The first time I saw someone who had an industrial, I fell in love with it. It was on some punk kid, and he had two of them, criss crossed across one another. I was fascinated. I stopped this poor kid on the street and bombarded him with questions about it. He was really nice, though, and answered everything for me, and also gave me a word of advice: that the industrial was kind of hard to heal, so you need to take really good care of it.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist Mike Studio Angry Moon Tattoo Location Pittsburgh, PA I wanted to get it done, but I really was scared. I mean, it looks like a scary piercing, with that huge metal barbell through your ear, but I loved the way it looked. Well, aside from the scariness of it. So, I decided to go through with it.
I went to Angry Moon, and talked to Mike, who I've had do work on me before, and he said that he could do it for me right then. So, I went into the back with him, and we were talking about aftercare and all the things that could go wrong with industrials and how to prevent them from happening to mine. Not an easy piercing to heal, apparently. So, finally, he had everything all set up and we were ready to start. He started to clean my ear, still talking about the piercing and what gauge he was going to do and all of that. He decided to do that actual piercing with a 12 gauge, though the barbell would be a 14, so it left me some room to heal. Then, we were ready for the piercing.
He shoved the needle through the first point, and it didn't really hurt much. Not how I expected it to hurt, anyway. The second one hurt a little bit more, not really hurt actually, but it did pinch. But then again, the second one always hurts more, because you were really braced for the first one. Any piercing that I've got done in pairs, this has been true of. So, anyway, back to the industrial. Overall, it wasn't very painful... at the time, anyway. So, then Mike puts in the barbell and all that jazz, and he's cleaning me up. And cleaning me up. And cleaning me up. He told me that I was bleeding a little more than normal, but everything seemed fine, and he was gonna show me now. But, he told me, don't be alarmed by the blood. Now, I'm not really squeamish, so I didn't worry about it. I looked in the mirror, and it looked great, haha, aside from the blood that was running all the way down the side of my face. It didn't stop for a while, but it did finally, and it was fine. Healing it, however, was a totally different story.
I had to start sleeping a different way so I didn't lay on it, because that was very, very uncomfortable, and in the morning, it turned to painful. So, I had to start sleeping with my hand under my head, cradling my ear so that my head rested on my hand, while the ear was in the gap between my hand and the pillow. Try it so you know what I'm talking about, take your right hand, make a backwards 'c' with your whole hand and put it up to your right ear, so that you're cupping it in your hand. Yeah, that's how I sleep. Every night. It took some getting used to. I hope that that's clear, it was kind of hard to describe. I wish I could draw you a diagram. I had to wash it with antibacterial soap, and I found it easiest to do that in the shower. However, to make sure I got all of the soap out of it, I had to tilt my head, and that made the water flow into my ear canal, clog it, and make me deaf for a few hours. Yeah, that sucked.
Also, whenever it was touched, it hurt. Like, shooting pain into your head hurt. Lots of pain, a lot worse than when it was pierced. And all that had to be done to cause this kind of pain was to tap it. It's been rough to heal, and I've known at least five other people who had to take theirs out because they couldn't heal it. Yeah, you know, looking back on this piercing, it was really a pain to heal. Really a pain in general. But, it does look great. And let me tell you this, folks: after all I've been through with this piercing, I'm never taking it out. Ever. I'm going to be an 80-year-old great grandma with a huge metal bar through my ear. I'm going to be buried with this industrial. I love my industrial.