I pierced my left ear myself when I was 13, and had my right done at some point soon after at the Piercing Pagoda in the mall. I the "cool" thing and began to stretch. I did many stupid things like skipping from a 12g to a 6g and the like, but thankfully my lobes survived with no real damage.
At A Glance Author Jamie Contact Jamie@bme.anon When It just happened Artist Kellan Studio Infinite Body Piercing Location Philadelphia In college I was introduced to BME and Modblog, and I learned how to properly care for and stretch my lobes. I started taking much better care of my lobes, and over the past 18 or so months I have stretched to 9/16".
One problem: having done the first piercing myself, it was fairly low on my lobe. I didn't like the position my holes were in, or how my plugs looked compared to my ears. Plus, I could tell that if I continued to stretch my lobes would begin to thin out. Looking for a solution, I started reading up on scalpelling. I had seen many good-looking results, and all of the experiences I read here on BME told of very positive experiences. After thinking it over, I decided that I wanted to get my ears cut.
This past weekend, I was visiting my friend Emily (who, fittingly, introduced me to BME) in Philadelphia. I called Infinite to see if one of the artists who do scalpelling would be in while I could get down there. Happily, there was!
Emily and I went to the studio on Tuesday afternoon and gave our names (she was getting her navel pierced at 6g) and sat down to wait. Kellan, who was to be my artist, came out to see me, and we talked briefly about what/why I wanted done. He confirmed that scalpelling was probably the best solution, and he told me to come back in about a half an hour.
Emily had her belly button done while we waited for Kellan to be ready for me. Soon after she was done, Kellan invited me to come into one of the rooms so he could get a closer look at my lobes. He poked around for a few minutes and talked to me about the procedure, then asked if I had a size in mind. I wasn't concerned about size, and I told him I just wanted to fix the placement of the holes and that I didn't want too big of a jump in sizes. He told me that a small cut would be enough to get the results I wanted. I had had my plugs out for a little while, so my lobes were about a half and inch, and we decided to cut up to 3/4".
For jewelry, I chose glass eyelets. One of the people working the counter autoclaved a pair each of 3/4" and 7/8", just in case my ears turned out to be stretchier than Kellan expected. We went back into the room, and Kellan measured and marked my ears for the cut. He asked if I was ready to start, I said yes and lay down on the chair. I was a little nervous, expecting a lot of pain and blood. Emily gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. Kellan cleaned off both my ears and then got out all the equipment from their sterile bags.
My left ear was first. "I'm gonna fuck your ear hole here for a second," Kellan joked as he put the clamp in place. I laughed and shot back, "Wait, ear fucking wasn't on the consent forms." The clamp was uncomfortable, but not terrible. "OK, are you ready?" asked Kellan. I was. He told me to take two deep breaths and concentrate on relaxing, and on the second exhale he would make the cut. I took my breaths and prepared myself for the pain.
It barely hurt at all. I felt the sawing motion, and felt sort of a pinching sensation. Similar to how getting a tattoo feels – more of an annoyance than pain. Kellan finished the cut and put some pressure on the lobe for a few seconds with some gauze. "Ready for the plug?" "Yep," I said. Inserting the plug was definitely an odd sensation – pressure and then a big pop as it went in. I didn't even bleed half as much as I was expecting, one gauze pad was enough to clean up. "One down," Kellan said, "How was it?" "Not hardly what I was expecting," I said.
At this point I really had to pee, which was odd because I went right before we started. So I went to the bathroom while Kellan got out the equipment for my right ear. Same procedure for the right ear: clamp, breaths, and cut. This one hurt. Not badly, but definitely more than the left ear. I must have winced because Kellan asked if I was all right. "Second one always hurts more," I said. "You must have peed out all your adrenaline," he said while putting pressure on the cut. Inserting the plug was the same as the left ear. Weird, but no pain.
"All done, wanna take a look?" Kellan asked. I got up and looked in the mirror. Even fresh and bloody I knew I loved them. Nice and centered, just the way I wanted, and even all the way around. "Awesome! They look amazing!" Kellan cleaned me up with some gauze and a cleaning solution. He asked if he could take a picture, and of course I said yes. He gave me a packet of care instructions and some gauze pads ("Just in case you get messy"). He gave me his card and asked me to keep in touch to let him know how they are healing, and said I could call him if anything went terribly wrong.
I am still surprised about how little pain and soreness during the piercing, and after. It has been just over 24 hours, and I am not sore, just a faint throbbing every once and awhile reminds me that I actually had it done. There was a little bit of bleeding yesterday and a few drops of blood on my pillow this morning, but other than that I haven't had any messiness.
As for after care, yesterday evening I cleaned them off with Dr. Piercing's Hole-istic Care swabs a quick sea salt rinse. This morning I washed them with Satin soap in the shower before work, and wiped off some crusted blood at work when I went to the bathroom. I did a sea salt soak when I got home for around 5 minutes on each lobe. They are looking good, and after the soak I haven't seen any more blood crusties.
I am very very happy with my new scalpelled lobes!