While looking threw a few different body modification magazines, I decided I liked the look of larger gauges in cartalidge and that I too needed some large jewelry in the top of my ear. I went to my trusted piercing and tattoo studio and asked how I too could look as cool as the people in the periodicals I so regularly read. I was told that I had 2 options: 1)Have my cartalidge pierced and slowly gauge it to a larger piece of jewelry or, 2)Get it "dermal punched". I chose the later because I am impatient and I wanted the procedure done right away. Unfortunetly I had to wait 'till the piercer got the "right tools" to do the punch. For those who do not know, a dermal punch is not done with a regular piercing needle. The hole is made with a surgical biopsy tool used in hospitals to remove various sizes of meat from various areas of the human body for study. For this reason dermal punching is illegal, at least where I live. If a studio is caught doing the procedure or even caught with the tools they can face serious fines and an array of criminal charges.
At A Glance Author Peepeetron Contact Peepeetron@bme.anon When Two years ago Artist withheld for piercer's own protection Studio withheld for studio's protection Location Fort Wayne, Indiana
When I got the call from my piercer that he had "the goods" I went in for my punch with great enthusiasm. I chose a larger size that is equivalent to a gauge of 2 to be done in the top of my cartilidge. After cleaning the area to be punched, the piercer marked the location for the punch and had me lay down on the table. With one quick and steady twist of the biopsy tool a piece of my ear was gone. The punch did not hurt at all due to the sharpness of the tool and the speed of the piercer, but the bleeding was outrageous! I was laying on my back as blood pooled for around 15 minutes while the piercer tryed to plug my ear up to stop the bleeding. The piercer was bugging out so much by the vast amount of blood in such a short amount of time he even yelled for my fiance to help hand him tools, jewelry, and gauge because he did not have an apprentice or assistant in the room at the time. He eventually forced a 0 gauge plug into the hole and the bleeding stopped right away. After cleaning me up, I still had to wait around the shop for 45 minutes because I was as white as a sheet from all the blood lose. The piercer even made me promise that I would not drive or operate heavy machinery for the 10 hours, HA HA HA. No seriously, he said that.
After leaving the shop it seemed the troubles were over, but I was way wrong. Every time I cleaned the piercing it would begin to bleed again and would not stop for several hours, and the only reason it did was due to the large build up of dry blood. I was advised by the piercer to not clean the piercing and let it heal on its own so I stopped cleaning it. After awhile the build up of dry blood got really hard and started to to look and feel like charchol (I have great pictures of the hard, blackened blood caked to my ear for those who would like me to e-mail them to ya). Eventually the itching from the blood clot got to me and I cleaned the hole only to have it erupt in to a bloody mess again. Everywhere I went I had to carry a tissue or rag to constantly wipe and dab away the leaking blood. For the next two weeks children would cry and co-workers cringed at the site of my "cool" new modification. I went threw 4 new pillowcase do to the heavy bleeding. I let it clot for a second time and when the itching got to me again I had to take the jewelry out. A few weeks later all the bloody messes subsided and the hole had healed, but I could comfortably slide a 6 gauge into the hole.
The hole is currently a 6 but I intend on eventually getting it back up to 2 or 0. Even with all the trauma I still consider my experience a good one and do not regret my decision to get a dermal punch at all. I highly recommend the procedure to anyone interested and as soon as the piercer lets me back on his table(he currently won't pierce me due to my episode) I would like to get both conches punched with a size 4. Yours Truely, The Peepeetron.
P.S. The best part of the story is that it only cost me $20! Since the procedure is not regularly done, my piercer only charged me for the jewelry
P.S. Again...If you ever get a procedure and it goes ary or turns interesting, be sure to take pictures because people will think you are exagerating or lying.