I had been thinking of getting my tragus pierced for quite sometime. It has always been an interesting looking piercing. So of course I did some research on it to see the different variation of jewelry that can be worn and different positions that it could be pierced. I did elect on a normal tragus piercing. Which I could describe as centered, with a normal size ring. Like normal, the actual decided to "get it done" and then going to get it done was very spontaneous. I had decided while driving to work one morning. I basically it went like, "yep, after work I'll take my girlfriend to [[name of original parlor]] and get my tragus pierced!"
At A Glance Author Jawz-X Contact Jawz-X@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Not sure Studio Rising Phoenix Location Addision, IL I headed to a piercing studio to get it done. At the first parlor that we (my girlfriend and I) went to, didn't get any help. I personally believe it is because a bunch beautiful, sexy girls came in to get various cartilage piercing. I am really not sure why they did that, but I'll do them the favor of not naming them. We basically left the studio after they collected the girls' signature (for authorization, they still hadn't done any of that for me, though I had told them what I wanted done) we headed to another studio. Once we got to the next studio we found that they had a dog in the waiting room (apparently it was one of the tattoo artist's dogs.) However, after seeing that, I really didn't want to get the piercing their so we left, but on our way out we stopped to ask for pricing and found that their piercing person had left anyway. At that point I was kind of frustrated and had decided not to get the piercing that day. We ended up going to Burger King where a friend wo rked and chatted for a little bit.
After a few hours had passed I had decided to try one more place that was by my college, which was a small trip (about fifteen miles). Once we arrived there (Rising Phoenix), which is where I received the piercing, we went in and received help almost right away. I told them what I wanted; they checked my ID (I'm 20!) and had me sign the paperwork. That's good though, because it shows responsibility (good in any parlor). The only thing that annoyed me was that they didn't tell me the price of the piercing right away nor had they had the prices displayed. I had to ask three times before they told me. It ended up being the same price as the other two places (fifty dollars), so I'm not sure what was up with that.
Once all the paper work was done, they took me to the nice man who would do the piercing. First, he started out, of course, by cleaning and setting up all of the equipment. He then proceeded to put on gloves and get me ready for the piercing. Before he pierced it however, he explained to me the after-care procedures. I guess, that way he thought I'd be paying more attention then right-after getting a hole poked into my cartilage. He told me to take a deep breath and then he pierced it. When he pierced it, it hurt much more than I had anticipated. It basically felt like he pierced it one gauge size, and then re-pierced it with a bigger gauge. But I believe that it was the nature of the piercing, since the tragus is so thick, the two painful parts were the initial hole, then the exit hole. It wasn't unbearable, but it did hurt a bit more then my eyebrow.
He then put the jewelry in, which is a standard sixteen gauge ring. When he put it in, again there was paint to be felt but it wasn't that bad; it was actually kind of cool. Once he put the bead in place, he again told me the cleaning and care procedures. Afterwards we went back to my girlfriends' apartment where it bled for a bit but it didn't hurt at all.
It is important to keep it clean, as with any piercing. The first cleaning was kind of painful. Not really close to getting it pierced, but when you rotate the ring to clean it, you feel it go through. Once you're done though, no more pain. About a day later, it was sore but I popped a couple of Advil for that and it cleared it right up. On my third day, (which is now) it isn't sore at all. Nor did it hurt to clean it. It currently is just there.
If you're thinking of getting this piercing, I recommend it. It is a unique piercing, looks cool, and currently it's not over done. The worst part would probably be the surprise of pain when it was initially pierced. I think that it more caught me off guard then anything else. I just wasn't expecting it to feel like that