Well to start off, I'm 14. My Mum's okay about some of my piercings... Well, she doesn't exactly like them, but she lets me get them if I talk to her about it... And if she doesn't hate them! But my Dad, he hates all of them, and he only knows about 8 out of my 14 piercings. Hopefully I'll get retainers soon so I can hide them easier (:
At A Glance Author Emz Contact Emz@bme.anon When Three months ago Artist Me Studio My bathroom Location Rushden Anyways, I'm hoping to get my rook, tragus, inner conch and 3 more cartilage piercings soon, but this experience is about my other cartilage piercings! I currently have 7 piercings on my left ear and 6 on my right, and out of these 13 I did 7 myself, but I have also done others that I have since retired (because I decided I didn't like the placing of them) This story is about the top piercing on my right ear, the 6th one up.
It was about 9pm and my parents were both downstairs. I had one needle left out of the 10 I had before, and a huge piercing urge. So you can probably guess what happened!
I took the barbell out of the 5th piercing in my right ear, and put a CBR in it. I needed to use the barbell for my new piercing! (It was 18gauge and 8mm long)
I took my needle, barbell (Stainless Steel) saline solution and a torch into my bathroom. I shined the torch behind my ear roughly where I wanted the piercing to check for any veins. When I'd found a suitable spot for me to pierce, I drew a dot there.
By now I was really exited and couldn't wait to pierce it. I washed my hands and cleaned the barbell and my ear with saline solution. I then took out the needle and held it to my ear.
I pushed it into the first layer of skin, making sure it was where I wanted it. When I was satisfied that it was, I pushed it in until I reached the cartilage. At this point, I tried to line it up so that the exit hole would be aligned with the entrance hole. Then I pushed it through the cartilage. All that was left now was the last layer of skin. I pushed as hard as I could and it popped through!
I stood there for a moment, looking in the mirror and admiring it, and then picked up my barbell. I then pushed it through after the needle. On most of my other cartilage piercings, when I'd done this it had followed the needle through with no trouble at all, but this time, it didn't want to go!
The needle was pushed out my ear, but the barbell wasn't going in! I tried to get it in with the needle out, but I realised it wasn't working.
My ear was bleeding a lot now, so I gave up. I let it bleed for a bit, then I decided I needed to try again. I wiped away the blood and picked up the needle. Holding it in the same spot as before, I pushed it through my ear. It went through surprisingly well! Until I got to the last layer of skin again. I'd lost the exit hole from before so I had to make a new one. I took a deep breath and shoved the needle through.
ARGH! I nearly screamed, it hurt! I wasn't really expecting that as none of my others had done that, but anyway, I'd got it through again! I picked the barbell up almost straight away afterwards, lined it up with the needle, and pushed it through really quickly.
HOORAH! It went through! most of it... It hadn't come out the exit hole, but I could feel that it had gone through the cartilage, so it wouldn't be too hard to find the exit hole.
It seemed to close up a bit, but when I found it, I pushed the barbell through really hard and it came out. I was really happy now, and I quickly screwed the ball on.
I cleaned it with saline solution, and tidied my stuff away making sure I didn't leave any evidence for my Dad to find!
I was really happy with it, and the adrenaline made me slightly hyper.
I went to sleep that night and avoided leaning on it as it was quite sore by now.
When I woke up the next morning it was so swollen the balls had nearly become embedded in my ear! I cursed myself for not using a 10mm barbell, but decided that if the swelling hadn't gone down in a couple of days I'd take it out.
I iced my ear for the next 3 nights. After 2 nights, my ear had returned to a normal colour, rather than bright red, like a tomato. After another night, the swelling had gone down slightly, and it didn't look like there was any danger of it becoming embedded.
After 4-5 days, the constant pain had gone and I could touch it without it hurting. I cleaned it with saline solution for the first few days, but I'm pretty lazy when it comes to cleaning piercings and I prefer the LITHA method. I also think it works quite well (:
I'm really happy with my new piercings, and all my other DIY cartilage piercings. If you don't know what you're doing, I recommend going to a professional piercer. However, I think that as long as you do it almost properly, self piercing can make your piercings more personal :) I prefer piercing myself as I know that if it goes wrong it's MY mistake, and I know that I'm being quite clean (My needle was sterilized etc)
I'm planning on getting my rook and inner conch done professionally, as I don't think I'd be able to do that very well!
To any of you thinking of piercing your cartilage, I'd say go for it - IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!