Hi there, and thank you for taking the time to read this experience. Today I want to talk to you about my first ever ear piercing, which was my left helix. Also please note that some of the things I did to take care of this piercing did leave me with some scarring. Please take this experience as a caution of things not to do.
At A Glance Author Pierre. Contact valo@nbnet.nb.ca IAM Valo When Five years ago Artist Josh Studio Strict Union Location Bathurst, NB, Canada Having been pierced in the past (my labret. You can read the experience here), and having an overall pretty bad experience, I was a little nervous getting pierced again. I knew what I wanted (the cartillage of my hear, also known as a "helix"), but the problem was finding a place to go get this done. Unfortunately, the only piercer in town was untrained, and very unreliable at best. I was also starting to get a little knowledgable about piercings/tattoos, and knew better than to get pierced with a gun. So, due to the fact that I had no place to get myself pierced, I put it on the backburner.
A few months later, I found out the local skate shop and paintball equipment store had brought in a tattoo artist and a piercer to their shop, and had converted part of the back into an actual studio. I went in and started speaking with Josh, the piercer. He had a portfolio, which was a new thing to me, and was very reassuring. I advised him of the piercing I wanted, and I got a price of $40 quoted to me. Unfortunately, he was still waiting on most of his order for jewelry to come in, so he took down my phone number and told me he would call me when jewelry of small enough diameter would come in.
About a week later, I got the call I was waiting for. I came in, forty dollars in hand, and looked at the jewelry. I chose a black titanium CBR for the piercing. He then told me he was going to get it sterilized (another new thing to me) and that it was going to be ready in about 20 or so minutes. We sat back and talked business, as it was his first shop (he was apparently renting the space in the shop) and I was in the midst of buying my own record store (Blah Records. snoogans). He then brought me to the piercing room, which was actually a converted bathroom with the bathtub removed to give it more room. It was freshly redone with new flooring. He asked me where I wanted it, I showed him. he then put some gloves on and marked my ear. He asked if I liked the placement, I loved it. He then went in the next room and came back with a packaged needle, and showed me that he was taking a brand new needle from the package, and that the jewelry was also packaged and just got out of the clave. He cleaned my ear, then changed his gloves. He then asked if I was ready. I said yes. he told me to breathe in and out. of the second breath, he pushed the needle through.
I would be lying if I said it didn't hurt, because it did. It's kind of expected when you have a 14ga sharp piece of metal pushed through the cartillage of your ear. It's nothing that will kill you, however. Josh then put the jewelry through, which was a little raw. Luckily, I didn't bleed a single drop. He then told me of the basic aftercare (clean ring, sea salt soaks), which I did. After about a month or so, it felt healed.
Unfortunately, I lost the ball to the ring a few months later. So the ring didn't fall off, I pushed the opened end in my ear, so it looked like an orbital. Unfortunately for me, this put a great deal of pressure on the back of the piercing itself and a keloid-type-thing started developing on the back of the piercing. After a few months, it had evolved to something about 3mm high, and was hurting like a motherfucker. Due to my relative inexperience, I tried to cut the scar, but it wouldn't cut through. I also didn't have any clue BME existed, and the piercer had moved to BC so I had no way to inform myself of what to do with this. A few days later, I had to retire the piercing. I still have the scar to this day.
Here's my take on the situation, in hopes more people don't make the same mistake as I did: A bead is cheap; roughly five or ten dollars. Most shops should have some spares laying around. It's not worth jeopardizing your piercing for some change for a bead.