I had never seen an industrial piercing before I went to college. I had never even thought of it on my own, thinking I made it up. When I saw a girl in my typography class with one, I immediately asked her what it was, what it was called, how they did it, how it felt...everything I could think of! She answered me, and that was that. I didn't love it, it was just kind of...meh.
At A Glance Author Amanda IAM Amkale24 When A year ago Artist Carol Studio Skin Illustrations Location Pt. Huron, Michigan Fast forward 3 months. A lifelong friend of mine came to visit me. We live 1500 miles apart and hadn't seen each other in 6 years. She had just gotten an industrial piercing before she came. It looked really good on her. I liked it a lot. Then it happened: all of a sudden, I started seeing them everywhere! It was like they were invisible to me until I knew what they were. Weird.
I started to want one, but it wasn't a big want. I kind of thought of it, but never really motivated myself to do anything about it. In August of 2005, my boyfriend and I were at the tattoo shop, where he was getting his first tattoo. I was looking through portfolios, and thinking about getting a piercing. I asked the artist about industrials, and he filled me in. I didn't get it that day.
When we came back to the shop about 6 weeks later for touch up on the tattoo, I decided I wanted the piercing. My birthday had just passed, so I decided to use my birthday money to get it done. Fish, the artist, wasn't feeling well, so he called over to their sister shop to ask if Carol, the piercer there, could fit me in. She said yes, and we were on our way.
Got there, did the form thing, yadda yadda yadda. My boyfriend and I went into the room with her, where she washed her hands and put on gloves. I don't remember what she did as far as setup, both because I was nervous as hell, and because it was so long ago. I remember her marking my ear and holding up the bar to make sure it would work out.
I laid down in the chair and gripped the sides. She lined the needle up with the top hole, asked if I was ready, and pushed (after I said yes, of course). It was the most intense pain I had ever felt. I uttered a few profanities, and my boyfriend asked, "what's that white stuff?". That made me feel good. It was the lube on the needle that he saw. She did the same thing for the lower hole, and I remember thinking that it was not going to hurt because every 12 year old teenybopper cheerleader has that part of their ear pierced! I was wrong. Way wrong. It hurt a lot more than the top hole, and I was surprised!
I was done! I admired it in the mirror, received aftercare instructions, paid and tipped, and left. It was October, so it was a little nippy out, which actually felt good on the ear. It throbbed for the rest of the night, and I remember having a hard time sleeping. But when I woke up in the morning, the pain was gone. It wasn't gone for good though, as nice as that would have been. That piercing gave me hell for a good 6 months straight, then on and off for another 6. It was always the lower hole, too. To be fair, I did mess with it a lot. I don't know what it was, but I couldn't resist moving the bar around and watching lymph come out of the holes. I remember the first time I went to take a shower after I had it done. I looked up inside the ear rim, near the top hole, and it was covered in dried blood. It was pretty gross. Took a lot of q-tips to clean out, but I didn't have any more blood after that.
After I got it done, my boyfriend and I went to a carnival in our town. We saw a bunch of friends, and I showed off my new piercing. Most people seemed really interested in it, and I liked being the center of attention for a night.
It's perfectly healed by now, and no pain anymore. For a while, I thought of retiring the bottom hole because of the problems I was having with it. After about a year of having the piercing, I bought two 1/4" straight barbells to wear in them, thinking that maybe the long bar was putting weird pressure on the ear. It worked! And it didn't go back to being painful after I put the long bar back in. Who knew? I love it, my mom is grossed out by it, and I'm thinking of another in the left ear to make a pair. We'll see!