was throbbing. It made it tuff to clean out behind the bar, the q-tips didn't exactly fit in there. After about a week it was just to much pressure on my ear, I needed to change it and get a hardcore cleaning, just to get out all that dried blood and ooze and blood out of there that I couldn't reach.
So the next day at work I was like we have to do something about this its not working for me (I hate pain). Then my vertical industrial turned into a curved barbell on top, and a Captive Bead Ring on the bottom, this was also accompanied by a hardcore cleaning of the area. I also noticed that the ball from the top of the barbell left a nasty bruise on the back of my ear. Life goes on with this for about 5 days, and my ear is really starting to swell up and starting to ooze nasty. The curved barbell had to come out it was also irritating my ear. Probably not the greatest idea to take it out, cause now the infection is trapped in my ear. This turned into daily draining, by breaking the skin with a 19 gauge lance and squeezing it. I'm not sure if it was suppose to hurt that bad to do it but, that had to be some of the worst pain in the world, comparison of molten lava pouring out of your ear. With the captive bead ring still in I can still drain the bottom piercing with a little bit more ease. Now remember being the bad diabetic I'm this is really not good.
It has turned to the point I have to go to the doctors and get I.V.s and oral antibiotics, and some pain killers. After a few trips there we realize this isn't working and they got the scalpel out to cut it open to drain it. The doctor not wanting to mess up my ear sent me to an ear specialist who decided that I need to go to surgery and get the abscess drained from my ear. April 1st turned out to be one of the worst days of my life, surgery is horrible, well at least waking up from the sleep in great amount of pain and not really be able to do anything is the worst ever. But what they did is cut the back of my ear open with like a 3 inch gash and pack it with iodine gauze in hopes that it will pull out the infection ( I have some pictures that I will submit but I'm not sure where they would put them).
Well that was like a week ago, not even and its doing a little better, but not much, they have recently switched me to saltwater gauze which really burns. I have come to the conclusion that I'm no longer getting anymore cartilage piercing. That won't stop me from stretching my lobes still and what not but no more ear projects for me even though I think they are so amazingly cool.