At A Glance
Author	Trish
Contact	tattooedtrish@Hotmail.com
When	A month ago
Artist	Brandon
Studio	Cactus Tattoo
Location	Mankato, MN

I'm Trish, I'm 19 years old, and I got my vertical earlobe pierced about a month ago (Give or take a week or two). I have 21 piercings and 12 tattoos. I originally wanted to go to Saint Sabrina's in Minneapolis, MN to get my vertical earlobe piercing. I ordered a special eyelet for my 5/8 inch earlobe that the vertical one would go through in September, I think. Three months later in November I finally got the E-mail that the plug would be in. I made plans three or four times to go in to get pierced, but Minneapolis is two hours away from me and, living in Minnesota, snow is always a problem in the winter. Every time I had enough time off of work to go get pierced there would be a massive snow storm and there was no way I was driving in a snow storm. So I decided to say screw it, and had Saint Sabrina's mail me the eyelet after I sent them a money order for what I owed them.

After going to Saint Sabrinas wasn't happening I wanted to do the piercing myself, which wouldn't be a good idea; so I went to order needles off of BME and a sterilized barbell, but after I realized how thick the cartilage is on my upper lobe I said screw that. I'm glad I didn't because the barbell I ordered would have been too short and not the right gauge. That would have been an accident waiting to happen.

I have been to Brandon at Cactus Tattoo in Mankato, MN before for a Snug piercing and asked him if he would do a venom piercing. He replied that he's never done one but he loves to learn how to do different piercings. My boyfriend and I were going shopping in Mankato, and I decided to bring my eyelet with, just in case I could get the piercing done. While shopping I decided to call Cactus Tattoo to see if he's ever done the piercing, which he didn't at the time, but he would be willing to do it.

Getting the piercing

My boyfriend and I finished shopping, and drove to Cactus Tattoo. Brandon measured the length of jewelry he would need for my ear and I waited a bit. Once we made it into the piercing room he cleaned up my ear and the jewelry and went to pierce me. After he had the 14 gauge needles in my ear we realized the 14 gauge hole in the eyelet was a tiny bit smaller than the 14 gauge industrial barbell he was using. He kept trying to get it through but it wasn't happening. He finally decided to put a 16 gauge barbell in there because I was in some pretty good pain when he was messing with it for about 10 minutes, and he had other customers waiting. I was kind of upset because of the holes in the eyelets, but I plan on going back after it heals to get holes in one of my Kaos eyelets, and get the piercing stretched to 14 gauge. The piercing itself (apart from the whole eyelet problem) wasn't too bad. The top hole with the cartilage definitely hurt more than the bottom hole. It got nice and bloody so he cleaned all that up, he felt bad about taking a long time so he just had me pay for the cost of the jewelry. He said I probably made his month because it gets a bore to do navel piercings and such all the time, which is understandable. So I paid and went on my way for the hour drive home.







Afterwards

The drive home sucked. It was cold and windy so that made my ear hurt, and every time I bumped the bottom part of my ear on my coat it hurt pretty good. Because of the cold I had a good excuse not to bring carts in at work at four in the morning. Frostbite in stretched earlobes would suck! For the next week or two it was quite painful. So painful that I was uncertain weather or not I want to get it stretched to 14 gauge. But after the pain went down I decided that it looks bad ass and I'm going to have to go for it. I was planning on getting it done on my other ear but I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. I have been cleaning it with H2Ocean, and when I'm not feeling lazy I give it a nice sea salt soak. I couldn't put any pressure on that side while laying down or sleeping, and it still hurts if I sleep on it. A few times I've been accidentally bumped, or bumped myself in the ear but thankfully it's never acted up. I never really got any crusties on the piercing until about two weeks ago, which surprises me. I have also had no problems -other than the pain of sleeping on it- at all. No bumps, no nothing. I love it. The only negative thing about the piercing is that it's really hard to find someone who will eventually be able to get holes through the stainless steel or titanium eyelets when I can change the jewelry. I like wearing glass plugs and I don't know if there is a way to get a hole through the glass without ruining the plug. But at least with silicone stuff I can get the hole into the plug myself. Overall I love the piercing and am glad I got it done. I am glad Brandon was willing to do it, I was sick of waiting for winter to be over with to get pierced. He did a great job.



If you are ever in the Mankato area, Cactus Tattoo is the place to go for piercings. I've never been there for a tattoo so I can't say anything about that. The people who work there that I've met there are awesome, and Brandon is a perfectionist so that makes him a great piercer.