I'm a fan of piercings. A BIG fan. If people were interested in piercings, it seemed my friend's would send them to me for advice.
At A Glance Author Lexy Contact imholeybutidontgotochurch@hotmail.co.uk When A week ago Artist Rob Studio Punktured Location Brighton, East Sussex Anyway, I already had 10 piercings, some of them were done in ways I am thoroughly ashamed of (the evil piercing gun), and my tongue piercing has sadly had to be retired for dental reasons, but I still wanted more. That adrenaline rush and the endorphine high.
So, my boyfriend and I took a random trip to Brighton, after wandering around looking at shops I finally stumbled on a piercists that I had only read about on the internet. Punktured. After looking at the jewellery for quite a while and being generally impressed, we ambled outside, trying to decide whether to get pierced or not. I hadn't long had my left tragus pierced and wanted to even up my ears by having a daith in my right. My boyfriend was a piercing virgin but he liked my tragus and was thinking of plucking up the courage to get one himself.
Eventually, after much debate we decided to go back and take the plunge. Unfortunately we had left it too late to get pierced that day so we made an appointment to go back 10 days later. Plenty of time to chicken out for my boyfriend and plenty of time for me to psyche myself up.
To pass the 10 days I spent a great deal of time surfing BME, checking out what people said about their own daith experiences and to check out the various pictures.
The 10 days passed and it was time to get that rush again.
When we got to Brighton we headed straight for McDonalds to fill ourselves up with food and sugary drinks. Didn't wanna be passing out did we? Getting a piercing is always a good excuse for eating junk food.
We were early for our two o clock appointment, as I always like to be, so we started looking at the jewellery in all the cases again. We must've looked nervous as the friendly guy behind the counter asked us if we were alright. We told him we had appointments but were early, so he went through the forms we had to fill in to say we knew all the risks and that we weren't under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Then he asked us
what we were having pierced then what gauge BCRs we wanted to be pierced with. He was really friendly and was impressed by my boyfriend going for his first piercing. I paid and he told us we were going to be pierced by Rob and that he would be out shortly. We waited in the shop, which incidentally is amazingly spacious and so professional looking. Very impressive.
A door opened and a man with tattoos, stretched lobes and a very impressive nape piercing came out and called our names. This must be Rob, I thought.
He took us through to a small-ish room behind the desk which smelt, reassuringly, like a dentists. In fact it looked like a dentists, and I should know, I'd been in one only the day before.
I was volunteered to go first, which I was pleased about, nothing like watching someone else getting pierced to make you even more scared than you were before.
I sat in the chair and was slowly and ominously moved to a more horizontal position. The time was drawing near. My palms were sweating and my heart was beating faster. To Rob's absolute credit he was a master at making me and my boyfriend feel really comfortable and ease the nerves, his cheery banter was almost enough to take my mind off the pain in my daith. He must have gone through 3 pairs of gloves and everything he used came out of the autoclave and was wrapped in clingfilm to keep it clean.
Yes, it hurt, I'm not going to lie, the needle going through was painful and made an interesting sound which I described as "lancing wet sand". I told him I used to think I could take any piercing after having my tongue done but he jokingly said that tongue piercings were a walk in the park and blinking hurts more.
Then he put the jewellery in which I think was just as painful as actually having the initial piercing, it was a fiddly job as he pierced my daith deep so it looked absolutely wicked, just made fitting the jewellery that little bit trickier.
It bled a little, not bucketloads, but then what to you expect when you have something stuck in your body?
Then was my boyfriend's turn but that's another story.
Before we left we both checked out our ears in the big mirror on the wall, and mine is a little tricky to see as Rob "practically pierced my brain" it's so deep.
We left, high on endorphines and adrenaline and rampaged around Brighton some more. It was a little tender when I smiled or laughed but the few people who have seen it so far think it's really cool.
We left the piercings completely alone for the rest of the day and over night (except for the accidental knocks) as the aftercare sheet advised.
It's been just over a week now, and twice a day, every day I clean my daith with 2 teaspoons of salt in a pint of water, and clean around the entrance holes with a cotton bud. After 5 days I tried moving the BCR a little but it's still pretty tender. I haven't had any trouble sleeping since the first night after I'd adjusted to avoid putting loadsa pressure on my daith.
I absolutely love this piercing, I've never seen anyone else with one (other than on the internet but that doesn't count) and it sits really nicely in my ear. The only bad thing about the whole experience is that now I'm thinking of getting my tragus re-pierced in a slightly different location... But that's just me being pedantic for you.
Anyway, this piercing rocks, the pain was completely bearable and over so quickly that it's definitely worth it, and I'd definitely recommend Punktured to anyone in the Sussex area, it's well worth the money and the travelling. I'll definitely be going back to finish off my ear project!