At A Glance
Author	Katie
Contact	Katie@bme.anon
When	A month ago
Studio	Leeds Body Piercing Studio
Location	Leeds, England

I love body mods, and have a fair few.

I got my tragus done about 4 months ago, after much deliberation - i have problems with my ears, and have to wear ear plugs at gigs, and thought it might be a bit difficult - but my little sister got hers done, and it looked amazing, so I thought I'd go for it regardless.

It went well and healed well, and now I have a small labret stud in so earplugs go in fine.

I found a felt a bit "offcentre" then though; I like balance, and I had more piercings on my right side than I did on my left.

So after looking on BMEzine for another earpiercing, I decided that my anti-tragus was the way to go.

I was slightly put off by all the stories to be honest; most of them proclaiming that it was one of the most painful piercings, blood, fainting, needles getting stuck, and so on. So it took a while for me to get round to it.

I managed to persuade my ex-boyfriend, Rich, who is a complete piercing novice, to get his earlobe pierced as well.. and he even offered to pay for my anti-tragus as a Christmas present. Well, I couldn't back out then, could I?!

We went into town to do some last minute Christmas shopping, and once we'd done, headed off to Leeds Body Piercing Studio, which is where I've had all my piercings done. They're very friendly, and very clean, and I'd reccomend them to anyone in the Leeds area.

Rich was a bit nervous at this point, and so we wasted ages wandering around the shop looking at the jewellery and stuff so he could prepare. God knows why he was so scared, he was only getting an earlobe piercing!! I pointed out to him how much cartilage I was about to get a needle rammed through, and that seemed to shut him up then!

We went to the desk, and I told the woman behind that I wanted my anti-tragus piercing, and my friend wanted an ear lobe doing. She looked at both our ears, pronounced them fine, and gave us some forms to fill in. Rich asked some questions about the BCR that was about go through his ear, and then we went upstairs to the waiting room.

I downed practically a whole bottle of Lucozade whilst I was waiting, so I had a bit of a sugar rush going on! Rich went first, because I knew if he didnt, he'd back out. I peeked through a crack in the door, and he handled it pretty well, only saying 'ouch' once.

And then it was my turn! I was pretty nervous, worrying about all this blood and stuff that I'd read about. I was relieved to see that the piercer was the same woman who'd done my tragus though; she's very good, and put me instantly at ease.

She told me that there wasn't really much choice in the placement of an anti-tragus piercing, but she drew a dot on, and let me have a look anyway. It was perfect, exactly where I wanted it.

She also warned me that she was putting a pretty big BCR in, to allow for swelling, but that I could go back in a few weeks and have it changed once the swelling had gone down.

She sat me down on the chair, and put some gauze in my ear- this was to protect the inside from the freeze spray apparently. She sprayed the freeze spray on, and then prepared the BCR and the needle whilst it took effect.

Then it was time for the piercing. She stood next to me and told me to take a deep breath- this I did. She then pushed the needle straight through my ear, no problem. It hurt, but not much. Nowhere near as I was expecting anyway! She left the needle in for a few seconds while she got the BCR, and then started to tell me all about the aftercare procedure while she put it through, as a distraction. This bit was by far the most painful, she got an "OOowwwwwwooww" out of me.. but still, not as bad as I was expecting. And then it was all done!!

She wiped the tiny bit of blood away, and then told me to look in the mirror..... it looked amazing! The BCR did look huge, especially because I have such small ears, but the placement was perfect, and I knew it would look amazing once I'd got a smaller BCR in!

I left the piercing shop a very happy girl.

I had a few knocks the first week or so; the worst one being when my mum came into work to surprise me, and whacked my pigtail against my head to make me jump...however, this just made me burst into tears and run off bleeding! After that though, it's been fine, and has been healing perfectly. I'm going to go and get the BCR downsized at some point this week.

I'd reccomend this piercing to anyone; it's dead cute, and fairly different too.