Witty Title About a Daith Piercing Here
When I turned 19 years old, I started the tradition of getting a "birthday mod". On my 19th birthday, after lots of deliberation and perusing of BME, I chose to get my right daith pierced. I decided upon a shop in my area that I had been to before and knew to be fairly clean.
This piercing was not my first but I do believe it was what really threw me into the scene. I chose a piercing that, at the time, I'd never seen before and liked the feeling that I got from it which later led me to consider other less common mods. It also made me start to do my research, which is probably the most important thing that I gained from this experience. I spent hours on BME searching for the perfect mod which opened me up to new ideas and later when everything started to go wrong I spent hours on end reading experiences searching for the "magic cure".
When I walked into the shop and asked for the piercing I was immediately made fun of for mispronouncing it. (BTW - It is pronounced doth!) I later learned that that's just how it works at the shop: "You either get the joke or you are the joke" and, thankfully, I usually get the joke.
The piercing was pretty standard and the only things of note are that it was done with a straight needle rather than a curved needle as some piercers have taken to doing.
The area was cleaned thoroughly and marked. All of the sterile packages were laid out on a table before me and gloves changes were made whenever they came into contact with something "dirtier" than them.
The actual piercing was simple. I was pierced "top to bottom" and I felt a ton of pressure during the jewelry change that I can only assume was do to the angle. I imagine curved needle would probably have taken a little bit of pressure of the jewelry insertion as the needle would not be pushing up against my anti-tragus area quite so much. The jewelry used in my piercing was a 16g 3/8" captive bead ring, which later proved to be problematic.
Healing was incredibly difficult with this particular piercing. In fact, I'd go far as to say that it took over a year to be completely healed.
My aftercare methods changed throughout the healing process but the first one I chose was "Ear Care Solution" (active ingredient Benzalkonium Chloride). I'd not recommend this method to anyone as it did not work very well for me. At some point during the first few months the entry hole of the piercing developed a bump. I don't know what caused this bump other than irritation of some sort. It wasn't a keloid because it went away and keloids are a type of scar tissue that generally do not go away. A few weeks later the exit hole developed the same sort of bump and both bumps began to bleed on occasion.
Whenever I'd walk or drive by a piercing shop, I would go in ask what my problem was to which I got several responses. Eventually I gathered that the diameter of the ring was too small and was putting pressure on the piercing and causing irritation. I went back to my original shop and had my ring changed to a 16g 5/8" captive bead ring. In hindsight I think a 5/8" diameter was a big large and probably put more pressure on the piercing than it really needed. (It was kind of like Goldilocks... Too small, too big, juuuust right. I did end up with a 1/2" captive bead ring after it healed and that seemed to be my perfect fit.)
The jewelry change helped me for a short period of time and bumps stopped bleeding and hurting but that was only temporary. At this point I began to experiment with aftercare methods.
I used sterile saline solution several times a day which worked well in drying the bumps out but not getting rid of them.
I made a solution of 1/4 teaspoon of sea salts, 8 ounces of boiling water, and a chamomile tea bag. I did nothing with the solution but used the tea bag as a compress. That worked wonders in drying out the bumps and shrinking them although they still remained. Later I took to getting rid of the salts involved and just drinking the chamomile tea, which worked fine also.
My savior came in the form of 1/2 % cortisone cream. I dabbed a tiny bit of that stuff over the bumps after my compresses and within a week the bumps were gone. Once everything was cleared up I stuck to sterile saline rinses once a day and it healed within a few months. (The processes listed above were tested during the course of several months.)
A couple of years after I had the piercing done I stretched it to a 14g for aesthetic value, which went easilY.
In the end, I found the method of aftercare that worked for me and allowed me to heal two daiths, two rooks, and two tragii (I learned the hard way that all of my ear cartilage piercings develop lovely bleeding bumps within a few months.) but my method may not work for all so it is probably best to consult your piercer if problems arise with your piercing.
Disclaimer: The experience above was submitted by a BME reader and has not
been edited. We can not guarantee that the experience is accurate, truthful,
or contains valid or even safe advice. We strongly urge you to use BME and
other resources to educate yourself so you can make safe informed decisions.
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