Many months ago I found myself bored with my piercings and decided that it was time for me to beg my parents to allow me to get a new piercing (I was still a minor at the time). I had just gotten a navel piercing (which I later battled with through a series of the formation of strange lumps of scar tissue and painful infections) a month prior but I still managed to convince my parents to let me get a new piercing. They're pretty much against most body piercings unless they're either very common (i.e. navel and nose) or are ear piercings.
At A Glance Author Shell-eh When Six months ago Artist A woman Studio Level 5 Tattoo & Piercing Location Sarasota, FL I told my mom I wanted to get two daith piercings, and she agreed. I went to the local piercing studio, Level 5, which I had gone to before for my navel and nose piercings. I ended up going back and forth between notaries, Level 5, and my house for several reasons. The piercer/notary at the piercing studio was busy, so we attempted to find a notary elsewhere on the day I initially wanted to get pierced, but other notaries were closed. When I had finally gotten the form notarized and returned to the piercing studio on another day, Level 5 didn't have the right jewelry so they had to order it. One or two days later I went back and was finally ready to be pierced.
We went through the usual process of filling out forms and having copies of my and my mother's ID's made. Eventually it came time for me to get pierced which was when I began to freak out. I had read a lot of stories on daith piercings on BME so I had concluded with great fear that daiths hurt a lot. I also had no other cartilage piercings prior to this, so my expectations of the level of pain I was to experience was dependent on the experiences I had read on this site.
The piercer had me lie down on the chair on my side. I was worrying a lot about the pain I was seconds away from experiencing, but when she pushed the needle through my ear it didn't hurt that much. When she had put the jewelry in and screwed on the ball she let me get up and take a look in the mirror. I really liked how it looked and I was excited to get the second one done. After I had my second daith I again got up and looked in the mirror. I was slightly disappointed since the piercing looked like it stuck out too far and wasn't as nicely placed as the first daith. However, I thanked her, paid her, and we left.
At first I found aftercare to be a difficult experience. I tried sticking my ears in large bowls of salt water, which didn't work. I then tried sticking them in cups of salt water, which worked except for the fact that I ended up with extreme ear pressure. Eventually I settled on just sticking q-tips in cups of salt water then using the q-tips to clean my piercings which has seemed to work well for me so far. Due to a new industrial piercing though I discovered how wonderful H2Ocean is and began using that on my daiths in addition to my industrial.
In the very beginning I was paranoid about shampoo and conditioner getting into my piercings whenever I showered. After a few days though I used a method of blocking out shampoo by placing the sides of my hands behind each ear between my head and the backs of my ears. I then cupped my hands over my ears from those positions so that when the water would run down, it would go over my hands and not on my ears.
My piercings never got infected and they seem to be healing nicely. I'm not as thorough with cleaning my piercings anymore and at times I go weeks without cleaning them so it's understandable that they haven't healed yet. Furthermore, I dye my hair pink which requires that I bleach and re-dye my hair about every 1 1/2 months. The piercings have held up well to that process. However, one or two nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night while I was still half-dreaming and completely out of it, and as a result I believed my right daith's CBR to be an ear plug that I had to desperately get out of my ear. Needless to say I tugged on the jewelry extremely hard and ended up really hurting myself that night. However, the piercing seems to be doing OK.
If you want the piercing, I suggest you get it. It's no where near as painful as people say it is and it's rather nice to look at.