Outer Conch at 6 Gauge
At A Glance Author John Contact John@bme.anon IAM TribalJMD When A week ago Artist IAM: eve*Valerie*eve Studio Body Piercing Unlimited Location Fairbanks, AK
I had decided, for the sake of symmetry, that I would get my right outer conch pierced. I already have my left one at 4 gauge (as well as my left inner conch at 4 gauge and both my lobes at 7/8"), so I knew I would want to get it done at a larger size to try to decrease the hassle of stretching cartilage.
I IMed my piercer, IAM eve*Valerie*eve, and asked her about it. She said that the largest needles she has are 6 gauge, so from that point I decided I would have it pierced at 6 gauge. I got lucky with this piercing, because a friend of mine gave me a hook-up card that he received when he had a tattoo done (for a free piercing with cost of jewelry). This made it so that I would only have to pay 20 bucks for the procedure.
I showed up to the shop (because piercings are taken by walk-in) and was greeted by a girl at the front desk. She asked me what I would like to have done, and I said that I wanted to have my right outer conch pierced at 6 gauge. At the time when I showed up, Valerie, the piercer, was out to lunch, so I was told to come back in about 45 minutes. I did not mind, because that gave me some time to mentally prepare some more for the pain that was about to come.
I came back, and Valerie was there. Then she started to gather the materials, and brought me to the front jewelry display to choose what I wanted in it. I chose to get a single flared stainless steel eyelet. Then I went into the piercing room, and sat down on the bed. She told me that she was going to pierce it with an 8 gauge needle and taper it up to 6 gauge to minimize bleeding.
Then she put some bobby pins in my hair to keep it from interfering with the procedure, and then started to line up where the piercing would be with the outer conch that is on my left side. She took out the marking pen, and proceeded to shade in a circle where the future protrusion would be. I took a look at it in the mirror and was pleased to see that they were even. Then she changed gloves and applied an antibacterial substance to clean the area.
I laid down on the piercing bed and tilted my head sideways. She told me that she would line the needle up with the taper right on the back of it to get a smooth transition between the two. She used some clamps to help line up the hole and give support to the cartilage (although she didn't actually clamp them down on my ear). Then she started to line up the needle with the receiving tube. She told me to take a big deep breath in and exhale when she says so. She told me to breathe in, and then exhale. The needle was in; it didn't feel as bad as I thought it would. Then she followed through with the taper. It seemed like the taper slipped a little bit, but she fixed it and was able to follow through with it. Then the stretch came, that wasn't that bad either (probably because I had never had a piercing stretched right after the initial pierce. Then she followed through with the eyelet, and it was all over. There wasn't too much blood; I could feel a little bit of it dripping around my ear, but it wasn't uncontrollable.
Then she cleaned it up and got me to look at it in the mirror. I was happy to see that they came out even (even though it looked kind of weird having a metal colored eyelet in there, because all of my other jewelry is black). When I left the piercing room, Valerie was happy to show her boss what she had done (my guess is that she hasn't done many pierce and tapers, so I was happy for her as well). Then I was out of there.
When I got back on campus, I received many positive comments about the new piercing (more positive comments than I have ever received about any of my modifications). It's been about three days now, and it is feeling great. I have yet to have any problems with it. When this heals, my only other plan with it is to stretch it to 4 gauge to match my other two cartilage piercings. Then for future plans for my ears, I might get my right inner conch done to match all of my other ones. So all in all, it was another very pleasing experience from Body Piercing Unlimited here in Fairbanks.