I had wanted my tragus pierced ever since I'd seen a girl with a little diamante stud in her left tragus. I was desperate to have the same thing done in my tragus after seeing hers. I have countless other cartilage piercings so I presumed I wouldn't have a problem with a tragus piercing.
At A Glance Author jenayfur Contact jenayfur@bme.anon When Six months ago Studio body peircings studio in afflecks Location manchester, england After months of being too lazy to get it done, I decided to just go for it one day while I was in Manchester. So I went with some mates into the body-piercing studio in Afflecks Palace. I had to wait for about half an hour after I'd signed all the random forms, and every minute that passed got me more and more nervous. I just wanted to get it over and done with so I could have a pretty little diamante stud!
They eventually called me in, and it was a really nice guy, but I can't remember his name. He sat me down, talked me through what he was going to do and then just told me to lay back. I was really nervous at this point, and Rob, one of my mates, had to hold my hand to stop me from squealing. The piercer lay my head on one side, sterilised my tragus and then got the needle out. As for the piercing itself, it didn't actually hurt at all. There was a slight pressure, but no pain at all. The famous "crunch" sound I'd hear other people talk about when referring to tragus piercings was definitely true – as he pushed the needle through the noise it made was disgusting. But, in no time he was replacing the needle and the tube with a barbell. I'd chosen a barbell as I everyone else I'd seen with tragus piercings had a ring. So, after a lecture on cleaning, not sleeping on it etc etc, I was ready to go and sooo happy with my new piercing. I kept on looking at its reflection in shop mi rrors as I walked past.
I bathed it in salt water for the 8 weeks the guy recommended, and followed everything he'd told me. I had absolutely no problems with it, until I was showing it to someone about 9 weeks after I'd got it done. They noticed that on the left hand side of the stud, a keloid had started to develop. I hadn't noticed because it was on the other side of the screw that I couldn't see in the mirror. I was so upset and went home to take a look at it myself. It was still only very small, not even at half the size of the screw of the actual barbell, but I was still upset. I decided just to keep an eye on it and if it got any worse I'd go to the doctors. Well, the next week it had grown to the size of the screw. The week after that, it had doubled in size.
It just kept growing and growing, so I went to the doctors to see if anything could be done about it. I'd heard about people getting steroid injections to get rid of the little buggers, so after my doctor had confirmed that the annoying lump was in fact a keloid as I had suspected, I asked him about it. He said injections were pretty extreme and just to leave it to see if it got any better, because sometimes they healed themselves. So, the next week I went on a college trip to Poland. With my ear exposed to –4C temperatures, the cold seemed to irritate my tragus and it went crazy; the keloid grew to the size of the tragus itself, the skin split and it was extremely sore, bleeding and weeping a lot. It was very, very painful and I couldn't sleep properly at night because of the pain. One night, I went out in temperatures below –10C. The next morning I woke up and the keloid had almost vanished! It had flattened out into a scab (sounds gross) instead of a lump, as it had been. I was absolutely shocked. Over the next 3 days in similarly cold weather, it disappeared all together. I was so incredibly happy to have a normal looking tragus I didn't care what had happened to make it disappear!
As soon as I got back to England I went out to buy a new stud for it. I hadn't gone to get a diamante stud for it when the keloid was there, because I didn't want to draw any attention to it because it was just so ugly! But, 6 months on, I wear the stud every day now and I always get comments – and now, thankfully, they're not from people saying "What the hell is that on your ear"! So, all in all my tragus experience was a success in the end, and to anyone who has a keloid – try going out in ridiculously cold weather to see if it freezes itself off! I would definitely recommend a tragus piercing to anyone considering it.