At A Glance
Author	Benjamiiiiin
Contact	Benjamiiiiin@bme.anon
When	It just happened
Artist	didnt catch her name
Studio	Tony's Tattoos
Location	Reigate

Hi

I've wanted a piercing in my cartilage for quite a while now but have never had the courage to go through with it, my friends told me to go into Croydon where there is a chemist where they do it for £3.50 but they do it with a gun...no thanks.

So I did my research and decided that I would get it done with a needle in a professional piercing place. I did a couple of month's worth of INTENSIVE research until I was confident I knew enough about it to get it done.

So yesterday I decided to get it done in my free period at college, the piercing place is only up the road. I was very nervous on my way there, I was so worried that I would wuss out but I really wanted this done and I had waited so long, and really what is a minute of pain??

Me and my friend Hannah walked in and I told them what I wanted, we waited for about 10 minutes. We looked at all the tattoos on the walls and decided what ones we would get when we turned 18. I was relaxing now and a woman was talking to us and reassuring me that it wasn't too bad. The piercing woman, whose name I never got, asked me if I wanted a bar or a ring, I chose a ring. By this time I was sweating like a pig (this always happens when I get a piercing) and I had to keep wiping my forehead with my sleeve.

I followed the woman into the room and she said my friend couldn't come in with me so I was a bit like...ARGH.

So I lay on the dentist like chair and began bombarding her with questions about keloids, how much it would hurt, why you shouldn't get it done with a gun etc.

She said I would barely feel it and that it would hurt about the same as the lobe... I knew this was not entirely the truth.

I showed her where I wanted the piercing which is around the middle of my ear. She told me to take a deep breath and as I did it she stuck the needle through.

It wasn't unbearably painful but it was not pain free! The people who claim it is pain free must have a VERY high threshold for pain! But then again it happens to fast it doesn't really matter, it's like a very quick pinch with some discomfort afterwards as she put the ring in and screwed the ball on. She gave me the aftercare treatment which came free with the piercing; the aftercare is a mixture of lavender oil, witch hazel and tea tree oil which I can spray onto the piercing because on the first night it will be too painful to touch so the only way to clean it is with a spray.

For a couple of hours after the piercing it was on and off sore, it would go through phases of stinging and burning and then it would stop and I wouldn't be able to feel it. Then the spray she had put on started running down my ear and I thought my ear had exploded and it took a lot of reassuring from my friends to accept that blood wasn't running down my head.

After a couple of hours I could no longer feel it, in fact I forgot it was there which was not a good thing because I reached up to scratch my ear...OH MY GOD...never been in that much pain ever, was QUITE a shock =[ I had a shower that night, knocked it a few more times when drying my hair, went to sleep VERY worried that I would roll onto it in the middle of the night but I didn't even though I kept waking up every half an hour (probably because I was worried I would knock it sooner or later.)

Woke up in the morning, cleaned it, went to college (still no pain) came back cleaned again, went out, came home. And now I'm writing this, still pain free. I can move the earring around a bit without MUCH pain but I'm not fiddling with it because I refuse to allow it to get infected, if I touch it I SCRUB my hands clean first =]

My only regret is that I wish I hadn't been so afraid to get it done, because despite what people say it really isn't that bad, just expect the worse and the pain won't seem that bad. I would recommend that you get it done AT A PIERCING PLACE with a HOLLOW NEEDLE, NOT a gun!

I really love my new piercing and it is completely worth the £25 I paid for it, just hope nothing goes wrong!

Good luck =]