While recovering from having my wisdom teeth out, I managed to read a considerable number of past QOD pages. During my reading, I stumbled upon a link to a picture of a piercing, done by Luis Garcia, of a person with two rings in her daith, one fitting neatly inside the other. I thought this was absolutely beautiful and so should be the next step in my ear project.
At A Glance Author becks. Contact becks.@bme.anon IAM becks. When A month ago Artist Jesika Studio St. Sabrina's Location Mpls, MN I printed out the image, and on my way home I stopped by St. Sabrina's, where I get all of my piercings when I'm in MN. I just wanted to talk to one of the piercers to see if my daith could hold two rings. Luckily I'm 'blessed' with large-ish and quite pierceable ears. Jesika (the piercer) told me I should make an hour appointment just to make sure we had plenty of time to get the markings and placement just right.
I showed up at the shop later that day, about 10 minutes early for my appointment. Jesika was in the middle of another piercing, so I had plenty of time to fill out paperwork/show ID/all that. (They're starting to recognize me there too - which is exciting for this relatively preppy sorority girl without a navel piercing - strike down stereotypes, people!)
I went over to the jewelry counter, picture in hand. To my quite untrained eye, the CBRs in the picture looked around 14g - I was hoping to get 14g or 16g. However, when Jesika came over after finishing the other piercing, she said that to fit two rings I'd have to go with 18g jewelry. I was okay with this, first because I trusted her judgment but also because I have an 18g fixed-bead ring in my rook. For the inner piercing, Jesika decided to use a CBR that was just slightly smaller than the outer one to allow for swelling, warning me that the initial jewelry wouldn't fit as exactly concentrically as I wanted. She said after a month I could switch to a smaller-diameter CBR so the two would fit a little better. (It looks awesome right now - I can't wait to see how it looks when the rings sit the way they should!)
PROCEDURE
Okay - now for the fun part. Fun - haha, right. I tend to get very nervous for piercings. Yes, I'm a big baby and I'm afraid of the pain. I brought a bottle of water with me, because drinking water helps relax my body. I also got to lie down for this piercing, which was good because I have a tendency to get quite light-headed. I've almost passed out a few times, but I listen to my body and I'm not afraid to stay lying down until I'm sure I'm not going to keel over.
(Funny side story, including my advice: as I was talking with Jesika about my jewelry, a girl who had just left the store ran back in: 'Oh my God, [the guy who had just had his tongue pierced] just puked in the parking lot! What should we do?!' Don't try to look hard, people. If you don't feel well, hang out till you do. There's no shame in your body's natural reaction to trauma!)
So I'm lying there, Jesika is measuring and marking, I'm getting more and more nervous... (Not Jesika's fault, she was talking and calming me down.) It took Jesika 15-20 minutes to be happy with her markings. When she was almost done, I was suddenly overcome by this horrible fear that it was going to hurt immensely. My last piercing was my outer labia, and that was a very quick but very intense stabbing pain. I knew the daith would take longer - in my memory my rook hurt like a bitch - I remember swearing like a sailor... but then again my tragus didn't hurt at all... In other words I didn't know what to expect so I assumed the worst. After getting a drink of my water I figured pain was temporary and would be worth it.
Jesika used two 18g needles for the piercing, which she bent beforehand to make them more maneuverable. She did the inner ring first. That one didn't really hurt - it felt a lot like my tragus, just pressure as the needle went through. The only uncomfortable part was the bend in the needle, but it was over quickly. Jewelry in. Okay. She goes for the next needle.
Me: Uh, are you gonna give me a break between the two piercings?
Jesika: I need to get the second one done before the first starts to swell.
So much for the breather. The second one hurt a lot more. I made some gorgeous faces, I'm sure, particularly as the bend in the needle passed through the thick part of my daith. In no time, though, the ring was in and I was done. They looked beautiful. Jesika asked me if she could take a picture - my first piercing unique enough to go in a portfolio! She let me sit there for as long as I wanted. I felt fine but stayed sitting while I ate a sucker to get my blood sugar back up. When I came out of the piercing room, she showed my ear/her work off to the other employees. That felt pretty cool.
HEALING
I've honestly had very few problems with my healing - much fewer than with my rook (although that almost certainly has to do with aftercare conditions...). I can sort of sleep on it, although that usually makes it sore so I try not to. At first I tried sea salt soaks by lying with my ear in a coffee mug, but that was horribly uncomfortable and I always felt like the sea salt wasn't getting into the piercing - like when you put a cup upside-down into water and it doesn't fill up. Now I'm using either saline on a Q-tip, very carefully, or gauze soaked in sea salt. I use the sea salt when I have time to shower and rinse it off afterwards. The only problems I've had stemmed from a night of drinking, during which the rings got a little mashed around (mostly when I was passed out I think). I had a small abscess, but I've been babying it the past week and a half since then and the abscess is almost gone. Only another few days till I can get the inner ring changed...
My advice: if you want to get this done, go to someone who is experienced with cartilege work and who is excited to do this sort of work. Jesika said she was happy to do the piercing because she so rarely gets work that challenges her, and she did an amazing job. Hopefully I'll have pictures up soon - check my IAM page for pics/links. If anyone's thinking of getting this done, I'd be happy to field any questions!