I have this habit of flipping through the pages of BME compulsively looking at and considering every singe piercing I see, with the exception of PAs and Apadravyas and the like as I am a woman so I in fact, sadly, don't have a penis. After hours and hours of looking at vertical labrets, monroes, madonnas, tragus piercings, and eyebrows, thinking about how badly I felt I needed to feel the pleasure, and excitement of the execution and ensuing aftercare of a new piercing, and admittedly, rather shallowly wondering if any given facial piercing would clash funny with the gap in my teeth, I happened upon some smashing pictures, of helix piercings. I was very taken with them and I surrendered to the idea the maybe an ear piercing would be better suited for my life at the time as I was currently looking for a job, and I could just wear my hair down to cover it if I had to surrender to our lovely bland little society bubble that is inherent in working with the public, and I knew that it being in my ear and all it wouldn't clash with the gap between my teeth.
At A Glance Author kas Contact kas@bme.anon When Two years ago Artist me Studio my desk Location salem CT After I got the idea in my head I couldn't shake it. It looked so beautiful, the thought alone had become intoxicating to me and I knew my mind wouldn't rest until I had done it. Luckily as if in some sort of profound twist of fate, I had previously purchased a few 14 gauge piercing needle from BME shop and a fairly nice curved barbell from this smoke shop in Groton. With the tools at hand I had decided to go ahead and go through with it myself. Now let me say that I am one of those people who tend to worry waaaaaaaay too much about things. For the longest time I have had this admittedly silly thing about worrying, not about say the pain involved with the actual piercing itself but rather my own reaction to the pain, in other words I would worry about screaming or making a peep for that matter and making an ass out of myself over the actual pain involved. For this reason I have always been a bit more comfortable doing fairly easy piercing myself, so I figured that this piercing would prove to be less trying on my frail wussy psyche if I just did it myself.
Here the place where worrying way too much actually proves to be a positive thing: doing the deed.... So after my heavy flow of thought and review of several experiences I prepped my area as best I could. I grabbed some rubber gloves, hydrogen peroxide, fresh paper towels, A&D ointment to properly lube, the needle and the barbell and after a good hand washing I began my little ritual. I sat down at my desk , put on a pair of gloves, swabbed my ear with some of the peroxide, broke the seal of the needle and took a deep breath. When I pierce myself I like to go slowly, this kind of ensures me a better placement, straighter angle and time to Zen out into my own little headspace as the needle works its way through. As I let go the breath I cleared my head and positioned the needle with the point touching the inner bottom part of the ridge of my right ear, I rested my pointer and middle finger on the outer part of the ridge and planted my thumb on the opposing end of the needle. I took in the starting breath and with it I began to press in the needle into my ear. I don't know quite how to describe the space I got into, my mind quiets all thought and I feel at peace, so at peace in fact that I don't really have the desire to step out for a second and try to gather enough to attempt to piece it together into words, or thought even. I was in this realm for quite some time without even realizing the needle coming out triumphantly through the other side. It seems that in the 45 minutes it took to pierce it the blood graciously trickled out enough to lubricate the needle through smoothly, thus rendering the A&D obsolete as a lube, lube is always left better au natural I'd like to think. With the needle through I quickly put in place the jewelry and let it breathe for a while.
Healing was quite an endeavor, but upon retrospect, I have seen A LOT of angry helix piercing. Shortly after the piercing I developed a definite case of hyperthropic scarring. This curse plagued me on and off for about 6 months though hasn't bothered me at all since finally getting it gone. For me what worked best was sea salt soaks, in conjunction with chamomile tea presses (a wonderful, wonderful thing) and applying this great tea tree oil ointment. Although in all actuality I'm not sure the ointment is really that good for healing a piercing, it worked well for me, ultimately calming the irritating bump and causing it to eventually disappear. Since then I have also concluded that I did something good in using a curved barbell over a straight one if no where else but in my mind, I think that curved barbells give the piercing more "wiggle room" and thus makes it easier to adjust to say, sleeping on that side, I think it also just gives it more room to breathe in a way. Delicious, delicious speculation.
I will now end this rather long winded experience article real short and sweet like...I love my helix piercing, it has healed beautifully and given me a sense of pride in not only knowing I did it myself but well, didn't fuck it up. In all honesty from the bottom of my heart I feel that experiences such as this within your life teach you a lot, not only about what methods of aftercare work best for you and what to do when something you love decides to go a rye both literally or metaphorically, but in more intense, unexpected ways. I guess what I'm trying to blurt out here is that things like this can also teach you a lot about yourself and give you a unique sense of pride. So there's my ten cents on the matter, I hope it can somehow help to encourage or guide someone in their quest to modify their body in any way them see fit. Keep on keeping' on ~ kas