Hey everyone!
At A Glance Author Sean Contact sean.the.prawn@hotmail.co.uk When A year ago Artist Vic Studio Electric Chair, Falmouth Location Cornwall. England My name is Sean, I am 22 years old and live in the best place in the world (Cornwall woop woop, England!).
I've only been into piercings for the last 18 months since I meet someone who was very heavily pierced and it made me want to do it! This person was younger than me and I thought if they could withstand the pain of getting them done then so could I!Unfortunately due to the fact that I live in a very conservative (some call it backward/in the sticks kinda) and my parent doesn't agree with piercings, I grow my hair long to cover them.
This experience is about my first 'real' piercing I got, (I don't include my left lobe and a cartilage which I got gunned when I was 11 and have since been removed), an industrial which I got in August 2006. Two of my friends were going to a different studio to get industrials done and came back and told me not to go there as the studio was dirty and the man was rude but they got them done anyway. They told me to go to the Electric chair in Falmouth instead. So the next day I hopped on the bus (I was too poor to have a car then, being a broke student!) and I nervously endured the 90 minute bus ride to Falmouth. I live in the middle of nowhere and there really is not a good piercing studio within easy reach. I knew I had to get it done because I stupidly told my workmates that I was gonna do it and Im not really the kind of person that chickens out anyway. I knew that once I got into he piercing room I would have to go through with it. On arriving at the Electric chair (my friend gave me directions)I nervously said that I wanted and they said right head on down to the piercing room. I was so scared by this point I think I was probably shaking. I remember asking if they were gonna numb it and Vic said no because there is no point in numbing cartilage. This made me feel worse. I decided on getting my right ear pierced because I already had a retired gunned cartilage piercing in my left and I thought I may want to put an earring back in one day (which, since then, I have).
All the time Vic was saying about how it wouldn't hurt much and made me feel at ease by talking about a load of random stuff.
The first needle only burned like Vic said it would and didn't really hurt much just stang a bit, the second one hurt slightly more but wasn't unbearable just a dull, burning pain. It certainly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I felt like a fool for getting myself worked up about nothing! I paid the £25 and bought some cleaning solution which I think was just salt solution or something of the like.
Healing wasn't bad at all, I cleaned it twice a day with piercing solution on a cotton bud and there was no crusties or scarring, except for a tiny bump on the outside lower hole. It healed in about 3 weeks and I was able to change it for a smaller bar. About 6 weeks later my sister and her 2 friends both got the same piercing done at the same place after seeing mine and saying how much they liked it, but theirs don't look as good as mine and I feel pleased that I started off a trend in my small rural community!
I love my industrial and think that it really suits the shape of my ear, the only problem was that the cartilage on the rim of my ear started turning really soft in about February of this year and I immediately thought that I was suffering from ear collapse after scaring myself on the internet and that my ear would buckle. At the first instance, I ran (not literally) to the nearest piercing studio and told them my fears. Expecting the worst, I was relieved when they said it was normal for the cartilage to soften a certain extent, because it has more support now that it has a bar effectively holding it up. Not entirely convinced, I monitered and checked my cartilage on that ear obsessively to make sure it wasn't getting worse and it didn't. To this day it is still a bit soft but im not that worried, I intend to keep my industrial for a lot of years yet, it is my favourite piercing.
Thanks for reading and happy piercing! My other experiences with my other piercings will be up on BME soon!