My Tragus piercing/stretching experience
At A Glance Author jamesnicenipples Contact onlyeightlives@aol.com When A year ago Artist george/ellie Studio grasshopper/cold steel Location harrow/camden Pierced at Grasshopper stretched at Cold steel(now my second home)
Well I'll start this off honestly I didn't really want to get my tragus pierced at first. My girlfriend suggested it originally and I said no way I don't like it, and then she left me alone about it and didn't really say much about it.
Fast forward a month or so and she is considering getting her snug pierced after looking for a *different* cartilage piercing to go for she thought the snug would look really nice and her I agreed and thought it would look really cute so we discussed it with a local piercing studio at the time and the piercer (George) wanted to research it a bit because I don't believe he had pierced one before.
Anyway George researched the piercing a bit and finally agreed to do it they set a date and whilst there my girlfriend mentioned to george about getting my tragus pierced. I groaned as I wasn't too enthusiastic about the idea at the time but he said sure no problem we can do that too.
So whilst waiting for the day for my darling to get her snug pierced she kept badgering me about getting my tragus pierced.
After much discussing I finally agreed to it although a little unsure I thought what the hell, if I don't like it I can always take it out eh.
So the day approached my girlfriend went in for her snug, which looked very painful by the way, then it was my turn.
Now George assured me this wasn't going to be anything like as painful he began preparing all his stuff changed his gloves pulled out fresh needles etc.
Then it was ok just breathe normally this is going to sting a bit... and that was it, a little sting a burning sensation when the jewellery went in and we're all done, so me and my gorgeous girlfriend walked out happy bunnys with fresh new piercings.
And so the aftercare begins. Although I have had other piercings in the past I have to say that cartilage piercings are definitely the biggest pain in the arse to heal much more hassle than my lobes or eyebrow were.
Both I and my girlfriend developed a keloid within a week. To say I was pissed off was an understatement keloids painful and hard to get rid of, what pissed me off more was that I thought I had done everything right I had cleaned the piercing not slept on it an yet still I got a keloid, just unlucky I guess. To get rid of I did a combination sea salt soaks and cleaning it with ear buds and warm salt water it eventually went although flared up a little bit a few times afterwards.
Fast forward a few months later and my tragus is now healing pretty nicely the keloid has not made a return and it is comfortable to sleep on, although one thing that bothered me was that the bar they had pierced me with was so bloody long it kept poking the inside of my ear and giving me an ear ache every morning !
Well after putting up with this for quite a while and after getting one more piercing (a double eyebrow) from this cowboy studio I decided to seek out some professionals. I needed to get this bar out of my tragus because it was really starting to get on my nerves, so after talking to a mate of mine who I knew was working in a piercing studio he recommended making a visit to cold steel.
Well after going there (and returning back several times for more body mods and jewellery purchases) I can honestly say I have never come across a more dedicated bunch of piercers and generally nice people. All the staff at the studio were extremely helpful and prepared to answer any questions at all on absolutely anything I wished to know about future piercings or current piercings I had. So then after telling them how much a bar was irritating me they said it was probably better to go for a ring so I agreed and ditched my blackline bar for a lovely ice blue surgical steel bcr in the same size 1.2mm.
Now, here is where my stretching journey started.
After my ear enjoyed the slight soreness of changing over from having a straight object through it to curved I started looking on the bme website at larger gauge piercings.
After being totally against larger gauge piercings for a while (don't ask why I don't even have a reason myself) I suddenly one night had a drunken revelation, so within the next few weeks I decided to get my ear lobes dermal punched at 3.2mm, which I would like to say was not that painful at all and done by one of the excellent staff at cold steel. After doing this I started looking at larger gauge cartilage piercings my tragus was now about a year old and getting rather loose in the hole. I didn't want to do anything as extreme as a dermal punch through my tragus but the idea of stretching it really appealed to me.
I thought surely they must be sick of me by now but the great guys up at cold steel answered all my questions on cartilage stretching and basically said as long as you take it really slowly it should be fine and after mentioning that my ultimate goal would be 4 or 5 mm they said that should be achievable.
Well after all this talk and discussion I decided I wanted to do it.
So I walked into cold steel with my loose 1.2mm bcr in my ear and asked to go to 1.6mm I selected my jewellery ( a lovely ice blue ring) and then we went into one of the piercing rooms, now I don't know whether it was because I slept on it a lot or what but even Ellie the woman stretching it commented how loose it was in the hole, after preparing all her bits and pieces she proceeded to insert the jewellery and without even using a taper it popped in; just like that. I was very pleased it was a little bit red but other than that fine I thanked Ellie and the other guys paid my money and left it at that.
Now approximately one month later I felt I was ready for the next step, last time didn't even feel like a stretch I told myself this would be fine.
As I was about to discover the step from 1.6 to 2mm wasn't going to be quite as pain free.
After choosing my jewellery the second time round, they didn't have any ice blue cbr's which was a shame so I ended up choosing plain old silver which still looked cool. This time it was Julie who was poking more things in my body after preparing the taper autoclaving the jewellery etc everything went ahead, the intial insertion of the taper didn't hurt but man was that intense! It was so bizarre because I was totally unprepared for the sensation it felt totally different to getting my lobes stretched I wouldn't say it was like a pain sensation more like a feeling that your ear is expanding an about to pop but just before it pops it stops ? if that makes any sense at all.
And here I am nearly a month on sitting here with my 2mm silver cbr in my tragus and I love it, I love the look of larger gauge jewellery in my lobes and in my tragus, and now I am just looking forward to six weeks time when I get to go to 2.4mm. I really can't wait my ultimate goal is to have it at 4 or 5 mm with a nice little flesh tunnel in it that would satisfy me but hey who knows what the future holds for the mean time I'm enjoying the comfort and the look of my lovely large gauge tragus.