I'm a chronic piercer. I'll always be one. I get a piercing, I love it for a couple months, and then I'll take it out because I'm bored with it. Then I'll walk back into the piercing shop and have almost the same exact piercing done, only moved a couple millimeters to the left or right. I'll probably never get a tattoo because I change my mind from one week to the next on the design I want. My haircolour changes every couple weeks. In short, I'm indecisive. This is the story of how my anti-tragus has forever cured my piercing indecisiveness.
At A Glance Author Julex Contact Julex@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Autumn Studio High Priestess Location Corvallis, Oregon I've been surfing BME's site for a couple years and have gotten a lot of my info from all the lovely people who post experiences and pictures, and for some reason I fell in love with the anti-tragus piercings. I've never seen anyone around here with one, so I thought along with shaking my looks up, I'd shake up the monotony in my town. I love to have my ears pierced. I have little elf ears, that are a little on the pointy side. One of my nicknames in school was Spock. I love to decorate myself, it's a little like Christmas for me. Each little barbell or hoop on my ears is just another decoration on the tree. My anti-tragus has decided to be the Scrooge, though.
About a month ago I decided to get pierced again, just for the hell of it. It had been 4 months since my Industrial, and I was itching for some new metal in my flesh. The piercing itself is uneventful, first I had my Conch done I didn't even flinch. The Anti-Tragus was pretty much the same, all I heard was a peculiar double popping noise as the needle passes through my ear. My husband is sitting in the chair next to me, nursing his throbbing ear, which he had just had pierced a few minutes before me. I looked at him when I heard the popping, but he was looking at Autumn (my piercer) with a strange look on his face. Later he said she looked like she was having trouble getting the needle in. She inserts a small 16g pushpin barbell and sends us on our way. That was a Friday evening, and all seemed well. Sea salt soaks, and all that goodness.
Saturday morning my ear is a gnarly shade of purple around the piercing, which goes away after a couple hours, but leaves in it's wake a sharp stabbing pain. I swear even blinking made it hurt. So I iced it, and popped a couple aspirin. Joy. Still, if I thought about it would give me a nice jolt up the side of my head and down my neck, almost making me nauseous. Forget about the salt soak. I couldn't even touch it. I tried to splash cold water on my ear but all I got out of that was what felt like an electric fence shock on my ear and nice little purple dots floating in front of my eyes. My ear was swollen twice it's normal size by now. Ahh but the worst was yet to come.
Sunday morning I wake up and it felt my left ear was stopped up. So I go to the mirror and promptly have a coniption fit......it looks like the barbell is gone. No, now my ear is swollen about 3 times it's normal size and feels like it's trying to get bigger, the barbell is just barely visible, and now the upper part of my ear is starting to join in on the festivities. I jump in the shower and try to rinse it off but all that does is give me the little pain purple floaty dots and a lightning bolt through the eardrum. I drive over to Corvallis and walk into High Priestess. The counter worker/piercer takes one look at my ear, says "HOLY SHIT THAT'S THE BIGGEST I'VE EVER SEEN ONE OF THOSE GET!!" We go into the piercing room. This is where it gets fun.
He tries to take the barbell out. HA. By this time my ear is a dull roar and purple and I really don't give a whatever what he has to do to get the damn thing out. He apologizes profusely and finally gets it out with tweezers. Then he pokes around and makes the ear even angrier. Finally he says he doesn't think it'll get any bigger and proceeds to bring out a brand new barbell and gets it ready. Then he double checks the barbells and it turns out that they are the same size, just bent different. All the while he's mumbling how Anti-Tragus's just DON'T get that swollen and he doesn't understand. Meanwhile I'm ready to pass out because my muscles are so tense from the pain.
He brings out a longer barbell, about a 1 incher and starts to bend it. In the process he gets that 'light bulb clicks on over your head/the answer just came to me' look and comes over to me and squeezes my opposite ear. I guess that when my ear buds were forming in utero, they didn't unfold all the way and I have internal ridges and my body is confused as what to do about it. (turns out he's right..my doctor confirmed that my ridges are thicker than normal, which accounts for the double pops I heard) Anyhow he continues to bend the barbell to perfection and tries to put it in. It refuses to go in. Now here comes the REALLY fun part.
He whips out a taper. I squinch my eyes shut and hold on to the table as he inserts it in one side, then pulls it out. Then he goes to the other side and puts it in, then pulls it back out. After about 20 minutes of this, some hyperventilation, him telling me to relax, he says that it won't go all the way through. By this time I'm more than ready to just stagger out and cut my losses. He and I agree to one more time, and glory freakin be it went through. It felt like a hot knife in my skin but he slipped the jewelry through and screwed the bead in. Best part is, the custom piece was free. And he was super nice.
I took 4 Advil, 3 Tylenol, and 6 Aspirin that night, and the following week, along with some Vicodin and Aleve thrown in for good measure. I DON'T advise it to ANYONE EVER(but I don't drink, smoke or do drugs....and I'm a vegan so I'm uber healthy) because it's very bad for your liver and it thins your blood like mad and it's plain NOT GOOD FOR YOU. I needed the swelling to go down though or I risked serious tissue damage from the swelling. 1 month later it's still slightly enlarged but I'm pain free. From now on I am only going to get a piercing if I really mean it, I don't EVEN want to have a repeat of this.
I seriously doubt that anyone else has a horror story like this, so don't let this deter you from getting this piercing. Just go to your piercing shop if you have trouble and they will tell you whether or not you should take it out. All I needed was patience and a custom barbell :)