At A Glance
Author	Rachael
Contact	Rachael@bme.anon
IAM	Alkaline_fairy
When	Six months ago
Artist	Alex
Studio	Area 51
Location	Newbury, England

My industrial piercing was a birthday present from my much pierced friend Will. He has a horizontal tragus-conch industrial which I loved and as soon I as searched on BME (oh how I love thee) and found this girl who still looked "girlie" with an industrial piercing and I knew I could manage to not look like a piece of scaffolding or well, Will, a bloke.

I was getting my tongue pierced at the same time as my industrial and before any needles went through any flesh the (most terrifying) digital callipers came out and measured my ear, Alex chose two different lengths of bar and prepared them for autoclaving. I then got my tongue pierced (after the various forms obviously). After piercing we left the room due to the autoclave (my industrial bars) getting really hot and I showed Will my tongue and basically waited for however long it took. As I remember it, it felt like ten minutes but I'm sure it was longer. Although I had experienced a completely non-painful tongue piercing I was apprehensive about a double cartilage piercing so soon after getting my conch pierced. Alex and his counter guy basically ignored me and Will, as we were the only ones in the shop until the piercing room was available for use again. He asked me if I was ready and Will laughed at me and told me it would hurt. He's so supportive bless. Basically I told him he was a paedophile and geared myself up for some pain.

In the room, I sat down, the bars, clamps, needles and anything else that I've forgotten about was placed on a metal tray which was next to me on the bed-thing. It took a while to get the marks lined up, and I asked him to move them once because the entry hole was too close to my head and then obviously the other hole didn't line up anymore after that. Alex explained that he would be doing both piercings with two different needles as British law dictates that a needle can only be used for one hole. This obviously made getting the holes to line up trickier but all for legality's sake.

I clutched at the edge of the bed as is my custom. I like to squeeze it as I've never had anyone in the piercing room with me, nor do I want someone in there with me. I don't remember a countdown but I remember controlling my breathing as an intense pressure and then a burning went through my ear, he didn't stop for very long, literally about 2 seconds then the next needle went through. Cannulas in place he took the needles out and binned them (straight into a sharps bin as it should be) an externally threaded, 1.6 x 40 mm barbell was threaded through my new holes. This was if I remember correctly, rather uncomfortable as expected I guess, what with flesh being taken out of my ear (remember the needles are hollow). It didn't take very long for him to get the bar through or get the ball on the end (he screwed the ball on nearest my head, I turned the bar around after 2 months ish because of my worry that the ball would fall off and the bar not be able to stay in due to gravity).

There was no blood immediately, which I was surprised at. Will and I pooled our money, since he was buying me my industrial and I was paying for my tongue piercing with other birthday money. Again I forgot to leave a tip (he must have hated me) and left with very high spirits and a burning ear. I met my stepdad at Sainsburys (hardcore) and showed him and he was just like "Your mother is going to flip." Luckily when she got home (a while after us) my stepdad warned her and she was ok about the tongue piercing, not so keen on my industrial (this was back when I had two sets of lobes, a new conch piercing, and obviously now an industrial and a tongue piercing) but fed me soup and brought me things I needed when I claimed invalid status. The joy of piercings!

Aftercare I was told to rinse it in the shower with a mild soap. I kind of ignored this as I knew sea salt soaks were the best thing to do for piercings, but at first I just left it alone and rinsed it really really well after washing my hair because I knew shampoo wouldn't be very good for new holes. It was so painful for a long time, it started to settle down last week (just under 5 months old) and today after a very tight pair of headphones it is playing up again, but so is the course of cartilage piercings. For a time I thought I had an infection but I realised that it was just normal lymph (this is only my second cartilage piercing after all!)

The only thing I'm really bad at is I pick crusties off the bar and around the holes, which is a bad thing to do and wronger than constantly turning it. Which I also do sometimes. It's my little worry toy and I love it, but it has been seriously hard work, it is indeed hard to articulate how hard it was and there have been many times where I have thought "There is no point to this, I want it out." But I'm so glad I stuck with it. I love it so much. I had thought industrials were really individual and although you can't get the same one twice because of the differences in people's ears, I did see an awful lot of industrials at Reading Festival!

A word of advice with a still healing (can be up to a year, certainly at least 3 months) industrial, don't go into situations where it might be knocked- it bloody hurts!