At A Glance Author Michelle D Contact Michelle D@bme.anon IAM Flutterfly When A week ago Artist Six Studio Exotix Location Toronto, Ontario. On Friday, March 4th I was sitting in my Anti-oppression and Human Diversity class when I decided that I was going to get my anti-tragus pierced. The previous day I had gotten my logarth re-pierced. I thought that since I was already sea salt soaking and soaping up that piercing I may as well go ahead and get my anti-tragus piercing, since I intended it to be in the same ear. I was antsy as I sat through the rest of my 3 hour class, but when it finished I headed to Exotix on Church Street. I walked in and was greeted by Six and his apprentice, Chris. They asked what they could do for me and I told them that I was going to get my anti-tragus pierced. They asked me if I could come back in an hour and I said sure. Since Exotix is pretty much on campus I went and did some school-related stuff for a while.
One hour later I was walking up the few steps of Exotix and I noticed that my friend Laura was inside the studio. She had been there to show Six how her cleavage piercing was healing and he mentioned that I would be by shortly for my piercing so she waited for me.
While the room was being prepared and equipment being set up I filled out the consent form, not bothering to read the information provided as I had just filled out the same form exactly 24 hours earlier and knew what it had said.
Once Six and Chris were set up I headed into the piercing room and laid down. Six cleaned my anti-tragus and began to draw some placement marks. It took quite a while for all of us (Six, Chris, Laura and I) to decide where to place my piercing. I wanted the piercing to go straight through the middle of my anti-tragus, but Six told me I should avoid that because of how thick it was. He suggested alternate placements, but I still wanted it in the middle. To compromise, it was decided that the entry point could be at the middle of my anti-tragus, but that we would have the piercing exit on an angle, towards my tragus, where it was thinner. Once this was decided Six wiped off all of the many lines and dots and drew in our final placement decision.
As Six was getting ready to do the piercing he told Chris that he was going to hold the receiving tube "like this" with "lots of pressure". I have never had a piercing done in which 2 people were involved. The day before Six had done my piercing alone while Chris had simply watched. So I asked Six if I should be re-thinking my decision, or if Chris was just helping to get experience. It turns out that Six just wanted Chris to help for learning purposes. When Six and Chris were ready I was told to take a deep breath in and let it out when I was instructed to do so. It seemed like it took a lot of force to get the needle through, but I was told that it didn't take any more force than normal. Luckily there was no crunching noise and minimal pain when the needle passed through my cartilage. However, I didn't know what I was able to experience next.
Six started to insert the jewelry and it was uncomfortable. I'm not sure if it had more to do with the pain or the weird pressure (I think it was more about the pressure), but I was not tolerating the jewelry insertion well. I began to sweat and felt quite sick. I was confused as I have never felt like this before with any of my other cartilage (rook, tragus, conch, logarth, snug) piercings before. Six asked me if I had eaten before my piercing, to which I said yes (and indicated so on the consent form) as I had. Usually when I get piercings I don't even say ouch, flinch or hold anyone's hand. When Six started to insert the jewelry I was going spastic. Laura gave me her hand to hold and I was squeezing it like crazy. I kept commenting about how much pain I was in. I think I was holding my breath and I felt so gross that I told (maybe even demanded) Six that I needed a break before the CBR was all the way through. He was afraid that the piercing was going to begin to close up so he asked Chris to pass him a 16g taper. He put the taper in my ear and removed the jewelry, which brought a stream of blood, so I was told afterwards. Once the taper was in Six proceeded to let me have a break. However, the taper felt so odd that I wanted it out of my ear as fast as possible... I just couldn't be satisfied... so after a break Six started to re-insert the jewelry, which brought me the same amount of discomfort. I kept begging Laura to tell me stories to keep me distracted and there was a point where Six said "Tell her a story" so that I would be able to relax a little. It was hard for Laura to come up with stories on the spot so I just squeezed her hand. I also kept asking Six if he was finished and I heard a lot of "No"s. There was one point when I stated that I just wanted to call it quits. Had Six let me, I would have walked out of Exotix without that piercing. He wouldn't let me give up, though. Eventually he said that the CBR was in and he just had to get the bead in place, but let me have another break first. All "\Ãw€ë throughout this experience Chris had been asking me if I was okay, which I appreciated and I told him not to let me sit up immediately after the piercing, because I thought that I was going to be very dizzy.
After the final break Six put the bead in the CBR, which was fairly difficult because I have small ears and Six was working in a very small space. The whole time my nerves were shaky and I felt like I was going to flail my legs and end up kicking a hole in the wall or something ridiculous. He eventually succeeded and I had decided that I had enough fiddling with my ears. This is when I found out that there had been quite a lot of blood. Six worked to clean my ear from the blood, but I wasn't being very co-operative. I kept trying to 'squidge' away from him. I was sliding closer and closer to the wall every time Six brought the Q-Tips closer to me. Even though it didn't hurt I had had enough and said that I would be fine with walking out of the studio with dried blood all over my ear. Six wouldn't have that and eventually got my ear cleaned up well enough to call it quits.
After the piercing was finished I laid on the piercing bed for quite a while. I was afraid that if I sat up I may pass out. While laying there Laura and I talked to Six and Chris about BME's recent article 'Nasty, Nasty Clients' and Six shared a few of his 'interesting' piercing experiences. Eventually I sat up, but didn't get up and walk out of the piercing room just then. I made sure I took things slowly. It was when I sat up that I saw the blood all over the covering of the piercing table. I was shocked that I had bled so much for it to be all over the table, but Six told me that those spots were there from him wiping his hands.
When I did leave the piercing room I went and sat down on the couch in the waiting area. I was so out of it. I didn't understand what was wrong with me. Laura and I sat there while Six talked about earlobe stretching verses scalpelling and then tattoo prices with a guy who came into the studio following my piercing. While Six was talking Chris took my money. The piercing was just under $65 dollars. I gave him $80 and said that I didn't need any change. Six heard this and asked me if I was sure. I said that I was, that I knew this had been a stressful experience for both of us. I appreciated his patience and felt bad for how much of a pain in the ass I may have been. I wish I wasn't a poor student (who spends her OSAP money on piercings/tattoos... whoops) and could have tipped him more.
Eventually Laura and I left the studio. I felt kind of out of it the whole way home. But I did manage to make it home. When I got home I immediately ate some pizza, drank a pop and had some sugary candy. I've decided that although I had breakfast the morning of my piercing my blood sugar levels were probably not high enough. For every other piercing or tattoo I have gotten, I have had candy or a pop immediately before my appointment or while waiting for the piercer to set-up and call me back into the room. This time I did not and I learned my lesson.
My piercing was very sore following my appointment but has been feel pretty good since then. Luckily after so many ear piercings I've learned how to adjust my sleeping positions so that I either don't sleep on the side of a new piercing, or if I do, I position my pillows so that I am not sleeping directly on the piercing.
As far as aftercare goes, I've been sea salt soaking (1/4 teaspoon of salt to 8oz of water) my piercing 2 times a day. The first soak I did I was surprised at how much dried blood ended up in my sea salt solution, despite Six cleaning my ear up so well following the piercing. In addition to sea salt soaks, while I'm in the shower I'm cleaned my ear with Satin soap. As with all of my other cartilage piercings, I have not been able to rotate the CBR when I cleaning my piercing. I used to get distressed over not being able to rotate my jewelry, but now I know that it's not necessary to rotate your jewelry if you're going to end up doing damage to the piercing by trying... which is what would happen to me if I were to force my jewelry to move.
I'm not going to lie, I did not have fun with this piercing experience. However, this has nothing to do with Six. He was very professional and knowledgeable, as always. My body just decided that it wasn't going to handle the experience as well as all of my other piercings. My anti-tragus experience was a confusing and somewhat frightening one (because I didn't want to pass out or get sick), but I am very happy with the results. Usually it will take me a while to adjust to my new piercings, but as soon as I looked in the mirror I loved my anti-tragus piercing. Now I just that my piercing heals as fast as possible, with minimal problems. Oh, and I also hope that any future piercing experiences I can tolerate as well as usual, unlike this last piercing.