At A Glance
Author	San
Contact	San@bme.anon
IAM	BlueStar
When	Six months ago
Artist	Sean
Studio	Artistic Impressions
Location	Niagara Falls, ON, Canada

This is the story of my unusual 3-point ear spiral. I say unusual because I've never seen an ear spiral done quite like this. I called Sean at Artistics and asked if he'd do an ear spiral. He said he would, he just had to make the jewellery. So when he had the jewellery made I went in to get tattooed and then pierced afterwards. After my tattoo was saran-wrapped up (working on my backpiece) Sean grabbed me and took me to the piercing room. I would have appreciated a five minute break. :) I sat down in the chair and Sean said he'd rather have me lying down because of the blood and fiddly factor.

Sean prepped me up, cleaned my ear, marked it, we okay'd the marks and we were good to go.

He put a paper towel around my ear. I assumed this would hurt, but I was shocked. He pierced the first hole without any warning, usually he says ?Deep breath in... deep breath out? and pierces it. I was expecting it and I could tell by the way he was positioned and the tip of the needle touching my ear, so I concentrated on keeping my breathing steady. The first hole stung but it wasn't bad. He started to thread the jewellery through, which was bad. Next came the second hole. My ear was throbbing from the first hole so I kept my guard up and Sean pierced it, again with no warning, but again, I expected it.

He was having some problems with the jewellery, which I'd assume would happen because it probably was not the the easiest piercing to do. I laughed a bit and he said he knew how to sew, so this wou ld be no problem. So I made fun of him for knowing how to sew. Then he did the third hole, after much fiddling, my ear was pissed. He muttered ?deep breath in..? and pierced it. That one hurt quite a bit. The fun part was the blood (it covered my gray hoody) and the fact that it hurt like hell getting the jewellery in. Sean would stop every little bit and ask if I was okay. I was in a lot of pain, but I was fine.

Phil, one of the tattoo artists came in to see what was going on, and why we were back there so long. He saw the blood and left. There was a lot of blood. Sean eventually got the jewellery in and perfected and cleaned my ear off with some mild soapy water, since he didn't want to use alcohol because of the pain. My ear was bright red. It looked absolutely awesome and it was worth all the pain and fiddling. After we got some of the blood off, I got up off the table and followed Sean out of the piercing room.

Phil asked to see it, while he was tattooing someone, and I showed him and the woman he was tattooing said ?Wow, that must have hurt!? and Phil said ?You should have seen the blood in the piercing room.? Sean told me to salt-soak the hell out of my ear. I did as told, I gave it a long soak when I got home to ease some of the pain. Sean also told me to take Motrin (ibuprofin with a fancy name) to keep the swelling down.

The healing sucked. The first and second holes migrated into one hole, I couldn't as much as touch my ear for a week. Anything touching it hurt like hell, and walking outside in the cold just killed me. Sub-zero temperatures: not good for fresh piercings. I showed my friend James a picture of my ear on IRC and he said my ear looked like a ?fucking rollercoaster?.

It hurt for a while, I couldn't sleep on it. Eventually I could move it and sleep on it with minimal pain. Unfortunately, the hole that the 2nd and 3rd holes made started to reject. It's still hanging on right now and I don't want it to reject. I would do it again though. Just screw around with the jewellery so that it is less likely to reject. Sean and I weren't really expecting it. We didn't know what to expect because it was the first time he did a project like it (I think?) and he pulled it off really well.

I would suggest using separate jewellery to help healing, since the jewellery put a lot of pressure on the piercings. If I do it again, I want to use separate jewellery. I think it would aid healing a lot. I've had it for 4 months and its at a point where there is no pain at all. Unless I really hit it hard, but that's universal for all piercings. I've supplied a picture of it, brand new, below!

Happy piercings and safe aftercare.