Not long after I discovered bmezine I decided that it had been far too long since my last piercing – at that point it had been about 5 years. I'd been tattooed during that period, but I really had not felt that urge to get any new piercings. Interesting, because 5-6 years ago my piercings were much more a part of my own self-image than my tattoos. With a number of facial piercings and my still-failing wrist piercing I believe most other people thought my piercings were much more defining as well...
At A Glance Author kl3rk Contact kl3rk@bme.anon IAM kl3rk When A month ago Artist Stan Schober Studio Cheap Trx Location St. louis, MO So, couple of months ago I managed to stumble across bmezine.com – needless to say I had not investigated bodymod on the web at all before this point. Frankly, I had not given the subject much thought for years. Around the time I was getting the last of my pre-y2k piercings I was just starting to make the transition from Windoze and VB to Linux and C, and the next few years my entire existence revolved around hacking linux. Not having the intestinal fortitude of our fearless leader Shannon, I was not in a mental place that allowed for multi-tasking and honestly I just never thought about mods. Well, last January I decided that I was finally going to start my forearm sleeve, and I suppose spending so much time at the shop, combined with taking all my smoke-breaks with Donnie – the piercer at All-Star Tattoo – got me thinking about how much I missed that sting, so much different than a tattoo...
I started combing bmezine.com for inspiration and fuel for my newly rediscovered passion. I was a bit scared at first, mainly by bmevideo.com and the procedural photos of tongue-splits and sub- and trans-dermals. The dermal punching was also scary, and exciting! Six years ago such a thing was unheard of, short of the guy who used a leather hole-punch on his septum and so forth... Well, after surprisingly little time – like a day or two – I had managed to wrap my brain around some of the heavier mods on the site and started thinking about what my next mod would be. Funny how that works, one day these photos were making me feel squeamish and square, and a few days later I was obsessing.
I'm not sure when I decided that I was going to redo my lobes. Back in the day I had them pierced at 8ga – at the time that was the largest gauge Stan liked to pierce lobes at. Went ok I suppose, they bled for hours and I developed keloids on one side, probably from the Dial soap and heavy cbr's. I left those very rings in my lobes for years – between 3 and 4 years, and one day I decided for some reason to take them out and give them a good cleaning/polishing. I had the right ring out for approximately ten minutes and believe it or not (believe it) I was unable to get the thing back in! I sat there trying to work that puppy back in for some time, it was bleeding and sore before I gave up, and at that point I was so not vested in the whole thing that I just took the other one out (symmetry) and that was that. Two days later you would never have known I'd had anything there! Two tiny puckers, nothing more... I guess it's worth noting before I go on that this is the ca se with all my piercings. I had a 6ga septum piercing for years, and a day after I decided to retire it (at the time 6ga retainers were custom-made only and mine was SO ridiculously uncomfortable) I was unable to get a 16ga ring in there. I have some bizarre built-in biological imperative to close holes.
Dermal punching my lobes seemed like the ideal solution, and just scary enough to satisfy my urges. Combing the ask bme portion of the website produced some contradictory advice regarding dermal punching lobes, but Sean Philips said that were he to do it all over again he'd start with an 8ga punch. YAY! This sounded perfect, would not remove enough tissue to make stretching problematic but would ensure that the hole I started with was perfectly round and even. Went down to the studio to talk to Stan about it, and he was very confident that this was indeed the way to go, particularly as the punch would remove any scar tissue left from the previous piercings. Stan was booked up and told me he'd get me in the following day, so I was off with explicit instructions not to drink or take aspirin, and get lots of sleep. =) So that's what I did.
Bright Sunday morning, and my partner Tyson, my best friend and myself were off to the shop. I wasn't particularly nervous, I felt excited and impatient and happy to be having it done! Waited around for a bit while he took care of a few kids that walked in wanting to have their ears gauged up (at my insistence) and before I knew it I had signed all the necessary documents and was back in the room Stan had always used before. Ah, memories. ;-) They have this big scary old-fashioned wheelchair in there, and just sitting back down in the thing was a wonderful bit of deja-vu. He cleaned up my ear (the first of what I think was three times) and we began the process of marking my lobes. This took some time – not only am I apparently a tad more asymmetrical than most but I had a second set of piercing scars on my lobes (from when I was a young kid, gunned at the mall and retired for probably 11-12 years at this point). After we had agreed on placement (I have told him in the past his best judgement was more than enough for me, but he always makes me look and agree, what a guy) he adjusted the chair a bit and told me to start taking deep, calming breaths. Unwrapped the tools and jewelry, more washing and glove-changing, and it was time. Started on the right, told me to take a deep breath and exhale hard, at which point he would do the punch. So I'm exhaling and preparing for agony when with a twist the punch was through – at which point I start laughing in relief! I have had stubbed toes that hurt more. The dermal punch is so sharp and my piercer is so awesome that it was through before I knew it and with nothing more than a mild discomfort. Next, I'm prepared for blood – another thing I worried about for nothing! He applied a bit of pressure in the form of pinching some gauze around the lobe for a minute, and no blood. Apparently the hole filled up with blood almost immediately, and that was it, no blood running down my ear or neck, nothing. At this point he inserts the taper, taking my lobe immediat ely from the 2mm punch to 00ga, and almost immediately followed that through with the single-flared eyelet. That was it! Same thing on the other side exactly, the only difference with the left side was a very tiny trickle of blood down my neck behind my ear. Once the lobes were marked and he was re-prepped and ready to go the entire process was done in ten minutes. So that was pretty much that! I went from no jewelry to 00ga eyelets in an hour, and the process was easily less painful than any other piercing I had ever done. Seriously. My partner had 10ga nipple piercings done immediately after, and rest assured that was WAY gorier and 100x more painful than my punching. I left the shop that day happier than I ever had I think.
Aftercare was a major concern of mine, as I had developed keloids on my lobes when I had them pierced with needles. I decided after extensive BME QOD-perusal that I would try a hybrid method, soaking in the morning with sea-salt solution and in the evenings with lavender tea, and stuck to this method for the first week or so. My left ear looked healed from the moment it was pierced – seriously, not the slightest bit of redness, not a drop of bloody crusty, just perfect from the start. The right lobe had a very deep purple bruise between the bottom half of the eyelet and the bottom edge of my lobe – Stan called it interdermal bleeding and said it was perfectly normal. After four days of soaks the bruise was gone and both of them looked like they had been there for months. Amazing, I would never consider any other method of aftercare now.
So it's been a bit over a month now, and they look absolutely perfect. I do wash them with Provon now every night when I shower – I figure it does not matter now that they are healed, just keep 'em clean and smelling fresh – and I still do lavender soaks 4-5 times a week, but that's all. I would highly recommend this method of getting large-gauge holes in the lobes quickly to anyone. My lobe-holes are incredibly soft and stretchy, and the hole is perfect – even at 00ga it looks cool when removed. =) Happy punching folks!