Okay. I got my first lobe piercing gunned. After arguing with my mother that piercing my ears would not ruin my luck (I'm an Asian girl, and since thick ear lobes supposedly mean good money making in the future, my mom hated compromising my ears), she dragged me over to this random hair salon who took out these studs and gunned them with a re-usable pink plastic piercing gun. Not to mention that she had to re-pierce my left ear. I didn't really get any aftercare info, and I went to Hawaii the next day and didn't clean my poor lobes there. It was a miracle that they didn't get infected.
At A Glance Author aznmochi Contact aznmochi@bme.anon When A week ago Artist My friend Dan Studio My bathroom Location My house Anyways, two years later, I wanted a helix. Before I got my lobes done, I promised myself that I would get a lobe and a cartilage piercing. As soon a I told her that, my mom totally freaked out, telling me that she would even let me get a navel piercing as long as I didn't get pierced through cartilage and such. While trying to prove to her that I deserved one, I stumbled onto BME and learned all of this juicy info on piercings and the aftercare I neglected, as well as read all of these stories about do it yourself piercings, causing me to get this wondrous idea of piercing myself.
I still had this itch to get something pierced, so I decided to do something myself. Since I would never trust myself with a cartilage piercing, I decided to go for another lobe piercing. I had this weird idea of piercing myself with this slightly sharp 14g tapers that I used to stretch out my other lobes (they started as 18g). I browsed around and then noticed that I could just get piercing needles instead. Just as I was talking about this to my friend on chat, I suddenly suggest to him that he'd pierce me, as school was about to end, and I'm not the best at inflicting pain on myself, and I knew that he'd be gentle. I went online and got my piercing needles as well as two CBRs. They arrived on the last day of school.
And that's when I noticed that the CBRs weren't sterile. Seeing that I had this steam oven in my kitchen , I did this really weird pseudo autoclave, though it probably isn't as good as the real thing, I tried my best to replicate it. I took apart the CBRs and put them in a steamer pan along with a spoon to help me take them out without compromising the sterility. I left the stuff in the steamer for 15 minutes, and sealed the CBRs in a bag. The needles were already sterilized, so I didn't have to worry about them.
The next day, my friend came over to my house while my mom was out. We went up to my bathroom, where we proceeded to decide where the holes would go while I took out the CBRs in my current lobe holes. I also had to give him a crash course on closing CBRs. After fighting it out with several colored sharpies, we finally decided and he put on a pair of gloves, wiping my ears with peroxide. We went through what we going to do, and I told him to push in as straight as possible.
He opened the first sterile pack containing a piercing needle, and opened the bag containing the CBRs. I took a deep breath, and he counted to 3, pushing the needle through my right lobe. I personally think he went a little slow, but the pain wasn't that bad. My ear did this disturbing crackling noise as the needle went through the back, which nearly made me jump. He picked up the first CBR and put it at the back of the needle. He then pulled the needle along with the CBR. I didn't even feel it.
The left ear was a bit more fussy, with me yelling at him to hurry up when he stopped midway through my lobe. The CBR insertion for that lobe was a bit painful. There was no bleeding at all. We did have a flashlight to check for veins, but I realized that we forgot about it when we were halfway through the second piercing. Anyways, the ball insertion was pretty painful, as he had trouble finding the dimples. But it wasn't took bad. I rubbed my ear with some peroxide and we cleaned up our stuff.
I decided to keep the needles since I obviously didn't have a needle trash can. Dan suggested that I go to my mom's dental office and use their needle trash can to dispose of them. I think I'll do that after making my needle phobic friend faint.
Anyways, my ears were a bit sore for the first 2 days, but salt soaks calmed them down considerably, and they are doing fine for now. Crusties develop around them quite a bit, but I clear them out with hot compresses and the salt soaks. I'm sure that they'll heal just fine. My parents have yet to notice them yet, but I'm sure my mom has seen them a ton and just didn't care much to notice them really. My piano teacher started to yell at me that I was becoming one of those punks, and that single lobe piercings were plenty, but I think the second lobe piercings look great on me. Not to mention that I plan to buy 2 spiral barbells after heal. As for my helix piercing to be, I'll go get it in college. I don't plan to self pierce it.
Thus ends the tale about a 15 year old who actually did an at home piercing successfully without the horror story quality of those failed 15 year old piercing or stretching attempts. As for the other hole I'm stretching, I'm not going to go low of a gauge, so that will be a lost story.
So... If you plan to self pierce or have a non pro pierce you, make sure you take the correct safety precautions and stay as sterile as possible, though:
DON'T DO IT. YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST GO GET A PIERCING FROM AN EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONAL AND NOT HAVE TO FRET OVER THE RISKS AS MUCH.
(Even if this was a successful piercing, or as my friend says: (Even if this was a successful piercing, you might not know someone as totally awesome as my friend))