At A Glance
Author	anonymous
When	A month ago

Well, how to begin?

I guess my love of all things piercing started when I was about 7 and begged my parents to let me get my ears pierced. When they refused, I undertook the operation myself: a safety pinned jabbed clumsily halfway through my lobe, a lot of blood, my mother horrified. Eventually they took me to a store similar Claire's to get my ears gunned, which I thought felt incredible, not at all painful like I had been assured it would be.

By the time I was 15 I had acquired four holes in each ear, a tongue piercing and a navel piercing- nothing too serious. There was something so exciting about waking up the morning knowing I would come back to bed at night with a fresh piece of metal sticking through my body.

After I had to take my navel piercing out due to bad placement and infection (grrr), I began to get that craving for a new piercing. Since I was working at a fairly straightedge place at the time, I knew it would have to be something non-facial. :(

I was sitting on the computer flipping through pictures of piercings when one immediately caught my eye- a long, shiny barbell imbedded straight through the cartilage. I became frantically obsessed, looking at pictures over and over again, pinching my ears with my fingers to try and see what it would feel like.

At first, I was going to get it pierced at a place 10 minutes away from my house, but they told me that they pierced it with two separate rings and it would take 5 MONTHS to be able to change to the bar. I know they had their reasons, and it's probably a lot easier to heal, but I wanted that shiny long bar right away! So I called around and finally found a place that pierced it with the long bar.

Driving to the appointment, I got that familiar tingling of butterflies in my stomach and hoped it wouldn't hurt too much. I have quite a high pain threshold and none of the piercings I've gotten had ever hurt too much, but from what I'd read the industrial was as painful as hell. So I was a little freaked out by that.

We stepped inside and waited as two ladies my mom's age got their navels pierced. Finally, it was my turn. The piercer (forget her name, sorry) explained everything about the aftercare, and then instructed me to lay down on my back on this doctor-like table. She marked the placement, I checked it out, and then she pulled out the needle.

She began with the lower hole first- and it killed. I flinched my legs up involuntarily, but managed not to whimper. The second hole was just as painful, and then she began to insert the jewelry. It took her a while to push it through- by then, it felt like my ear had just taken several bullets to it. I could feel my ear swelling already and began to wonder, What did I get myself into?

But all those worries vanished as I looked in the mirror. It was perfect. Better than I could have hoped for. And when I stood up, the adrenaline rush wasn't too bad either.

It's been about a month and a half, and is almost healed. I had a lot of swelling on the first day, but didn't want to put ice on it in fear of irritating it. The swelling went down after a couple days, but a tiny blue bruise appeared on the edge of the lower hole, which lasted for about a week.

Sleeping was really difficult at first- you have to get used to sleeping on one side, and one side only. I've tried to sleep on it, but even now if I do, I wake up with a sore ear, and sometimes even pus. I hope in a couple months it will fully heal and I'll be able to sleep on my left side again.

If you're wanting to get an industrial, be prepared to deal with initial pain and lots of aftercare treatments- it's not like a tongue piercing, where you can slack off and it heals perfectly anyway. My aftercare sheet instructed me to only clean it with ear-piercing solution, but I sometimes use a sea-salt soak every once in a while, and it seems to work better.

It all pays off in the end, because whenever I wear my hair up it's the first thing people notice. They always say, "Ouch! Didn't that hurt?", which is kind of amusing. Plus, I've only seen one or two people around here with it down. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for something a little more edgy and fun.