At A Glance
Author	Pam
Contact	bme@wicca.nu
When	A year ago
Artist	Jeff
Studio	Pushin' Inc.
Location	Barrie, Ontario, Canada

I moved to a new town in September of 2002 to go to school. My boyfriend had given me some of his old CBR's so that I could use them to stretch my lobes up. I wanted to get them autoclaved, and I wasn't familiar with any of the piercing places in the area, so to the phone book I went. After calling a few places and being disappointed by their answers ("uhh, I've never heard of anyone who wanted to get their jewelry autoclaved before...") I came across Pushin' Inc. I called them up and was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the guy on the other end. He told me sure, come on in! It was more expensive than one of the other places I had called, but the guy on the phone was so friendly that that's where I decided to go.

The place was located above some other stores, so we had to climb a long and narrow stairway to get to it. In all honesty, the location almost put me off going in, but once we got upstairs I was pleased by the sterile doctor's office smell that greeted me.

The guy who I spoke to on the phone was there (Jeff) and I handed over my stuff to get it cleaned. We sorta just shot the shit for about half an hour while my CBR's were in the oven, so to speak. He showed me their spore results, and a bunch of awards and certificates they had, as well as explained why he got into the business in the first place. He had seen too many unsanitary places, and knew he could be cleaner and better than them, so he went for it. Cool, I thought.

So after paying for the service, off home we went, only to have me pull out his business card a few days later and make an appointment to have an industrial done on my left ear.

I had wanted an industrial for quite a while, so I was excited that I was finally able to get it done. I signed the forms, and went into the piercing room to get my aftercare "lecture." There was a girl getting her navel done at the same time, so she came in too. He gave us a small baggie of sea salt, a pamphlet and a good 5 minute run-down on all the cleaning jazz- salt soaks and Spectro Jel baby!

Navel-girl looked like she was about to pass out from fear, so I said she could go first. I watched as she was marked, iodined, and pierced. I giggled at the unnecessary yelp, and then off she went, leaving my boyfriend and I in the piercing room, on their sweet-ass comfy couch.

Jeff came back in, and we all spent a few minutes watching through the window as some guy was carted out of Subway on a stretcher. Interesting. Long story short, after he was almost ready to pierce, he decided I was unable to get the Industrial due to a huge vein. Flashlights I tell ya, they're a pain. In theory it could've been further up my ear, but he declined piercing that for me, saying my glasses would bang it around too much. I suppose it's better to have someone who actually cares about the welfare of the piercee, rather than just having someone pierce anything because you tell them to.

Great. So now I'm sitting in a piercing studio, college money wadded in pocket, with nothing to spend it on. He tried to talk me into a few genital piercings, knowing that my boyfriend had a 4ga P.A. I politely declined, and told him that I had wanted to get my right Tragus done anyway, so we went with that.

Again with the iodine, marking, checking, confirming, glove changing. All was good. We did the three breath thing, but the bastard stuck me on Two when I wasn't expecting it. *grin* Unfortunately, the needle got stuck(!) half way through. He pushed again, and with a little more fighting, through it went. He apologized profusely, told me I have mighty tough cartilage, and asked if I was okay. I said it was no problem, and he then called me a pain-freak. But I have a high tolerance, so whatever. We took a few pictures of the blood with the needle in my ear, and then he put the 14ga CBR in. I hopped off the table and walked over to the mirror take a look. Cool!

Jeff then took me out and introduced me to a few of his (very obvious) regulars, saying, "This is Pam, she enjoys piercing pain."

I then payed and tipped, and we hung around for a while longer chatting, and once we got onto the street, I wanted to go right back in to get pierced again. But I resisted, aren't I good?

I checked my new piercing in the mirror when I got home, and noticed a tiny red mark directly above it. I thought that it would go away after a little while, but gee, wasn't I wrong?

After a few weeks, even though I followed my cleansing regime, I began to notice a keloid-like bump forming on the front (where the red mark was) and back of my Tragus. Not good. I knew that the Tragus could be a very hard piercing to heal, but I had hoped I would escape without incident. For the next few months I battled with this thing- I tried everything on BME I could find. Finally the bump on the back went down (olive oil), and the one on the front had receded slightly as well. Even so, I decided to go back to Pushin' to have them take a look at it. They were at their new location by this time, which is much more open and appealing to someone passing by. Gone are the days of the scary staircase!

They have excellent aftercare services for all of their customers, by the way. Free autoclaving, jewelry changing, stretching, and treatment.

I continued to use olive oil and salt soaks on it after visiting, and Jeff told me to come back in a week or two if it hadn't improved. It hadn't, so back I went. This time Jeff wasn't there, but the head piercer, Stephanie, was. She stretched my lobes up a gauge and took a look at my tragus- and told me to just not touch it at all and it would go away. If it didn't, I was to come back and they would try something "a little more abrasive."

Well, it didn't go away. It was almost 10 months after the initial piercing, and it was still being problematic. I was home for the summer at this time, and was going into another place to get my left Rook pierced. I had the piercer there take a look at my Tragus, and he gave me a new CBR for free and put it in. The old one I had apparently had some tiny scratches on it that were irritating the piercing. He told me to treat it like a new piercing along with the Rook. He also tried to tell me that the red mark was from the piercing migrating, but I know that to be false since the mark has been there since the day I was pierced.

It is still slightly pink now, but significantly better. I'm considering putting a barbell into it to try to reduce any unnecessary pressure, so perhaps that'll help as well. I refuse to give up on it though! I love my little angry tragus, even though it doesn't love me back.

My advice to you, the curious tragus-experience-reader, is to be patient and diligent, and if you do have problems that persist, go get it checked out just to be sure you won't wind up with a huge keloid on the side of your head. :)

~Pam