I had been itching for a new piercing for a while and had always liked the look of industrial piercings so after coming back from a trip to London and having £50 burning a hole in my pocket I decided to get the piercing done.
At A Glance Author Phoenix Contact cinnamon_girl@hotmail.co.uk When Three months ago Studio Nikki's Body Art Location Maidstone I went to the normal piercing studio, Nikki's Body Art, that I have been to for most of my piercings but I didn't recognise the Goth girl at the counter. I figured that they had just hired the new girl but this didn't phase me and I asked the girl if she would be able to do a 'Scaffolding' piercing for me (Scaffolding is the UK term for an Industrial piercing). She assured me that this would be fine but she would have to leave the door open so she could keep an eye on the shop as well. Since the only other person in the shop was my friend who came with me I said this was fine.
I filled in all the necessary forms and paid £40 then an extra £5 for a coloured bar. I picked out the one I wanted (Blue and purple candy cane) and was offered a choice of either a short or long bar.
I followed the girl into the piercing room where she asked me to tie my hair back and then cleaned the cartilage of my right ear. She then removed both of the bars from their sterile packaging, asked me to look in the mirror and showed me the placement of the shorter and longer bar.
The shorter bar would be positioned closer to my head and angled to a more horizontal line and the longer bar would be positioned further away from my head but further down the cartilage. I want to get a Snug piercing in the near future so I settled for the shorter bar.
She marked up my ear for the piercing then brought out the sterile needle and some form of numbing/freeze spray in a clear glass tube. I never really understand why some piercers bother with this but I let her continue. She put some tissue into the conch of my ear to stop and liquid collecting in my ear canal and started to spray to liquid onto the pen marks. As she was doing this the girl told me 'This is going to freeze the cartilage to make the piercing less painful' but I assured her 'I had both nipples done last week, I think I can handle this'.
After freezing my ear she pushed the needle through my ear. It did hurt, nothing like my nipples but it was a burning pain. The girl remarked 'Your ear's completely frozen I really had to push with all my strength to get the needle through'. She realigned the needle and pierced the second hole. Again this was a burning pain but it wasn't as bad as the first hole. She cleaned up the blood which had come from the first hole then threaded the bar through. I was happy with the result but my ear was bright red! The girl explained all the aftercare I would need and I left very happy.
During the healing process people kept on bumping the piercing when I went to hug them which would send a searing jolt through my ear. I quickly learnt to hug people on their left side so my ear wouldn't get all smashed up next to someone's next. I kept cleaning the piercing for the first two weeks religiously but because of things which were happening elsewhere in my life I became lax with my cleaning. It hurt like hell to sleep on my right side which is the side I usually sleep on so during the night I would roll over only to be jolted awake by the pain in my right ear.
The piercing had started to develop hypertrophic scarring on the bottom hole but I wasn't too worried about it since I have managed to reduce this on other piercings I have had done in the cartilage of my left ear.
A couple of days ago I noticed that it was no longer painful to sleep on my right side. I used a magnifying mirror and found that I was developing hypertrophic scarring on the top hole as well. This gave me the push to start cleaning my ear again. I started up my cleaning routine with Sea Salt Soaks; everything was going well until I hit my ear with my laptop. OH MY GOD I HAVE NEVER FELT PAIN LIKE THIS!!!!! Yes it sounds stupid and almost impossible but somehow while repositioning myself on the couch I dropped the laptop and it hit the bar. My God, the pain was excruciating.
Right the piercing still hurts, much like what it did when I first got the piercing done. I'm left with hypertrophic scarring and what could quite possibly lead to an infection if things don't get better soon. The moral of the story really is that you should really stick to a cleaning ritual and never ever ever hit your industrial piercing with your laptop.