I had my left conch dermal punched at a 2g November 3rd of 2003. It has since been about 10 months and it has finally almost completely healed. I've had a ton of problems with it everything from allergic reactions to the O-rings, the piercing not being able to breathe with different jewellery, and me almost giving up on it from frustration.
At A Glance Author Shit Disturber Contact throwing_stoned@hotmail.com IAM Shit Disturber When A year ago Artist Eric Johanson Studio Soul Survivors Location Winnipeg Manitoba The whole experience started when I said "I think I want to punch my conch". Where this came from I'm not entirely sure. So I booked a consultation with my piercer, which was changed at least twice. We discussed placement, jewellery and when we could do it. We chose the following Sunday and it was settled. The next day Eric called me and we rescheduled for a week later.
I get to the shop at 7ish; my appointment wasn't until 7:30. I filled out the usual forms and waited for Eric telling everyone "I'm going to cry like a baby". My jewellery was already in the piercing room waiting to go. When Eric had his tray all set up; I went into the piercing room, sat down and talked with Eric again about placement. He checked my ear with a blue light about 10 times before picking and marking the ideal spot. I looked in the mirror, liked what I saw and said "Let's do it". He checked once again with the light making sure we wouldn't be hitting any major capillaries. He gave me a dental bib to cover my white t-shirt and asked me if I was ready. At this point I was pretty nervous, this was my first dermal punch and I didn't really know what to expect. So I said "I'm ready to cry" and he told me to start breathing deeply and on the third breath it would be done. Two deep slow breaths in and on the third I gripped the arms of the chair as hard as I could and felt the punch go through. It's hard to describe the feeling of the punch. My body was very tense and my eyes were squinted shut. I heard it crunch and felt a lot of pressure but not a lot of pain. Once the punch was through, the blood running down my ear was strangely calming "that wasn't nearly as bad as I had expected" was all I could say.
I opened my eyes, took a sigh of relief and Eric started to wipe some of the blood off. "Told you, you wouldn't cry" He said while cleaning up my blood. "I know, I always say that". After the bloody mess was cleaned up a bit, Eric took the punch out and put in the jewellery. Why I didn't taper to a 0g is beyond me. He put in a stainless steal bullet style plug, tightened the O-rings and let it sit for a bit. I don't remember what we were talking about. But once the jewellery was in the bleeding almost stopped. We cleaned it up again, making sure that all the blood was gone and he gave me two types of soap to try Satin and Tech-soap. He also gave me the little chunk of ear in a tiny jar.
I got up, he asked me again if I was all right, I said Yup and we were all done. "She took it like a trouper" Eric told my boyfriend and Jason (the counter boy and a dear friend). I don't remember what I paid, but I did and we left and went out of dinner with the boys from the shop.
The next few months were an interesting experience all there own. My conch was incrusted with dry blood for the next 2 or 3 days, after that it was about 5 more mornings. By the second week my ear was very swollen, swollen to the point where the O-rings were being covered by flesh. I figured that this wasn't a good thing, so I pulled them out a little bit and it felt a lot better. The next 3 full weeks my ear was so swollen. By swollen I mean it had no definition at all, it was just a swollen lump on the side of my head. I didn't really hurt per say it was more of a dull ache. I was taking Ibuprofen for those 3 weeks to help with the swelling. Once the swelling was gone it was much better. As for my aftercare for those three weeks, I did nothing but sea salt soaks three times a day for 15 minutes. The soaks where very claming and each time my ear felt a little bit better. With each soak there was a little less blood in the water. There was a little bit of bruising on the backside for a month. It took three and a half months for me to be able to sleep on my ear. I couldn't ever roll over, every time it was touched in my sleep I was awaked. This was by far the worst part because it is on my sleeping side.
After the swelling was gone, and I could touch my ear without wanting to cry I loosened the o-rings a bit more and started cleaning with the Tech and Satin soaps. I would rinse my ear in the shower in the morning, hop out put a q-tips worth of Tech on the front and back of the piercing and gently move the jewellery back and forth approximately 20 times, still doing soaks 10 minutes before cleaning with satin at night. I did this for about 3 months when I started to notice that where my O-rings sat against my ear was very raw, bleeding and just plain sore.
My lobes were having the same reaction to O-rings, so I went down to the shop, and talked to Jason about getting some silicone O-rings ordered for my lobes and get a threaded tunnel the conch. I had Jay (the other piercer) put the tunnel in for me and I was off. This worked wonders! The raw spots were all gone after another week and my conch started healing again. Unfortunately this only lasted maybe 4 or 5 months, than my conch started leaking a lot of lymph and bleeding when I'd be sleeping, when I'd clean it and random times throughout the day. Needless to say I was getting frustrated to the point where I just wanted to take the damn thing out. I went back and saw Eric again. He couldn't figure out why it was bleeding again until he took the threaded tunnel out and my ear just lymphed like crazy. He said it was because the piecing wasn't breathing properly and there was gunk in the threading that I couldn't get out while cleaning. We switched to organic jewellery. Thinking that if I could take it out again while cleaning that might help. Eric and I also discussed other methods of healing dermal punches that he's heard and seen over the years. One of which is taking the jewellery out, letting it heal and than stretch back up to same size. After months of crap I was not going to let it heal and than stretch, no way! Jason thinks its been bleeding because the tunnel was rubbing against a capillary, whether or not that is in fact what was happening I'm still unsure. I kept the bamboo tunnel in for a few weeks, began cleaning it again with satin soap, even though wood jewellery isn't supposed to get wet, oh well. About 2 months ago I switched back to the stainless plus that I started with.
I've been cleaning it everyday in the shower with betadine for about a month. I know that betadine isn't the best choice but I have some in a pump bottle from the hospital and this works fine fore me. It has by far been the easiest way for me to clean my ear thus far. I clean it everyday in the shower and it is finally almost healed. There is no more pain, barely any lymph. It has been a pain in the ass but it's finally almost healed.