Piercing's reasonably expensive and semi-permanent, so the questions everyone wants answered are:
At A Glance Author Jane Contact Jane@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Matt Studio New Life Location Champaign, IL - why?
- where?
- wh-wh-what about the pain?
The "why" for me was partly aesthetic, partly personal. My previous piercing (nostril) was a promise to myself to kick a certain bad habit that I'd had for a decade. As a visible, physical reminder to myself, it worked great. I also like the way it looks. 6 months later, I'd decided I wanted to change another aspect of my behavior, and I knew that a piercing would make me carry that commitment through. I thought about getting my lip done, but as I work with kids a lot I knew that a lip ring was pretty likely to get yanked out by a curious toddler - my nostril screw gets a lot of prodding and comments like "you have a SHINY booger!" or "a bug has landed on your nose"...
I saw a picture on BME of three spikes through the top of the ear, and I was decided about where the piercing was going on me. Where to get it done was an easy choice - Matt at New Life had done a great job on my nose, and the shop was by far the cleanest on the UIUC campus. Of the other two Green Street options for UC dwellers, I'd been put off Altered Egos (because their carpet looked kind of dirty), and Mark Of Cain (by their crusty-looking chairs, super-grumpy owner and the fact that, the afternoon I went in, one of the tattooists was letting his pre-schooler son flip through the genital piercing portfolio). I reject skanky flooring and poor parenting skills! New Life smells like a hospital, is immaculately clean, and Matt the piercer seems like a genuinely nice and trustworthy guy. (Personally I think it's important to trust someone that you're paying to hurt you). When he did my nose, he'd explained about the metal not meeting European regulations (I'm from Europe), but that it was safe for non-allergic folks - I appreciated his honesty and knowledge on that. Plus, his own tattoos and piercings look good, which is always reassuring. You wouldn't want to get a haircut from somebody with a mullet, would you? Same goes for piercings.
I really wanted to go with the spikes straight away, but Matt said it would be better to pierce with captive bead rings, for easier cleaning. After a few weeks of healing, these could be replaced with the spikies. He spent a long time getting the three markings lined up just where I wanted them, and scrubbed, wiped and sterilized pretty much anything that stayed still. I wondered how many pairs of latex gloves the shop gets through each week. I'm thinking hundreds.
And what about the pain? I was honestly expecting this to hurt quite a lot - the piercings were through stiff stuff and quite close together. I wasn't nervous because I knew the drill - take a deep breath when you're told, and by the time you've slowly let it out, the needle and jewelry will be through. The needle felt like a sharp pinch each time, the ring wiggling through was a more uncomfortable sensation but Matt managed to get it through both quickly and gently. Being epileptic I knew there was a chance that the shock/blood loss of piercing could start a seizure, but I felt absolutely fine. The rings looked good too, way better than I'd expected. I gave Matt $65, he gave me his recipe for cranberry sauce (it was the day before Christmas Eve), and I headed off home happy.
A couple of hours later, still slightly smug about how dang TOUGH I had been, I thought it was time for a little cleaning and rotation. I spun the first ring and there was a horrible crackling sensation in the cartilage, accompanied by much squelchy stinging and gore. This was definitely not the same feeling as lobe/nostril jewelry. I was very determined about cleanliness so I gingerly rotated the other two - this felt horrible enough that I went all dizzy and very nearly lost my lunch. I went into a bathroom crouch for a long time, dreading doing this five times a day.
But happily the crunching and squelching only lasted a couple of days, and now I almost enjoy twizzling the CBRs round. My ear aches a little in the cold, but apart from that it feels fine. I am learning by painful experience not to tuck my hair behind that ear so much. Also I've had to find a different position to hold my head when I do crunches. Rather foolishly I pierced the ear I usually sleep on, so the past week I've been experimenting with different positions and pillow alignments - it's still annoying when I roll onto the pierced ear but I'm sure this is temporary.
So my advice to potential piercees - do it! Just make sure you choose something you really want, and you get it done somewhere clean. To put the pain in context, my cart piercing was the third time that week I'd lain on a chair and paid someone to cause me pain - the first was a dental appointment, the second a smear test. The piercing hurt more than the dentist, less than the pap. If you're not female, sorry I can't come up with a suitable pain analogy for that last one!
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