I was 16 when I was tired of piercing "only" my ear lobes and wanted something different. At that time, 20 years ago, it was very difficult to find any information about different piercings, let alone find a salon to get one done!
At A Glance Author Kelly L. Contact Kelly L.@bme.anon When Ten years ago or more Artist Karen & Myself Studio Spencer's and At Home Location Pittsburgh, PA I had to start with the Piercing Pagoda kiosk at the local mall. They would not even think about doing anything but lobe piercings, and were actually horrified when I talked to them about doing a cartilage piercing myself! Fortunately, there was a kind employee who told me of a lady who worked at the Spencer's store who did this type of pierce.
I grabbed my boyfriend and ran to the other end of the mall. I found Karen, the Manager of Spencer's, who was indeed the person I needed to see to have my outer conch pierced. I picked out a pretty gold ball "lobe-style" earring post, and to my horror, found that she was going to do it with a gun and not a needle!! At that point, I just wanted the piercing done and she claimed to not know of anyone who did this piercing with a needle (oh, yeah, right...)
Anyway, I signed the papers, pulled out my ID, and nearly had a panic attack when she said "Oh, I can't pierce you. You're only 16." AAAK! At that time in 1986, you only needed to be 16 to get a regular lobe piercing done, so I never thought this would be a problem. Fortunately, my boyfriend was 18 and the piercer allowed him to sign as my Guardian. Whew!
As you know, gun piercing is so quick that all I felt was the slight pinch and warm "rush" to the top of my ear after she gunned me. Even though I was bummed about it being done with the gun, I was absolutely in love with my beautiful new piercing. And back in that time frame, an earring in that place was VERY unusual, so I was quite the "trend setter" among my peers. Ha Ha!!
I bought the store brand after-care solution, cleansed the area 3x per day, rolled the ball in the front and back once per day to loosen dry bits, and removed debris with Q-tips. I was instructed that this would heal much faster then a lobe piercing, but she also told me that the longer the stud was kept in and left alone (other than cleaning it), the better off I'd be in the long run.
The area was only sore for a few days when I'd sleep on it or smack it with a phone, so overall it healed extremely well-not even a notion of keloid or scarring problems! I left the stud in for about 9 months and really had no problems with it.
About 12 years later, society had dramatically progressed in the subject of body piercing and bodmods. I now had 3 lobe piercings in my right ear, 3 lobe piercings in my left ear, my outer conch stud in my left ear, two tattoos, a left-nostril piercing, and decided I wanted one more outer conch just below my original on the left ear. For this one, I wanted to do it myself due to cost of getting it done (I was broke at the time with no patience to wait until I had money to spare). I had already done several of my lobe holes with a needle myself so I knew the general pain factor, and the amount of force I was going to need to do the piercing. This time I wanted a small (5/8"), 16g gold wire hoop in this piercing to accent the diamond stud I had in the piercing right above it.
The self piercing went very well overall. I used the medical-type latex gloves, sterilized my jewelry with flame from my lighter and also a soak in rubbing alcohol. I sterilized the piercing needle the same way. I cleaned my ear with anti-bacterial soap and took out the jewelry that was already in my ear. I inspected my upper ear under bright light as best as possible to make sure I wasn't going to hit a major blood vessel (I heard some scary stories about things like that) . I made a mark on the spot where I wanted to pierce, and then I was ready to go. Except for my nerves!!
I sat I front of the mirror and took several deep breaths, held my ear cartilage taut with my left hand and was about to push the needle through when I realized I was going to need something behind the ear to stop the needle from stabbing my head! I had a round sandstone coaster under my water glass and figured that was perfect! I scrubbed it with anti-bacterial soap, re-sterilized everything (I'm a terrible germ-a-phobic!), and balanced the sandstone with my left hand while holding the ear cartilage taut with the same hand. I took a deep breath, and punched the needle through with my right hand. Ow. It was much more of a pinch then when the top hole was done with the gun, but it was surprisingly less painful than when my third lobe holes were done, (also self-done with a needle).
I left the needle sticking in my ear while I got the earring to put in it's place. To my horror, when I took the sandstone away from the back of my ear, I found that the needle did not puncture all the way through the back of my ear! The very tip was through, but not enough. The needle was slightly tapered out (the point was thinnest part), so it had quite a bit more length that needed to go through the cartilage. It was starting to hurt at this point because of the needle moving freely about, but the adrenaline from that made me skip "over-analyzing" the situation and I simply bent my ear cartilage forward and very quickly pushed the needle with both thumbs through the ear while guiding the point of the needle with my finger tip so not to stab my head. There was a very big ouch! It was very quick, so the pain was more of a wicked pinch, but the freaky part was hearing my skin pop when the needle went all the way through. There was really no blood to speak of at all.
I put triple anti-biotic cream on both sides of the top ear and then traded the needle for the gold wire hoop. I think the worst pain of the entire procedure was fiddling with the gold wire to line up the ends to ensure the hoop was closed tight.
I had no trouble with my aftercare. After cleaning all of my "daily" ear jewelry, I put them all back into my ears the same night as the piercing, applied more anti-biotic cream, and the first night of sleeping didn't even bother me. I took great care of the piercing like I had done with my first outer conch piercing, and left the same hoop in for about 3 months before changing it out to a diamond stud that matched the one above it. Like the piercing above it, I'm was lucky the way it healed as it did not have any keloid problems.
I was really proud of my new piercing. Doing it myself was what made me proud of it-I proved to myself that I wasn't as big a baby as I thought-ha ha! Self-piercing is NOT for everyone, and I strongly encourage a professional do the work for you. This may contradict my article, but I don't want people who are uneducated in self piercings to go out and pierce themselves without learning as much as possible first. The things that I'd like to pass along are to make sure you plan as much as possible, do lot's of research (such as reading the experiences here at BME), and be as sterile and sanitary as possible. And of course, the proper follow up care is essential.
Now I'm going to research do-it-yourself tragus piercings...ha ha!