I recently (a little over a month ago) had my tragus pierced. I already had 20 piercings all in my ears, and I wanted to have something a little different done. I have always liked this piercing every time I had seen it on someone, and I desperately wanted to have this done, but every time I went to get it I totally chickened out. I am not sure why I was so nervous about it, considering I have 20 piercing and over 30 tattoos, but every time I got ready to do this I couldn't go through with it.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When A month ago Studio Under the Gun Location Binghamton Finally one day I went in and was waiting for my appointment to get tattooed, and the piercer and I were talking before my appointment and I told him that I really wanted to get the pirecing done and asked him how bad it was. I was told that the piercing wasn't bad at all ( which is funny coming from a guy who doesn't even have it pierced) but I guess most of the people he has done have handled it really well. So I signed the papers, and waited while he set the room up. I went into a total nervous sweat and I would have run out the door if I hadn't already partially paid for my tattoo. I went into the room and got on the table, and he cleaned my ear off and put the clamps on. Then got ready to put the needle through and told me on the count of three he would pierce it. Now it didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would, but he had a heck of a time getting the needle through, apparently I have an abnormally thick tragus, lucky me. It bled everywhere, and I mean everywhere! The worst part was when he rammed the cork in my ear hole to push the needle all the way through and to get the hoop in, this part really annoyed me, there was so much pressure and noise that I really wanted to puke. Then finally he got the hoop in, and tried to clean up some of the blood, this thing bled for about an hour, and it throbbed so bad. That night I hurt worse then the piercing had, it was sore and throbbing, and hot. It sucked.
The next day wasn't too bad, it felt a lot better, looked awesome, I was totally happy with the piercing. Then came the next day, I woke up and my ear was swollen three times what it normally is, and it hurt like hell. I called the piercer who told me this was perfectly normal, so I tried to stop worrying. Then next day was even worse, it was red, hot, swollen and sore as hell. It just kept getting bigger and bigger, plus there was absolutely no drainage what so ever. This went on for a few days before I called the piercer back again and told him what was going on. He told me that "yep, it sounds like you have an infection" but he recommended that I leave the piercing in because if I took it out I wouldn't have anything to serve as a drain, so I left it in and called my doctor. They called in a prescription for antibiotics, which I took. It did nothing for my ear at all. I finally started the sea salt soaks, which seemed to make if feel a little better, and finally some of the pain and swelling went down. Then all last week it was so much better that I thought it was actually going to heal and not give me any more problems. That was until today. I woke up and my ear was almost swollen shut. Its huge and is starting to hurt all over again. I bumped it on my shoulder and it shot out a ton of thick white pus, which is the first drainage that has come out of this piercing. I don't know if its going to keep swelling or if I will wake up tomorrow and it will be better. I have never ever had an infected piercing before, and don't know why this one is so bad. I keep it clean, I never play with it, I always have clean hands when I touch it, and I don't sleep on it. I also don't use make up, lotion, or hair products, so nothing is ever near it to irritate it.
I had initially wanted to have both ears done, but after this experience I will never get another piercing. I love how it looks, but I cant tell you how many times I have wanted to rip it out. There are times where there has been so much pain and pressure that I can barely stand it. If I had it to do over again I would have never gotten this piercing. I now know the reason I waited so long to get it done, and why I always chickened out, there was definitely a reason for being so afraid to get it done.
I know a lot of people have this piercing done and have no problems at all (let me just say you are very lucky) and since looking on this site and on the internet, I have seen how many people have terrible problems with this piercing. I wish I had researched the piercing a little more before getting it done, because a lot of tattoo places don't tell you about the risks of this piercing, or the fact that so many get infected because there is no blood supply to your cartilage. There are a lot of risks to getting this area pierced, and it is a really high maintance piercing.
Hopefully this story will help someone in making the decision in getting this done. Please before you do, get more information on the piercing, the risks, and the healing process, I wish I had.