"How to make the cover of BME"
At A Glance Author San Contact San@bme.anon IAM BlueStar When Three months ago Artist Mike Studio Artistic Impressions Location Niagara Falls, ON Canada I went to Artistic's to drop stuff off for a couple of people. I was trying to kill time before an exam. It was open book, so I didn't really bother studying. (This came back to bite me in the ass, I got one percent below failing. Shit! I used to be an honour roll student.) MIke was bored, so was I.
"Let's do something big"
Mike looked at my left ear. I had an orbital in it. He thought a tunnel between the CBR would look pretty cool. I then drove home in extremely hot weather with no air conditioning, ran to my basement, grabbed a shitload of jewellery and went back to Artistics.
I had with me a 2ga glass flatback plug I purchased off of a wholesaler on Ebay. I also had a 00ga titanium tunnel. Mike didn't want to taper, he said it caused too much trauma to the new hole. That's his opinion, he's entitled to it, and I went ahead and took his advice. I've had dermal punched holes stretched immediately afterwards and its not the best feeling. It does cut down on blood though.
Mike threw my jewellery into the autoclave and everyone was excited to see this. After the autoclave finished, we went to the piercing room where Mike cleaned everything, set everything up and put one paper towel on my shoulder. It proved to be useless.
I've been dermal punched before, but not at 8mm. I can say it felt pretty much the same, really crunchy. The 2ga plug went through my ear. So Mike grabbed different jewellery as I bled all over myself, ran a taper through for easy insertion and I had a 0ga stainless tunnel in my ear. He tried to 'do my orbital up', but it didn't work. We focused on stopping the bleeding, as I did have an exam in an hour.
The bleeding was under control and my ear burned. The best part of this experience is playing with my little chunk of skin. Everybody put gloves on and poked it. It grossed out a few. Mike got me a water bottle filled with rubbing alcohol and I put the chunk in. It was neat: Four layers. Skin, fat, cartilage, skin. I put it in a smaller bottle later on and it had hardened by then. Very neat. You could see the marker on it too.
I went to my exam and finished in ten minutes or so. I went home and started to gently get the blood off. It started to gush. Blood was pouring over my face and into the sink. It was a nice mess. I had to run to my room dripping blood to grab my digital camera and take pictures of this. Then the tunnel kept slipping out, so I put a CBR through it to help it stay in. The orbital attepts were futile.
After I got the bleeding under control, I had to clean everything up because my bathroom looked like I murdered somebody. I snapped some pictures of the delightful mess and cleaned the blood off of my face, the sink, the floor, etc.
Healing it was fast. I downsized to 2ga after a couple of days and put my glass plug in. It looks good, and feels good. It hasn't bothered me much at all. I've caught it once or twice, but other than that, it's a pretty good looking hole. Taking jewellery out reveals a perfect circle.
So, next time I get something dermal punched, we're tapering it! I'm lucky I didn't start bleeding during my exam. (Or maybe, I was unlucky that it didn't start bleeding during my exam.) It turned out really well and Mike did a good job. It's perfectly between the orbital holes, which I still haven't screwed around with.
Aftercare was simple. Pretty much 'leave it the hell alone' and some saltwater soaks. Soak it a bit in the shower. Crusties stopped after a few days. Larger gauge piercings have always healed better for me. (Needle piercings don't heal as well in larger gauges, for me, but scalpelled or dermal punching seems to heal faster for me. This differs person-to-person.)
Here's some advice. Do not drink within 24 hours of getting dermal punched. If you're a heavy drinker, wait longer. Bring paper towels with you. Don't screw around with the jewellery a couple hours after its done. Use a pillowcase and blankets you don't care about, I woke up with a bloody pillow.
Hope this helps. It was a positive experience and I'd do it again in a second! And I may just do it to the other side. I can leave it out for hours (I had to get an x-ray and left my jewellery at home, but made a stop on the way back) and it won't shrink. I figure if I leave it out long enough, it would shrink, as its still healing, but I like it the way it is.
-San