I fell head over heels, unconditionally, irrevocably in love with anti-tragus the first time I saw it. The first time I ever saw one was right here on BME, a favourite haunt of mine. And Oh. My. God. It was beautiful.
At A Glance Author Melanie Contact serpis_maritimus@hotmail.com When Six months ago Artist Joe Ducette Studio A&J Body Piercing Location Stephenville, NL, Canada
For my sixteenth birthday, as a spiritual right of passage, I decided I wanted a few cartilage piercings. An inner conch(the story HERE. I'm writing these experiences so that they all work best together, since it was all in the same day and it'd be very long and repetitive otherwise haha), a rook and an anti-tragus.
My piercer Joe finished up my inner conch in a jiffy. I took a couple mouth fulls of orange juice while he was cleaning my left ear. I was actually very self conscious about the amount of time he spent cleaning my ears. Although I had spent a good amount of time cleaning them at home, was it possible my ears were just that dirty? I know I was being silly, but still. Ear wax isn't cool. Do your artist a favour and make sure your ears are clean as you can get 'em.
Joe had never actually done an anti-tragus before. The first time any of us in the room had actually seen one in the flesh, it was in my flesh. However, I had total faith in him. And we all have to start somewhere right? We talked about the placement, and we both knew where the entrance and exit holes should be. He marked it perfectly, entering directly between and a couple millimeters above my two lobe piercings.
He had his apprentice watch this one, as it was not only his first time to pierce it, but obviously her first time to witness. So took a break from telling the customers about the "young with guts" getting three cartilage piercings at one time to what the procedure go down.
I was nervous as hell. I read on the BME Encyclopedia that the anti-tragus is one of the most painful piercings. Needless to say, I was gripping the arms of the chair pretty hard.
Joe placed the cork in my ear, and pushed the needle through. Not going to lie, it hurt. But not nearly as much as I thought it would. It was certainly not unbearable. I remember exclaiming, "I can hear it!". And boy, could I hear it. Not a pop or a crunch, like I'd heard other people describe but a horrible tearing sound. The sound was the worst part.
He put in a 5/8'' curved barbell and started talking about how ear piercings were meant for people with small fingers. Everything he does in ears disappears half way through and he has to pray. I laughed and told him God was listening as I check out the anti-tragus in the mirror. It was perfect! It's by far my favourite piercing. I love it so much. Although I still wish he hadn't mentioned everything disappearing until after he had pierced my rook haha!
He was pretty pleased with himself when it was done. He said it looked "hardcore" and that I'm a "tough chick" haha. I was too high on endorphins not to be just as pleased with myself.
Somewhere around this point is where Joe asked if I sleep on my back, as I now had fresh cartilage piercings in both my ears. I said, "I guess I do now", as I usually slept on my side. His apprentice, Anita, told me hold sleep on my side, cupping my ear in my hand so that it wasn't uncomfortable. But I managed my own way.
I could still sleep on my side, so long as it was my right side, with the inner conch. It didn't both it at all, so long as I didn't use a pillow. Not using a pillow didn't give me any grief either. I had previously always slept on my left side, but the anti-tragus really made that impossible. It was too uncomfortable and the piercing would get swollen and mad at me within minutes of laying on it. Six months later it still gets a little hot if I sleep on it.
I have changed the jewelry yet, as I haven't found anything I like better than the simple carved barbell and I'll probably stick to it, although I have taken it out to clean, etc. Joe put the piercing so that the inner bead, towards the inside of my ear screwed off. I always put the jewelry in the opposite way, so that the bead screws off near my lobe piercings. I do this because I found the ball very hard to tighten inside my conch, but this may have been because I had to be careful not to bump my rook around. Also, I found if the bead wasn't on tight enough and fell off it liked to try going in my ear, which was really annoying. I haven't had any problems with it falling it off since I've changed it's direction around!
It's been over 6 months now, and I believe that it's at least mostly healed, if not fully. It still gets a little mad at me if I catch it, or lay on it as I said above. The healing was uneventful. Once I used dragon mist, out of curiosity and it was horrible. Don't use it. I used sea salt through the rest of the healing and it healed very well. And it's every bit as beautiful to me now as it was when it was new!