At A Glance Author hazardous_metal Contact Roxandra007@aol.com When A week ago Studio Ian's Location NYC Ever since I first began to get interested in body modification (about a year ago), I knew that the industrial was my favorite ear piercing. However, I never thought that I would actually get it. Not because I was afraid of the pain, but because I just never thought that I would even get around to it. It seemed like such a hardcore, intense piercing, and I just really wanted it! After getting my tongue pierced, which would be my first modification besides standard earlobes, I decided to try out an industrial. I thought that since my parents had not seen my tongue ring, they might not notice an itty bitty bar through the top of my ear. Boy was I wrong...
So one day after school I gathered up some folks, and went on down to St. Marks Place in the village. We made our way to Ian's, which is the VERY best place to get pierced in NYC. I asked them how much it would cost, and the very nice lady behind the counter said twenty bucks, which is pretty good, when you consider that it is really two piercings in one.
I went to the mirrored back room where they do all of their piercings, and began to brace myself for the worst. I had read some pretty heinous stories on BME about "crunching sounds", and massive amounts of blood loss, so I was pretty nervous. The dude asked me to take off my glasses, and then proceeded to clamp the part of my ear closest to my head. I held on the edge of the chair, and "pop!"- The needle was through. (When I say "pop" I don't actually mean that there was a sound- it was actually more of a "whoosh" feeling. But whatever.) The second hole was more of the same. Some people said that the second hole hurt more than the first, or that there was a difference in the pain. To me, they were pretty much the same. The most painful part of the whole thing was when the threading of the needle passed through the fresh wound. Yikes.
After I thanked and paid the piercer, I walked out of there. Soon afterwards my ear began to throb, but I didn't care. It's just another one of those things that you need to get over if you really want a piercing. When I got home, I stealthily avoided my mother and made my way up to my room to clean my piercing. I was so glad that my ears did not get all swollen and red like some other people. I cleaned it with this natural anti-bacterial called Witch Hazel that I found in the bathroom cabinet. I t seemed to do the job well enough, but I would have preferred to have something more widely used for cleaning piercings, like Hydrogen Peroxide. For the first couple nights it was impossible to sleep on it, but it eventually got better.
Not surprisingly, my mother didn't notice my new piercing for a week. It's not even like I had any hair covering my piercing or anything. It was poking out there for the whole world to see. But when she saw it, she had a fit, and ordered me to take it out. I thought that I might be able to bluff my way out of it and tell her that it hurt too much to take out. That was when she decided to take me to the doctor to have it taken out. Rather than go through with that traumatic ordeal, I pulled it out myself. Yes. It hurt like a mother to take out; even more than it did to pierce. And all have to show for my industrial now is a small scar.
About an hour after pulling out I looked at my ear in a mirror and I saw that there was a hole remaining from where my industrial was. I pulled a stud earring out of my bag and put it in, thinking that my mother wouldn't care as much. Wrong again. She made me take that out too. The holes healed really quickly after that, and after a only about one week, they don't hurt anymore and they are impossible to see- unless you are looking for them.
This is still a piercing that I would recommend to anyone who can get it. It heals (at least for me) really quickly and easily. Also just because it just looks wicked awesome in the long run! And for anyone in the NYC area, I highly recommend Ian's for piercings. They have such a good atmosphere and are just really awesome. Just make sure you're doing whatever makes you happy, cause that's all that's really important in the end=).