My parents have always been very liberal with the amount of piercings that they have let me had. But when they said I could have no more until I turned 18 after I got my bellybutton pierced when I was 14, my 10th piercing since I was 12, I was devastated. I obeyed their wish until I was 15, and I fell in love with the tragus piercing. I had seen it on a few people at my school, and it looked great, so I knew I had to have it for myself. Being broke and bored; I decided it would be a good idea to do it by myself, because I had pierced myself before and it had been fine, I thought that everything would be ok this time too. But I was wrong. I had used an earring I had been pierced with before, and it took me 10 minutes of hard pushing to work it though my tragus. It bled a lot, which was not a good sign because I usually never bleed when I am pierced, and it hurt a lot more than I had expected it to. But I got the earring through eventually, and I kept it in for another 2 weeks after that. However, during those two weeks it started getting red and bleeding, and I knew that I had to take it out. The earring had also migrated out towards the edge of my tragus, with only about a millimeter of skin that it was hanging on to. When I took it out, I was left with some built up scar tissue that had made a bump where my piercing had moved out to. It had permanently damaged my ear, and I was mad at myself for doing it. It took about a day for the hole to close up, but it took another week for the swelling to go down.
At A Glance Author Sophie Contact Sophie@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Brad Studio Body Extreme Location Bangkok, Thailand Three weeks later, my friends and I went to Bangkok for spring break, and when we were at one of the night markets there, I saw a small store with a very discreet sign: Body Piercing and Tattooing. I was overjoyed; I knew this was where I could get my tragus done again. I went it and met Brad, the owner of Body Extreme, and the guy who was going to pierce me. I told him about the fiasco I had dealt with before, and he said it would be perfectly fine to pierce it again. He took me into a room in the back, and had me sit in a dentist's chair while he prepared the equipment. Everything was sterile, the needles were new, Brad had on gloves, and I was ready. He marked the spot on my ear, being careful to keep it away from where it had been pierced before. He cleaned my ear, and counted to three. On three, he pushed the needle through my tragus, and I felt a slight pain, but nothing really bad. It hurt remarkably less than the one I had done by myself, which I was happy about. The re was a slight burning sensation when he put the jewelry in, and then that was it. One thing that I thought was bad at first was that the piercing was very in on my tragus, so in it was almost piercing my head! But that problem solved itself when the earring again moved out a little, making it perfectly set on the center of my ear.
Afterwards, Brad gave me some saline solution, and a cream to use if the piercing became irritated. It was red and sore for a while, but it healed totally in about a week. The only annoying thing was that I could not sleep on my right side for that week, and when we were on the plane going home, the seat kept pushing on it, making it somewhat uncomfortable. Other than it being a little crusty and gunky occasionally, my tragus piercing healed nicely, and it is now perfectly normal. My experience at Body Extreme was one of the best I've had, Brad and his staff were really nice and helpful, and they made me feel comfortable and relaxed. It's been a month since the piercing, and it is doing fine. I would not recommend doing this piercing by yourself; after my own personal experience I think that I will leave the rest of my piercings up to qualified professionals. The tragus is a very tasteful and interesting piercing, and when my parents saw it when I returned home, they agreed that it looked pretty cool, and they didn't make me take it out. For caring for this piercing, the saline solution that Brad gave me cleared up any problems I had with it, and mine also healed pretty fast because I was in the ocean a lot, and the salt water worked wonders too. I am so happy with my tragus, and I think that it is a great piercing for anyone to have.