Well, I've been into piercing since I was about 14, I got my first "proper" piercing when I was 16 - it was my navel. I did have 8 ear (lobe and one cartilage) piercings prior to this, but they were all done with guns (I was young and naive!)
At A Glance Author Becki Contact twistedcherry_@hotmail.com When A month ago Artist Myself
Anyway, I really want to be a piercist, and eventually a tattooist (anyone Derby/Notts based reading this, if you want an apprentice feel free to email me!), and I figured while at the moment im not prepared to start tattooing my own legs yet, I am mentally and physically prepared to start piercing my own body!
Now wheres a nice easy good place to start? Hmmm...my ear, which I thought would just be straight forward and easy as hell! I would have pierced my lobe again, but I have three in my left lobe and four in my right lobe, so there wasn't really any room, and so I decided to pierce my cartilage just below my existing one.
I'm not gonna make a huge deal about it, because I thought I was pretty brave to do my own piercing, but since I have read a 13 year old's stories of her own piercings (including both her tragus's), which personally I think is a bit stupid, but each to their own.
Anyway, I'd recently bought myself some new titanium BCR's and 3 new piercing needles (with the tubes for the jewellery to go in with ease), and that evening after carrying these needles round with me all day, because I was on my way out when the postman came round, I'd got myself psyched up for it.
So off I went upto my room, with my latex gloves (we have so many..I'm not 100% sure why) and a load of cotton wool, a couple of ice cubes, and the pan with my newly re-sterillised BCR. I didn't have a cork or and clamps to make it nice and easy to pierce my ear, so I grabbed a tea towel from downstairs.
Now I was ready! I sat close to my mirror, cross legged on the floor, put on my gloves, took the needle out of the packet and marked with liquid eyeliner (not the best thing, I know) where I was gonna have it. It's actually not that far down from my original one now I've done it, but I did mark it slightly lower!
It was marked, I sat holding two ice-cubes to the front and back of my ear, while breathing really slowly and deeply (to get to that euphoric state) and then when my fingers started going numb from the cold, I grabbed the tea towel, folded it tight and held it close behind my ear.
I got myself ready, prepared for the pain, lined up the needle and began to push, it went through the front with no pain, and only a really quiet little crunch, then I got cramp, Fuck. In my needle arm, yay. I tried to ignore it and carried on, but my arm just seized up more, and I had to pull away to straighten my arm out. BIG MISTAKE! As I pulled it away, the most blood I've ever seen came gushing from my ear! I wasn't quite ready for that, I never realised my ear could hold so much blood, but because my ear was numb I didn't feel it right away, until it was dripping off my chin!
So for about 5 mins I sat with some cotton wool on my ear to try and hold the bleeding, while for the second time getting myself into my euphoria again, then when it finally stopped enough for me to see the bit I was piercing again, I got the needle (which had been in the saucepan of boiling water - Not great either I know, but I didn't want to leave it now for another half hour) and I got the tea towel back behind my ear, and pushed the needle through. Because I didn't have a cork or any stable pressure behind my ear, I did have quite a bit of trouble getting the needle through the back, but it eventually worked, and by now my ear had regained feeling, and was throbbing, but even though the needle was through, I couldnt get the plastic bit to go through, which really pissed me off, but in the end I just got a smaller BCR I had, and followed it though (from behind, which was NOT my intention originally, as I could barely see what I was doing) and finally locked the clasp.
Now its about 3 weeks since I did it, and I haven't looked after it as much as I should have been, though I do clean it at least once a day. My boyfriend and mates always seem to forget its there, they give me the biggest hugs and always seem to bang my ear, which it doesn't like and feels irritated for a while after, but other than a few crusties, and itchyness (?) it now seems to be healing fine! In fact, better than my other cartilage piercing because I had a stud in last time!
So the story behind my story is.. Be prepared for anything! even excessive amounts of blood and the most inappropriate time to get cramp - EVER!
Oh and another thing, if your dad thinks you're on drugs, don't proceed to tell him you got needles through the post this morning! (I'm not on drugs).