I have always been into piercing and tattoos. As far back as I can remember, tattoo's and piercings, and people with tattoo's and piercings always allured me, even as a small child. However, my parents are very strict when it comes to anything 'out of the ordinary', so in my younger years, even though I badly wanted something to pierce, I came to the conclusion that I would probably have to wait until I was a 'legal adult'. This frustrated me, so I came up with a plan.
At A Glance Author Melissa Contact Melissa@bme.anon When Two years ago Studio Monkeys to go Location Whittier CA There was a small loophole in my parents' way of thinking. My mother did not really consider ear piercing to be 'real body modification'. So while I could not get anything done on my face, I could basically go crazy with my ears. So one day in tenth grade biology I saw a girl with an interesting barbell that crossed two piercing in her ears. I quickly looked it up, and learned that this sort of piercing was called an industrial. I loved it, for various reasons. I liked the way it looked, and I had not seen many people with it. So I decided that for my sixteenth birthday I would ask to get my industrial.
I chose a local tattoo shop to do it in. Looking back on it, I didn't research the place at all, or ask very many questions, which was dumb on my part. However, for making such poor decisions, I had pretty good luck with the place. The guy that did it was really nice. My mom and I looked at barbells for a while, and we chose a small one, which was perfect, because I had so many ear piercing that I was not willing to give up that it would be hard to put a long industrial in my ear.
The moment came and he sat me down in a room. I remember him putting all this cold alcohol on my ear, marking the spots where he was going to do it, and asking me if it was fine. I said yeah. Then the moment came! I was so scared, because the bar was thick, about 10g and I knew it wasn't going to be a quick and easy experience like getting pierced with a gun. The man told me to breathe in, and before I knew it he had put the industrial through part of my ear, I did not feel it go through the other side, because I think the shock and pain of the first hole had numbed it. My ear was really red and hot afterwards, but I liked it. The pain was not that bad, and the nerves I had prior to it were for nothing. If someone can take the pain of getting their ears pierced, I do not believe that an industrial is much more painful.
Afterwards, I could not sleep on it for a very long time. My ears take a very long time to heal, and the pain sometimes got unbearable. It felt like it was throbbing and it would get red, there was no way what so ever that I could sleep on that side. This went on for several weeks, and sometimes it would go away, and come back unexpectedly. Even through all the pain, I never took it out. I was told not to take it out for a few months. Even when the coast seemed clear, something bad would happen.
For example, I was on a rollercoaster ride and my head hit the side on one of the loops, and busted my ear. It bled and it hurt, but my persistence did not allow me to take it out. This happened several times when I would randomly hit my ear against something. As awful as it sounds, I would not give into the idea of taking it out. Also, I would get random bumps of god knows what around it, which was pretty gross. I just toughed it out, and after several occasions in which my ear bled and hurt me, my body accepted that I was not going to give up. It's completely healed now, but it took a very very long time. My advice would be that if your body is so badly rejecting the piercing, it may not be worth the pain to keep it in, unless you are crazy like me and won't give up. I did not get help when it could have been infected and something bad could have happened, so definitely get it checked out if something is not right with it.
Overall the experience was completely awesome, even thought afterwards it was somewhat painful. I would do it again in a heartbeat and I'm looking forward to, now, as a 'legal adult' do all the things I couldn't within the loophole that I found.