***WARNING***
At A Glance Author Misti Contact BluEyedPunx@msn.com IAM Misticals When Three months ago Artist Me
This experience is just that, my experience. I do NOT recommend that anybody try to duplicate what I have done. DO NOT TRY THIS! Go to a professional. If you feel you must do this yourself, just try to be as safe and clean as possible. And most of all, be smart about it.
I have quite a bit of experience when it comes to DIY piercing. I have only had one professional piercing done out of the fifteen I currently have. I always use new, sterile needles and sterile jewelry as well. Being exact and such is just something that I can get really anal about. Things need to be properly lined up and I always have to hit it right on the mark to be satisfied. Thus it takes me a lot longer to do a piercing than a professional would. This just causes extra trauma to the piercing and the general area. So It is my best advice to go to a professional as to not do yourself more harm than good.
I had first pierced my left helix back on Christmas Eve of 2003. It was quite painful and I had a difficult time getting the jewelry in place. I had never pierced my own cartilage before, but I remember how bad getting my industrial pierced hurt. I was very fidgety and uncomfortable during my attempt. I bled a lot and ended up staining my beige carpet with my own blood. Needless to say, this piercing only lasted about a month before I was forced to retire it out of endless pain and discomfort. I did my best to try and calm the angry piercing, but nothing worked. Taking it out was not something I wanted to do, but I needed to. I had also started to develop a keloid on the back of the helix as well. We learn from our mistakes.
So after about a five month wait I decided that I wanted to try my hand at a helix piercing again. This time I went at it at a different angle. I decided that the partial cause of failure in my last helix piercing attempt was the pressure being put on the piercing by the jewelry. I decided that I would pierce at 14 gauge, and put in smaller gauge jewelry. I decided on a nice 18g cbr. I didn't want to put any unnecessary pressure on my piercing this time. I know that the gauge of the ring seems small, but the option of stretching to a larger gauge is always there. (I plan to stretch it to a 16g ASAP.)
After marking my entrance and exit holes on my ear with my handy surgical skin marker I ordered from BMEshop I double checked my placement. With this piercing I placed the marks about 3mm above my previous attempt as to avoid hitting that pesky scar tissue. I knew that piercing through scar tissue would be painful and difficult. (See, I did my research this time.) I then put on my gloves and cleaned my ear as well as my work surface (the bathroom counter and sink).
I put on my gloves and opened my jewelry and needle and laid them out all nice like on a paper towel. I knew this was going to hurt so I braced myself for imminent pain. I had earlier decided that I was going to go at this piercing freehand. My cartilage is pretty sturdy. So I pushed the needle through as fast as I could. Or at least I tried to. My ear put up quite a fight this time. There was quite a bit of resistance.
After having to stop a few times because of pain I had finally gotten the needle all the way through my ear. The nasty crunching sound of a needle being pushed through cartilage wasn't nearly as loud as it was last time. I cleaned all of the blood off of my ear with an antiseptic wash and changed my gloves again. I had to bend the cbr open a little bit more than I had originally intended to because of how much my ear had swollen. I fed the end of the cbr through the end of the needle and pulled the needle through my ear the rest of the way. This was a bit uncomfortable because I forgot to put more lube on the needle after I has washed it away when I cleaned the blood away. Though re-bending the cbr so I could place the ball back on it was more uncomfortable. But bearable none the less. After I managed to get the CBR back into its original shape and place the ball on my ear was very red and swollen. I cleaned the area once more to be rid of any dried blood.
I went to bed about an hour later and awoke surprisingly to no more dried blood or any pain. The swelling is now completely gone. The piercing only gets sore when cleaning any lymph off of it, or when I forget and yank my headphones off. I consider myself lucky this time around. It has been almost a month since I pierced my helix and it is still a very happy piercing. Though it is almost invisible due to the curvature of my ear and the other large pieces of jewelry already in my ear.