For ages now I've been planning my next bit of body mutilation. In 2003 I was aching for my first tattoo, which happened in a sort of blaze. In 2007 I had another tattoo itch that needed scratching which also followed a hazy procedural blur and now, now I'm thinking piercings.
At A Glance Author iheartchickens When A month ago Artist - Studio Electric Chair Location Falmouth I trawled google for a bit looking for a quality site about piercings and came across bodyjewelleryshop.com. A fantastic site that has everything from the range and type of piercings through to latex sex toys, piercing/ tatt galleries and a very informative forum.
On this site I spied the piercing I wanted. A Snug-- which according to this dandy site is...
" located through the inner cartilage, halfway down the outer rim of the ear, above the anti-tragus.
In most cases this area is quite shallow, and micro jewellery is often used. Again curved barbells are preferable and need only be a few millimetres longer than the thickness of the cartilage."
Spent a few weeks addictively looking over the member galleries and liked 80% of the snugs I saw -- was momentarily drawn to conch percings, but one should always go with the initial gut thought. And my gut was chanting snug. I then made sure I could waste money buying various accessories and jewellery for it, and I could. Next criteria was how would it look on my ear... god knows, I can't see my ears very well being on the side of my head and all , but a few digital shots later and I could see my ear just fine. I knew I wanted it done on the right, as my left has 3 lobe piercings and an additional snug would just overcrowd and cripple my ear. So my left it was- 2 lobe piercings only, leaving enough height/ margin for the impending snuggery.
I then started to scope out places to have this bodily abuse carried out. I'm in Falmouth. The arse end of nowhere. I wasn't sure there would be a prolific piercing community- but there seems (oddly) to be 2 studios in Falmouth town itself and a few others in the surrounding areas. I checked out various price lists and had, by the end of my investigation, accepted I'd be looking at a £40 hand over. 4000 pennies worth of piercing, aftercare solution and titanium curved barbell.
About a month and a half on and I was still dead cert on having my cartilage savaged. Wednesday the 6th (3 days ago) I decided, after a tutorial at college, that I'd pop into town with my art director and get it done.
Again the whole thing was just casually happening . Nice relaxed- like it was run of the mill.
We popped into the studio, asked for my snug to be pierced, sat in the chair and the nice gentleman talked through where it would go on my ear, vandalized me with a marker and let me decided exactly which position I was happiest with. I was cleaned up and prepped and still nice and calm, thinking about reading the next chapter in Stephen Fry's biog' when I got back home.
When the clamp was fixed it pinched a little - still I was all contemplative and wondering why in fact Fry and his young friends watched each other poo in the woods ( first chapter of the book if you are interested), then the needle pushed into the first half of my cartilage and my brain immediately switched to intensely scrutinizing the wall I was looking at. The pain was so dull and resonating that my body went into numb mode blocking out almost all the pain leaving a tender crunchy sensation to be enjoyed whilst the last 50% was skewered.
I was just about to cough when the bar was slipped into the hole and I felt that. Really sharp and properly painful, but it was so quick I didn't really have enough time to complain. And that was that. Fair amount of free flowing blood- not a bad thing when something needs to heal- and a vigorously throbbing ear and my piercing urge was satisfied.
I love it. It looks fantastic and exactly how I wanted it to look. It just hurt when I laugh. It was very tender 3 days on and I kept catching it on my hoody so it made it a little worse for wear and swollen. But what do you expect when you jam a foreign piece of metal into your body?
What happened next was a total pain-literally/ metaphorically/ everything-a-ly. Severe gut wrenching pain. Slowly but surely I noticed the swelling starting to eat the ball. It was an 8mm but mm by mm my ear was taking it in. It hurt when I walked, it hurt when I coughed. It was lymphing like no ones business and I was a little concerned. Tried some SSS to try and draw any nastiness out, alas nothing. Popped into the chemist in town and enquired about drugs to take the swelling down. They simply advised I took anti-inflammatory or take it out. Not wanting to take it out I did as advised and took the drugs. So day 5 crept round and I wasn't at all happy. Nipped into the piercers at 1750 and low and behold it was septic. I have M.E (so the world's poorest immune system) - all in all it was a sort of bad idea to get pierced. I was under pressure from college , having late-working nights and being a typical student I have the worse diet next to those who shop only in Iceland.
The amount of crap that my piercer cleaned from my ear was unbelievable. The colours were pretty spectacular. Purples, reds, blacks, dirty yellows... general septic ear colours.
20 mins of cleansing later, bit of alcohol and bobs your uncle. Had a longer 12mm bar slipped in; I tell you now I have never experienced anything so painful in all my life. It was white pain. IE- white flashes as the bar bell went through the piercing. It wasn't brief either. Couldn't have prolonged that agony more if we tried. My ear really wasn't happy. My lovely piercer did say we could just leave it and try again when it had healed up. But nope, I wanted it done I'd live through the excruciating pain and having a barbell jiggled round a fresh, raw, oh so very angry wound.
12mm bar in a few mins later and the relief washed over me. Huzzah. It's now week...3? I have had a clear bioplast barbell put in, the swelling has almost totally disappeared and I have a very happy, beautifully healing snug.
I now have about 12 months waiting period for it to heal up all nice. The bodyjewellery.com site gives loads of info on how to care for it and keep it from causing your ear to fall off as does the safepiercing.org site. I've just got to stop catching it and sleeping on it absentmindedly.
The pain you put yourself through for a pricey piece of metal. Insane.