I first considered the idea of a dermal punch in my ear about a year ago. I like larger gauge piercings, but I knew how painful cartilage piercings are to stretch, so a dermal punch was my only real option. I'd talked about it a few times since, but not really made any plans to get it, as I was busy getting other mods.
At A Glance Author vampy Contact vampy@vampy.co.uk IAM vampy When A month ago Artist Sarge Studio Metal Fatigue Location Bournemouth, UK Last week I was out shopping in a surgical supplies shop with Sarge, buying sutures and some tools. Just as we were about to pay, I remembered, and asked if they sold biopsy punches. The assistant led us over to a cupboard, and got out several boxes of them. The largest size they had in stock was 5mm, which was great as that was the size I'd been considering getting.
Later on that day I had a play with one of the punches to make a circular cutting on my leg next to the star cutting I already have. I wanted to see what it felt like, and it wasn't as bad as I expected, certainly not as sharp a pain as a scalpel. I knew going through my ear was going to be a little tougher, but I wasn't expecting it to be too painful as there'd be no pressure on the piercing after the initial pain.
I had planned to heal the piercing without jewellery, with a gauze in containing various herbs to promote healing, but I decided to read some experiences from BME to see if there were any better ideas. After a couple of hours of reading I found the following methods used:
1) Punch and insert the same size jewellery, punch and use a gauge smaller, 2) punch and stretch to a larger gauge, or 3) punch and leave the hole to heal without jewellery.
Using the jewellery the same size or smaller than the punch made sense, as it would help stem bleeding, but the healing time is a lot longer and as I have long hair I was sure it would get caught on the plug. Punching and then stretching just seemed stupid to me. It may stop bleeding quickly, but must be so painful to heal. Healing without jewellery seemed just what I wanted to do, the only problem being I might not be able to get it to stop bleeding. As the cartilage hole will never heal, I wasn't too worried about the hole starting to close up, as I could easily taper jewellery in later.
The next day we were ready to go ahead with it. I was staying with Sarge at the time, so we had full access to everything in his studio. I borrowed and sterilised a 4mm and a 5mm tunnel to use if blood was a problem, and waited until 6pm when the studio shut. I'd asked a couple of people if they wanted to come and watch, as it was to be Sarge's first dermal punch, so once I was ready to go, I had to hang around a little waiting for everyone to turn up. I told everyone how in every single experience I read on BME the person had eaten the bit that came out of their ear. That didn't appeal to me, seems equivalent to eating bellybutton fluff or toenail clippings or something.
I have been pierced a lot of times before, and have experienced things that many people think you need to be 'hardcore' to do, like suspending and getting implants. Well, I'm not hardcore. Even my first navel piercing hurt me. My friends all laugh every time I get pierced because of the noises I make. About half an hour before getting pierced I always start to panic. I know it will hurt, I don't even mind too much as I know it will be over quickly, yet still my natural fear kicks in and I start to worry about the pain.
To take my mind off it I went to set up the room. The most nerve-wracking part of getting pierced for me is sitting on the bench waiting for the piercer to get everything ready, so I wanted everything to be done. Firstly I marked up my ear. I got a bullet keeper out that had a flat back about 6mm diameter, and dipped this in gentian violet making a circle on my ear. I had wanted it placed close to my head, but I'd not be able to put my hair behind my ears, and I think it would be pretty hard to keep clean. So I decided to move further out. I had an existing piercing done with a gun many years ago that I couldn't wear jewellery in while I slept because it wasn't pierced at the right angle, so I decided to punch out that hole.
Sarge had previously checked that there were no obvious large veins in the area, and there were none at all. I don't tend to bleed much, but I'd never done anything quite like this before, so wasn't going to make things any harder than they needed to be. I set out the couch and got the dermal punch and cork and technicare out, along with a lot of tissue.
Sarge arrived with a group of around 6 people, all armed with cameras. I mostly ignored them I think, my vision was focused straight ahead and I was just trying to relax. I had anticipated doing it lying down, but Sarge said he'd rather do it like an ear piercing with me sitting. I agreed so long as there was someone behind me to catch me if I fainted. Sarge had asked Simon to help him, so they both gloved up and got into place. Sarge put the cork onto the back of my ear, and asked if I was ready. I said 'uh-huh' very quietly. Sarge has pierced me several times, so he didn't need to go through any explanations or anything. I'd been taking deep breaths ever since he'd put the cork there, so I took another slow deep breath in, and on the exhale, he put the punch through my ear.
I didn't scream, which surprises me, I just screwed my face up tight and tried to carry on with the breathing. The feeling of the punch going through was pretty similar to the feeling from the piercing gun all those years ago. It was just as quick as a small gauge needle piercing. After the punch was in, I could feel the pressure of it on my ear, which was pretty horrible. Sarge pulled the cork off and Simon shoved a wad of tissue on the back, then Sarge took the punch out and Simon quickly covered the front and applied pressure. As soon as the punch was out there was no more pain. The whole thing was over in a few seconds, and I emerged with a huge smile on my face. I tend not to get a rush when I am pierced, but this time I certainly did.
Sarge showed everyone the bit of my ear stuck in the end of the punch, which was totally ghost white as all the blood had been pushed out of it. I threatened to eat it, but I don't think anyone believed me. I asked him to get it out and put it onto the tray so I could see, at which point it separated into the two skin layers with the cartilage in between. Simon was trying to hold onto my ear for me while I was talking and laughing and trying to pull away to look at things and stuff. He put a new wad of tissue on and let me hold it myself so I could stand up and go to the mirror. It took me a while to get there as everyone was asking for photos. I ended up taking the tissue off after a couple of minutes and just mopped the blood inbetween shots.
On reaching the mirror I was surprised to see very little blood. None ran down my neck like in other experiences. The hole was still full of blood and bleeding, so I put another wad of tissue on and this time held on tight. The spectators had all disappeared to the waiting room to chat (and roll me a spliff, hurrah!), so I held the tissue on the top of my ear and used the technicare that was left on the tray to clean up my ear lobe where the blood had dripped down to. On finishing this and taking off the tissue, the bleeding had stopped, probably less than 10 minutes since it was done. I made a makeshift plug to go into it by wrapping gauze round cotton wool and covering it in technicare, but it was soaked in blood within seconds of putting it in, so I took it out again, as I didn't much fancy trying to get it out later on that night. After stopping this new flow of blood I smoked my long awaited joint and headed off to the pub, with my emergency kit in my pocket. I made su re I had the jewellery and some tissues and gloves, which should be enough to stop any bleeding that might start up.
While sitting in the pub I could still feel the rush from the piercing, combined with the marijuana, I was feeling very mellow, but excited at the same time. After a while chatting about implants and other interesting things, we headed home. I had a bit of hair stuck to the scab forming on my ear, but after a nice salt soak it was fine.
I've had it 4 days or so now and it is healing nicely. I've just done sea salt soaks twice a day, and tried to ensure the scab on the inside of the hole is dissolved too so it doesn't start to close. I noticed soon after the piercing that a semi circular area of my cartilage was exposed at the edge of the hole, as the tension on that bit of skin was now different so it wasn't pulled into place like normal. This seems to be healing fine now too. I will continue this experience once the piercing is fully healed
_______
It's now almost four weeks later, and the piercing has stopped giving me any trouble, so I thought I should finish this write up.
I carried on my twice daily salt soaks for the first couple of weeks, each time it got easier to clear the dried matter from the inside of the hole, and there was hardly any soreness at all. I decided to put a tunnel into the hole just so the cleaning process would be quicker. I had a 3.2mm tunnel that was flared to 4mm. This fit perfectly...it was of course loose in the hole, but it didn't fall out, and more importantly put no pressure on the healing tissue. Around this point I started to get a bit neglectful with the salt soaks, just cleaning my ear in the bath instead. This didn't cause any problems until i decided to take the jewellery out and leave it out. Four days later, I had a bit of a hard time getting the tunnel back in, the skin that was trying to close around the hole didn't much like being stretched to 4mm again, and it was sore for a couple of days.
Since then I've left the jewellery in and had no problems. There's been no crustiness around the piercing since sometime in the third week of healing, and while it still isn't completely healed, it doesn't hurt to sleep on, or clean, or brush my hair or anything like that. Totally unlike the cartilage piercing I had in the same spot all those years ago.
For anyone wanting a dermal punch, I would strongly advise to heal the punch either without jewellery in, or with a plug or tunnel smaller than the hole punched. As far as healing goes, I've found a combination of those two methods has worked very well to give me the fastest-healed ear piercing I have ever had.
If you have any questions about the procedure or the aftercare, please feel free to mail me on the address above.