I decided it was time for a new piercing. On mostly a whim, a few months prior I decided to take seven of my ten piercings out. It was time to start anew. Originally, I wanted to get a medusa piercing. However, just moments before arrival to Evolution, I realized an oral piercing would probably not be in my best interest. You see, the following day was 4/20, and being the pothead I am, I knew I'd be smoking in just a few short hours. A fresh oral piercing would definitely not do too well in that situation. I knew I still desperately wanted to get pierced, though. There were a couple of other piercings I was interested in getting, namely, my nostrils or my conches. First, I asked about piercing my nostrils, but they didn't have the jewelry I would have wanted. (not that I really expected them to have 14g nostril screws on hand, but anyway).
At A Glance Author stephanie Contact apparentlynothng@msn.com IAM .intestinal.flora. When Six months ago Artist Joe Studio Evolution Location Providence, Rhode Island This left me with the other option: my conches. I spoke with Joe, the piercer, and he told me I could pierced them as large as 4 gauge if I wanted. I always have wanted large inner conch piercings, and here I was, presented with the option I was probably dreading as much as I was anticipating. I decided to go with 6 gauge. Not too big, not too small, and besides, I like the number 6. There was a short wait for the steel tunnels to be sterilized, and in that time I tried to psyche myself up for the pain I was sure I was about to endure. I knew not just the piercing itself would be painful, but the healing process was sure to be a bitch as well. No one I know with large gauge cartilage work ever considered those particular piercings to be easy at all. I've heard nothing but horror stories about the healing process of conches. At the same time, I was insanely excited. My conches would be my first large gauge piercings!
Finally, it was time to get pierced. I pulled my hair up and Joe assessed my ears. He told me he could pierce at any number of angles, and it was up to me. I decided to have them placed in the center of the cup of my ear, at what my guess would be about a 30º downward angle. Joe made sure multiple times that my ears were even, and, as he said, "perfect". It felt good knowing I was in such good hands. Until then, I'd never been pierced by Joe before, but I had been pierced by another one of their piercers, Chantal. Evolution in Providence is without a doubt the cleanest, most professional piercing studio in Rhode Island, and probably one of the best in New England. I'd seriously trust these guys with my life.
Anyway, back to the piercing. I was marked up and swabbed with some Technicare. It was the moment of truth. He told me to breathe deeply a few times, and slowly put more pressure on the 5 gauge needle he was about to put through my flesh. (Joe told me it was better to pierce slightly larger than the jewelry, it would reduce bleeding and pressure.) He pushed through. It was an incredible feeling. I guess you could say I have a high tolerance for pain, but beyond that, I have an appreciation for it. Obviously, it hurt. But the infamous crunch was definitely worse than the pain- it was really a quite sickening sound. He pushed the jewelry through and put on the o-ring. He cleaned up the blood (although there wasn't much) and I prepared for the next ear. We took a short breather, and he pierced the other one. The second ear went much more smoothly than the first. I was amazed with what I had just done, it was an amazing rush. Joe made sure I was ok to get up and that I wasn't bleeding too much. He made me feel very, very comfortable and very at ease throughout the entire procedure. He gave me some extra gauze to stick behind my ears, and made sure I knew how to take care of them.
I went back to my school, and excitedly called one of my friends and told her I had pierced something and I wanted to come show her. I felt silly with gauze sticking out from behind my ears, and since they weren't bleeding anymore, and hadn't even been bleeding heavily to begin with, I decided to remove the gauze. I double checked my ears before I left my dorm, and went to walk to the coffee house. Sometime in between the 3 minute walk from my dorm to the coffee house where my friends were, my left ear started bleeding profusely. I didn't feel any of the blood pouring out of my ear, and in my ignorance, I walked into the coffee house with blood all over my neck and ear. It was just the silliest thing ever. I cleaned myself up, and for the next few hours it still bled a lot. I got some ice and held it on my ear, and that stopped the bleeding. For the rest of the night, they didn't bleed again, and in all honesty, they've yet to be at all painful or uncomfortable. With the exception of the first night I had them pierced, my ears never bled again. I never had much difficulty sleeping or positioning my head at all. I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority when I say this, but 6 gauge inner conches were probably the easiest piercings I've ever had done.
Having acquired a rather large number of piercings in the last 6 or so years, I've got my personal aftercare regimen down to a science. I used sterile saline solution twice a day to clean off crusties and besides that, I completely ignored them. They've healed just fine, now that I can say that with the utmost of assurance, now that it is about 4 months later.
I love my conches and I wholeheartedly recommend Evolution to anyone in the area.