A quick history on my earlobes. When I was baby my mom took me to the mall to have my earlobes pierced. Now as with many mexican mothers this was a tradition for mothers and daughters. I obviously do not remember getting my little baby ears pierced with a gun and for that I am glad. I am also glad that as a little baby I didn't move around too much while having a blunt object jammed into my lobes. My earlobes were pierced evenly though thank goodness!!! I didn't wear earrings for a long time, but the holes always were open. In High school I had my right helix pierced with a gun. It ended up getting a really nasty abscess on the back end and it didn't help that the butterfly backing was smashed up against my ear, not allowing my poor ear to breath. (Don't worry folks, I now know the dangers of piercing guns, thanks to Bme. ) I took that out eventually and it closed up, leaving me with only my gunned lobes. So as you can see my ears have always been pretty naked...until now.
At A Glance Author Zero_Trinity Contact Zero_Trinity@hotmail.com IAM Zero_Trinity When Two years ago Studio I will keep the studio unnamed It all started when I hired Frank for our Café (which by the way has a starbucks-esque dress code). I could relate to Frank, he was the first person to work at our bookstore/café that had more piercings than I did! He did have to take all of his facial piercing for his shifts. His ears were 1 ˝ inches along with 6 gauge conches and tragic. Frank was the first person I had ever met with earlobes that big. But it wasn't that that had caught my eye about franks modifications. It was his cartilage that had caught my eye, I had never really payed attention to cartilage piercings before especially the inner conch. But I loved the way his conch looked with a 6 gauge CBR. A few weeks after I met Frank, I decided that I was too get my conches pierced next. I of course started looking at picture and reading experiences on BME. I talked about getting my conches pierced with Frank, and he said that he was actually a piercer on the side. He supposedly had worked at conventions and used to work in a shop. I wanted them to initially be pierced at 10 gauge and planned to stretch them later. Frank didn't have any 10 gauge needles, so since he was short on cash I gave him the money for the needles. Okay so fast forward to a few weeks later. Frank, had pierced another coworkers lip. He told my coworker to clean her lip with peroxide! I had gotten to know Frank a little more and it turns out I didn't really trust him to do any piercing on me. He was just not knowledgeable about piercing at all. And since he was constantly taking out his jewelry for work (some which weren't healed all the way) his piercing always seemed to be crusty or infected. It turns out Frank, was a liar.
I still had the piercing itch and it was not going away anytime soon. The few tattoo/piercing studios I had been to were disappointing. The piercers hadn't been friendly at all and they never had the right jewelry or gave the proper aftercare instructions. I decided to try "unnamed" tattoo again. The first time I had gone to "unnamed" tattoo, the piercer was friendly. I asked her if she did septum piercing and if she had any septum retainers. She didn't have any retainers nor did she have any 14 gauge CBB's. So I asked her if she could possibly order a retainer or CBB for me. She gave me the runaround telling me that the shop had just placed there order and that she couldn't place any more orders. And tried to convince me to just have it pierced with a CBR, which I didn't want. I thought I didn't have any more options studio wise so this was the studio that I was returning to...
I decided to get my conches pierced on the weekend. I had two days off from work so it would be perfect. I would venture off to the "unnamed" tattoo all by my lonesome. Which for some reason I seemed to do a lot when going to get pierced. So I took the bus and grabbed a quick bite to eat. That old feeling of butterflies going crazy in my stomach was there once again returning. I walked down the street to the studio and made my way inside. The studio was small with a small bench/couch and there were two areas set up in front for tattoos. The piercing room was in the back. I kind of stood around for a bit and waited for someone to greet me. The piercer came out finally and asked me what I was interested in getting done, she had remembered me from last time. I told her that I wanted to get my conches pierced. She said okay and asked me for my I.D. and went off to make a copy. She came back in a few minutes with the paperwork which I filled out. I wanted my conches done at 10 gauge with CBR's. She informed me that she did not have 10 gauge needles or 10 gauge CBR's. Needless to say I was disappointed once again. She told me she only had 12 gauge needles and 12 gauge barbells. I had read experiences and most people preferred to heal conches with barbells anyways. So that wasn't a big deal, plus I could stretch them later once they had healed....so I agreed to have them done. If I didn't them done right there and then I would be torturing myself! Once I get an idea in my head to get something pierced or tattooed all I can do is think about it until I get it done. So we went into the piercing room.
Everything was clean and the autoclave was located in the little room, along with a table...kind of like a doctors exam table. I sat on the table as she got everything ready. She was pretty good about changing gloves after touching everything, so that was a relief. She got ready for me and started cleaning each of my ears. I loved the smell. She then got the toothpick and started marking my ears. She asked me if I wanted them done higher up or lower down. I wanted them high, so she marked them and I took a look. The first marking were okay, but they weren't where I wanted them so she remarked them for me and I took another look. This time one was slightly off from the other so she fixed that as well. After she was done it was time to get started.
She started with my left ear. I felt the needle go in, but unlike any other piercing I had gotten this one seemed to take a little longer for the needle to go through. The pain was bearable, just a sharp burning pain. After she was done with the piercing she inserted the jewelry which pinched a little. Next came my right ear (which I am just about deaf in, my eardrum didn't develop all the way since I was a premature baby) This ear was a little more difficult, I felt the needle go in but it got stuck halfway through the pierce. My piercer had to give the needle a little extra push with all of her body to get the needle all the way through. This time I heard a very loud crunch noise! The right ear definitely hurt more. After the jewelry was inserted, she asked me if I as okay and gave me a mirror so I could have a good look at my ears. My ears were already red, but they were pierced evenly and I loved them. My only problem was that the barbells were way too long, and they hung from the back of my ears. I thanked the piercer and was on my way, she told me that she would stretch them for me as soon as they were healed. But I had already planned on stretching them myself.
So I made my way to the bus stop and was on my way to my sisters work to share my new metal with her. Halfway to the bus stop my ears began to realize what happened to them. I could feel my heartbeat throb in my ears and they were both bright red. I started to get a slight headache and my ears hurt when I moved my head to quickly. I decided that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I was just going to have to stick it out and tough it up!
For the next few weeks my ears did not like me at all. My ears would randomly start throbbing for no reason, and when I moved my head to quickly they would feel tight and painful. I also had to adjust the way I slept. I came up with a few options, I would either sleep with my arm bent incasing my ear kind of like a donut. Sometimes that would get uncomfortable so other times I would sleep with both of my hands cradling my face. Most people choose to only get one ear cartilage at a time so they can still sleep on one side. Not me I decided that I wanted to heal them both at the same time. Another problem I had was with the jewelry itself, the barbells were adding stress to the piercing. The barbells hung over the back of my ears at least a half an inch, every time I would brush my hair I would brush the barbells. Ouch. When I would accidentally sleep on my ears the barbells would push on my ears and I would wake up to really sore ears opposed to just sore ears.
My ears eventually stopped throbbing randomly, the soreness had subsided some. My ears would only hurt if I accidentally hit them or if someone else accidentally hit them. I could no longer handle the barbells, so a month or two later I ordered some 12 gauge CBR's for my still healing ears. I knew changing the jewelry so soon would set me back on my healing time, but if I kept the barbells in I thought that would also prolong healing. So I changed my jewelry myself making sure to clean everything with anti bacterial soap and I got a hold of some gloves and changed everything myself. A week later I felt the difference in my ears. They were much happier now. It took my ears about a year and a half to completely heal. At one point they got slightly infected and crusted really bad for a month. But I took care of them with sea salt soaks and babied them for awhile.
After everything with my conches I would get them pierced again in a heartbeat. Although now I think I would get them dermal punched instead. I recently stretched them to 10 gauge myself and plan on taking them up to 6 or maybe 4 gauge. My ears aren't so naked anymore. And for that I am happy.