I had decided I wanted 14ga transverse earlobe piercings a couple of years ago after I saw somebody with them at a BME BBQ. She had them done with CBR's and I thought it looked great. I dismissed the idea because I had 1/2" earlobes at the time and my lobes were thinned out a lot. After a year or so of fighting with stretched earlobes, I gave up. I kept losing the jewellery, or o-rings and it was driving me nuts. I would literally have to buy new jewellery every week and they were stretching themselves regardless of what I put in them. Eventually I tore one quite badly and it shrunk down to about 8ga and the other to about 2ga. I left the jewellery out.
At A Glance Author San Contact San@bme.anon IAM BlueStar When Three months ago Artist Sean Studio Artistic Impressions Location Niagara Falls, Canada
I was bored and hanging out with a group of my friends one night and I decided I wanted to get something pierced. I thought about it for a bit and decided to go with the transverse lobes with CBR's, through the holes where my earlobe piercings had been. So I went to see my favourite piercer, Sean, from Artistic Impressions.
I walked into the store and it was quite busy. I said "Hi" to everybody and told Sean what we wanted. After a few seconds of confusion we had it figured out to what I wanted. I went to the back room alone since my friends are squeamish and whatnot. They just sat around and looked at flash.
Sean asked me if I minded if I bled at all. I said I didn't, and he said he was using a 12ga needle and 14ga 1/2" CBR's. I nodded in approval. He marked them, and I went to check out the marks, but I couldn't really see them and I didn't want to touch my ear because it was disinfected. Sean changed his gloves quite a few times throughout the procedure. I don't know exactly when, but he always changes his gloves constantly.
Now the fun part, the piercing. He was doing it freehand. He started on my right ear first.
"Big breath in."
"Big breath out."
*poke*
"Big breath in."
"Big breath out."
*poke*The needle was through the two holes in my right earlobe. There was no pain, just a bit of a sting followed by nothing. He followed through with the jewellery with no problem and snapped the bead in. It started to bleed immmediately. He started mopping up the blood and started on my next ear, goofing around as he always does. He's a great piercer. Puts you completly at ease.
"Big breath in. Big breath out." *poke* "Big breath in. Big breath out." *poke*
He did that side much faster and without pain. I felt the piercings, but I only felt a bit of a sting, like with the other ear. The jewellery went through with no problem, the bead was snapped in, and the blood was mopped up for a while. I sat there for maybe 10-15 minutes having him mop up the blood. I take benzodiazepam's and they have a tendency to thin the blood in some people. Anti-coagulants.
With no pain and a bit of blood I left the piercing room and paid/tipped Sean. My friends said "ouch" to my pretty new piercings and we went off to be lazy teenagers and watch movies. I had no pain that night, but I was afraid my mom would see the blood and freak out. Blood freaks her out. I soaked my ears in hot salty water for a little bit and got the blood off.
Healing for them was pretty easy. I just cleaned them with non-scented and dyed antibacterial soap every day, twice a day. For harder to heal piercings I use salt water soaks twice a day, but these were definitely easy piercings to heal. They were dead even and a bit of them showed through the hole in my earlobe. I was happy with them.
They crusted up quite a bit, and I (don't do this) would pick at the crusties with my dirty fingers. It irritated the right size so I ended up squeezing some goo out of it, and then it stopped flaring up and being good again. I did some salt water soaking with them and they went back to normal and healed without problems. I rarely notice they are there and they never got caught on clothing or anything. I picked CBR's over barbells because I have vertical earlobes and they would be touching and I didn't think it would be as aesthetically pleasing.
I decided to put jewellery back into my earlobes. 2ga. A bit of a tight fit, but without pain, I got the plugs in and fastened on the o-rings. This didn't irritate the piercings at all and I was pleased. I was very pleased with the way the piercings turned out and how easily they healed. I definitely suggest salt water soaks for healing and don't touch your piercings! That's a bad habit of mine, I've really got to stop doing that.
I have many more mods. I have a full backpiece in progress and six other tattoos. I have 2ga lobes, 14ga vertical lobes, 2ga conches, 14ga conches and 4ga helix's. I also have 3 implants. (one 2ga, 2 00ga) 6 inner labia piercings, a vertical and horizontal hood. My nostril, septum, labret and 2 14ga side lips. I also have a 3-point ear-spiral in my right ear.
I get some reactions to the transverse lobes. A lot of people don't know "how they work" and they ask me about them. I just tell them they go horizontally through my earlobe. Then they ask "how does that work" again. I try to explain, but I suck at explaining, so I just say "Look at them carefully." I try to be polite to people when they're asking me about piercings. I still get funny looks though.
Good luck and happy piercings.