At A Glance Author Kevin from San Francisco Contact kdemattia@hotmail.com IAM Kevin'sInZen When A month ago Artist Dave Rodriguez Studio Braindrops Location Haight St. , San Francisco 2 gauge Conch piercing, stretch to 0
I've been into body piercing since the "first wave" of popularity, back in '89 or '90.
My first exposure to it was through the book Modern Primitives, and I remember the rush I felt the first time I saw Genesis P-Orridges' large gauge ear piercing... I think he had a one gauge eyelet.
I've always loved the look of larger gauge piercings ; they look way more intense, extreme. You have to work to stretch them, to heal them.
Eventually I became what I call (self-deprecatingly) the "human tacklebox" : one inch earlobes, 4 gauge tongue, 6 gauge septum, nipple, tragus, labret, lip. As the years went on some piercings stayed, others got downgraded in size or removed altogether. Fast forward to the present day and the only things left from my once-copious hole collection are my earlobes, now down to a 1/2 inch for aesthetic reasons. Earlier in my piercing days I subscribed to the "more is better, bigger is better" philosophy...The older I got the more I realized it's better to work with your features, enhance them, rather than overwhelm them with too much. For example, I loved my lip rings, but the way my face is structured, if you were looking at me in profile, my bottom lip is the furthest point forward. So that meant the lip rings accentuated what I felt to be an unattractive feature of mine. Example two: my septum. One of my favorite piercings, an homage to Perry Farrell and also a nod to the ring-nosed bull (I'm a Taurus)...I'm unfortunately slightly pug-nosed, so the septum ring never seemed to look right. I've found they look best on someone with a nose that turns down a bit at the tip.
Okay, onward to the Conchness... Over the years every time I saw someone with large gauge conches I would ooh and aah over them, never thinking that I would eventually get them. I was always leery of fucking around with the perfectly-designed structure of my inner ear area. I love music and was scared that this piercing would in some way compromise my ability to hear. I didn't want any change in perceived tonal clarity. At the same time, years of going to shows and not wearing hearing protection have left me with a slight case of tinnitus, so I reasoned the conches wouldn't cause that drastic a change in my hearing. So......I talked to my friend Dave Rodrigues over at Cold Steel (Haight St., San Francisco). I told him I wanted my conches done, he said he'd order the needles, jewelry. I've known Dave since '93, when he worked at Venus Modern Body Arts on E 4th St. in New York City.
Fast forward to a year later... yes, it took me that long to commit to finally doing it! By that time Dave had moved from Cold Steel to Braindrops (it used to be the original Nomad Body Piercing), one of my favorite shops in the city.
I called the ever-patient Dave and we scheduled the piercings for Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 1pm. Now I started to get nervous! Finally, the big day arrived, I showed up a bit early so I could pick out the jewelry. We talked a bit, he checked my ears to make sure no veins were in the way, and we discussed the size. We settled on piercing them at a 2 gauge and immediately stretching to a 0. They didn't have the right size jewelry at the shop, so I walked over to the other Braindrops (there's one on Hayes St. and one on Haight St.) and picked out 2 pair of zero gauge clear glass plugs, one pair slightly longer than the other pair.
Dave had said glass is one of the best things to heal these piercings with; it's non-porous and non-allergenic.
We decided on the shorter of the two pair, and retired to the piercing room.
Braindrops is a great place to get pierced: tall ceilings, tons of sunlight, plants everywhere, lots of beautiful tribal masks/pictures, ambient music. This place is top-notch, probably as far removed from the garden-variety tattoo/piercing/t-shirt emporiums as you could get.
Next came placement. I liked the fact that Dave took his time marking the holes...it probably took about 20 minutes, and when he was finally satisfied he let me look to make sure I liked the placement, then he called in the other piercer to get third opinion. It was agreed the placement was fine...so here comes the big moment!
I laid down on the table while he cleaned my ears and got the needles/taper/jewelry ready.
I started trying to focus on my breathing but it wasn't really working--I was nervous as hell! The one thing that made me feel better was that David and the other piercer, Paul, both had large gauge conches and they both had them done the same way: pierced then stretched.
He then said to me: "Are you ready?" "Yes," I replied. I took a deep breath in and on the exhale he pushed the needle through my right cartilidge. Wow! More pain than I knew how to process. I mean, I'm no slouch to pain, I'm 16 hours into a ribcage tattoo, but this, this was on a whole other level. I don't remember a sound, just an intense pressure that gave way to blinding, white-hot pain. Every muscle in my body contracted and I involuntarily grunted. Next came the taper and that was even worse. Searing, burning, tearing. Then the jewelry was inserted as the taper was pulled out.
I broke out in a sweat and was stunned at what had just happened. But at least the jewelry was in. Now for the other ear! He repeated the process and I honestly couldn't say which ear hurt more... this was more pain than I'd ever felt in my entire life. Easily the most intense experience of my life.
With both plugs finally in I sat up and he got me some water. I didn't feel dizzy, just very awake and very much in pain. My heated ears throbbed as I tried to focus on the aftercare instructons. I bought some H2Ocean antiseptic spray, some Satin antibacterial soap, and got a few more backup O-rings.
I paid, then tipped him $40, and headed out into the afternoon sunlight.
Now comes the fun part: healing.
I went to Walgreen's and bought a donut travel pillow, the kind that has a hole in the middle. I also bought a box of 500 Q-tips, some non-iodized Sea Salt, some wide-mouth 8oz disposable clear plastic cups and bottle of 200mg Ibuprofen.
Thankfully I didn't have to work that night, I don't think I would have been able to anyway. There was this constant thrumming pain from the conches that made it almost impossible to focus on anything for more than a few minutes.
I took a few Ibuprofen and laid down. That night was unforgettable. Sleep was not going to come easy. Every move made my ears shriek in pain. I finally drifted into a fitful sleep around 3 in the morning. I woke a few hours later, the pain having subsided a miniscule amount. I took my Ibuprofen, soaked my ears (1/4 teaspoon sea salt dissolved in as-hot-as-I-can-stand-it water) for 5 minutes each, cleaned off the crusties (thankfully my ears hardly bled), then soaped/rinsed my ears. After every cleaning, maybe because the wound was scrubbed, the pain would rise.
I found all I needed was one 200mg Ibuprofen and that would pretty much quell the pain...it took about 15 minutes to kick in. As the days went on the pain kept receding. I was at day 4 when I noticed that the O-rings were digging into the outer rim of my ear, making it sore. Trying to head off any problems at the pass I headed back down to Braindrops for a follow-up exam. Dave looked at my ears and agreed that the O-rings were indeed putting too much pressure on my ear rim and he recommended switching out my shorter glass plugs for the longer ones. I agreed and we switched out the plugs. He was very thorough in cleaning all crusties of the old ones, taking off the O-rings gently, and carefully removing the old plugs and putting the new ones in. Ouch! My ears were not happy at this turn of events.
I was happy, though, knowing that this was better for the healing in the long run.
Well, let me tell you, the hell was just beginning! As the day wore on my ears became more and more inflamed. And they hurt. Bad. Unfortunately, I had to work that evening. My night was hell on earth. My ears were bright red and throbbing. I could barely think straight and had a near-constant grimace on my face. I finally finished my shift, went home, cleaned my ears, took my Ibuprofen, and tried to sleep. I might as well have taken an M&M for all the good the Ibuprofen did. I barely slept at all and in the morning the pain was as bad as ever. This was Halloween day. All I could do was lay in bed and try to watch tv. The pain was overwhelming. My girlfriend went out to a Halloween party, not before commenting on how awful my ears looked. They were practically purple and grotesquely swollen. I had self-inflicted cauliflower ears. I looked like Alfred E. Newman! (Mad magazine) My girlfriend returned later that night and the pain was a bad as ever. Even though I had promised myself not to resort to painkillers, when she offered me one I jumped at the chance. Finally, slight relief and I drifted off to another broken sleep. When I awoke the pain had faded a bit, and I vowed then and there that if the pain came back to the degree that it had been, I'd take the plugs out, go to the doctor and get some antibiotics and painkillers. All through this experience I kept picturing getting a massive infection that would spread to my lymph nodes or worse, my brain! I wondered if my ears were permanently disfigured and would the swelling ever go down? Was I doomed to roam the Earth having pink elephant ears?
Thank the gods that be, the pain slowly dissipated and the swelling went down over the next few days.
The intitial piercing was 15 days ago, and I'm currently on vacation visiting my parents in New Jersey.
Things have improved by leaps and bounds: the swelling/redness is completely gone, I haven't taken Ibuprofen in 6 or more days, and the only time I feel a twinge of pain is if I bump my ear inadvertently or put too much weight on it as I sleep. I have been cleaning my ears religiously twice a day and taking tons of vitamins. There is a fair amount of dried lymph around the plugs every morning when I wake up, but thankfully no bleeding.
Here are the vitamins I'm taking daily:
300mg Vitamin C, 70-90mg Zinc, Men's multivitamin, B-Complex/B-12, and some Arnica tablets to help keep swelling down. I've also cut down on my beer consumption and I'm drinking plenty of water.
Here's my cleaning routine: soak each ear for approx. 5 minutes with hot water/sea salt. (note: Don't overdue it on the sea salt! I found that my ears were getting really dried out: the skin was starting to peel and flake and they were itching a lot...and that's from using the recommended amount of sea salt -1/4 teaspoon per 8oz water- so lately I've been reducing the amount of sea salt to 1/8th teaspoon...) Wet Q-tip with hot water and clean off crust/lymph from back of ear, push plug up and clean off crust/goopies from the front. Wet fresh Q-tip and put a dab of Satin or any other gentle piercing cleaning solution on it and again gingerly clean back/front, I also slowly work plug up-and-down to ensure a bit of soap gets into the piercing. I let the soap sit for a minute then rinse off my ears well. I've found that a hand-held spray attachment for the showerhead works great; it really gets all the residue/soap/etc. off.
So that's it! I've been through the fire so to speak and I'm eagerly awaiting complete healing so I can switch out jewelry and also sleep on the side of my head again!
I hope reading this experience will help anyone else who is considering getting large conches. I'm sure everyone's experience will vary greatly, but if you want it, Go Get Some!!
I'll write an update as soon as they're healed.
Cheers!
Kevin from San Francisco