I have always been interested in piercings. Especially the slightly weird ones, so when i saw a picture of an industrial piercing, i just knew i had to get it.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist Joff Studio Orgazmic Location Lakeside shopping center, The Entrance I told my friend about what i wanted and she decided that she would come and get an industrial with me.
So in we went to Orgazmic. We had chosen Orgazmic piercing because when we rang them up to ask about it they had the most knowledge and sounded very professional.
When we got in there the piercer, Joff, had a look at our ears to make sure that we would be about to get it at the angle we wanted. But oh no! There was a problem with both of our ears. My friend had to get it right at the top of her ear, nearly horizontal, and I got it completely vertical from the top cartilage to about a centimeter up from where a second lobe piercing normally goes. Every ear is different and so not everyone can get this piercing, or exactly the way they want it.
Joff took us out the back to the piercing room where he measured our ears and chose the jewellery that would best suit the piercing. He decided on 14gauge bars, a silver one for me, and a titanium one for my friend.
He washed his hands very well and made sure to dry them properly, using paper towel, which went straight in the bin. Then skin tight gloves on before he did anything else.
Then we were ready for action. My friend was going to go first so Joff sat her down and thoroughly cleaned her ear with an alcohol. Then he marked out where the needles would go through and measured it again.
He used a different needle for each hole and they went through quite easily as he had lubed her ear before piercing.
The top cartilage of her ear bled a fair bit but the other hole seemed fine.
Once she was all done he washed his hands again and got new gloves on. Then it was my turn.
I was very very nervous about this as it looked to be fairly painful, and the blood did nothing to help that.
Joff lubed up my ear and put the first needle through the bottom of my ear. The clamp that he had to use was very tight and I just couldn't wait for him to pierce it so he would take the clamp off. Well mighty pain of all pains. It stung a hell of a lot.
The second one didn't hurt nearly as much, and that I was grateful for. He put the jewellery in (which I found to be nearly as painful as the actually piercing) and voila! All done.
My ear barely bled at all and stopped after a about a minute.
After we had thanked him profusely and paid and we walked out of the shops into the windy outdoors the pain started...
New piercings do not mix with wind at all. It felt like my ear was on fire. This continued for about half an hour, then it settled down and barely hurt if I left it alone.
The next day, after a painful night of trying not to sleep on my ear I found out when I looked in the mirror that it was very swollen and had deep purple bruising all around the bottom piercing and a little around the top. I suspect that the bruising was mainly from the clamp, but it didn't bother me at all.
It stayed bruised and swollen for about a week before it started to settle down. Occasionally over the three and a bit months it took to heal it would swell up again, but not as bad as the first time.
There are quite a lot of problems with this piercing. It takes ages to heal, and in the time that its healing, it is painful to touch, impossible to sleep on, swollen, bruised, and continues to emit a puss like fluid, which dries and gunks it up. Oh and if you have long hair, tie it up all the time. It is not nice to have to untangle hair from around the bar, its painful and leaves your hair gunky.
It is a piercing that HAS to be cleaned at least twice a day, and left alone to heal.
Although it takes months to heal, and is difficult to deal with when it is sore it is definitely worth it.
My industrial has all healed up now and it's basically a part of me. I can sleep on it, it doesn't need cleaning and it shocks nearly everyone because it is a very obvious piercing, well if I have my hair up.
After the initial bad stuff it is an amazing piercing and can be modified with all different sorts of balls and bars.