First of all... good morning to all the BME people and sorry for my "bookish" English: I am Italian and when I speak or write in other languages I tend to be extremely picky. I also tend to ignore the grammar, so please don't insult me!
At A Glance Author Valeria When Three months ago Artist A nice girl... sorry, forgot the name Studio Skin & Soul Location Milan, Italy Anyway, this is the sad story of the death of my poor tragus piercing: I already wrote an experience about the birth of it (check "Molto rumore per nulla...nulla?!!" or something like that, don't remember exactly, it's in Italian) and all the problems I had. Here is a little resume: I had my left tragus pierced two years ago(September 2003) by a guy who called himself (and was known as) "a piercer" but should call himself "a complete idiot", since he pierced my tragus too deep and too angled on the inside of my ear (but this I didn't know, at the moment) and told me to take care of an open wound with some tape and alcohol(P.S. never care the "travelling piercers" and the beauty salon who host them! Or look carefully for who has to drill a hole in your body!). Oh yes. I ignored his advices and began my aftercare with sea salt soaks and tea tree oil (BME rules!), and after a year of ups and downs, my tragus was healed. Oh what a beautiful word!
I spent one year of extreme happiness with my piercing: I constantly fiddled with it, changed a variety of jewellery (rings, barbells, studs and so on) until that day... the day I decided I absolutely and desperately NEEDED a horseshoe. Bad idea, very bad. The horseshoe was the only jewel I wasn't able to wear because of the size: I bought a pair of horseshoes but, while the gauge was right (1 mm) the diameter of the ring was too small.
So, in the September 2005, I decided to go to a piercing shop and have it changed by a pro; two weeks later it was my wedding, and I didn't want to be remembered as "the bride with the ear who looked as a cauliflower". I went to Skin & Soul, a nice and clean piercing and tattoo shop in Milan; it's a very nice shop, bright and extremely clean, and the workers are very nice and kind. I waited for my turn and I tried to imagine where to place my next piercing. Returniing to my tragus, I chatted with the girl at the counter and she told me that maybe it was better to stretch it a little, since there was a bigger choice for the jewellery. I agreed and when it was my turn I followed the piercer, a very nice and competent girl whose name I don't remember. She answered all of my questions and she, too, suggested to stretch the piercing a little. She began to examine the inside of my ear and asked who was the butcher who did so a bad job to my ear. She told me I have risked since then a lot of problems to the nerves on my face, since the tragus had been pierced way too deep on the inside; damn, this explained all the problems I had during the healing, such as boils, pus, pain... But the piercing was healed, now, so she decided to proceed with the stretching, trying to stretch the hole not going down on the inside but staying as closest as possible to the rim of my tragus.
So, here we go. Jewellery chosen – a nice silver horseshoe of the right size, 1.6mm -, gloves on, everything sterilized and autoclaved, breathing in and breathing out and... oh.my.god.and.all.the.angels.of.heaven. What a pain... For a moment, I thought I was going to puke in her perfectly clean studio! My ear was in flame, red, hot and throbbing. The piercer told me that was because of the slight stretching and because she tried to change the direction of the "let's call it tunnel" of the piercing (sorry, I can't find better words to explain what she was trying to say to me in that moment of pain, eheh); according to her, now my ear was perfect, because she "corrected" the damage done by the idiot...ehm, the previous piercer.
At the moment, I agreed with her: now my ear was perfect and very very nice, with the shiny new piece of jewelry in it. But there was a little problem: the pain. Enormous. Horrible. Continuous. It began right after I paid for the piercing and copntinued for all the afternoon and the night too. The day after, still pain on my ear and a tremendous headache. I tried everything to try to stop the pain, the swelling and the pus (yes, they both returned to pay visit!) I hadn't any positive result even with the sea salt soaks: it seemed my ear wanted to "spit out" that jewel. A little damned boil has formed on the exit hole, on the inside of my ear, and it was absolutely painful when I cleaned it. Plus, the wedding was just one week later, and maybe the stress too helped me to decide to take out the horseshoe.
Yes, I retired the piercing and the relief was immediate: as I took the jewel out, the pain stopped. I let it rest for a couple of hours, have a refreshinf sea salt soak and then began to squeeze out anything I could: pus, blood and everything else. Two more hours, some more sea salt soaks and the ear looked visibly better: the swelling went down, it was just a little red and slightly painful. During that week the ear continued to heal properly, and on the day of my wedding it was almost normal.
Looking at the photos of my wedding day, you clearly see the hole on my left ear... maybe I wouldn't be remembered as "the bride with the ear who looked as a cauliflower", but as "the bride with the drilled ear"...
Maybe someday I will try again to have my tragus repierced...but this time I will choose my piercer more carefully!
Have a nice day!