In the summer holidays of 2006 I decided I wanted another piercing to match my recently done tragus and conch piercings (note the experience links are old and probably badly written). This would be my 3rd cartilage piercing and my 7th piercing in total. I read up about it on BME and the general consensus was that it was painful. Oh well, I thought, no pain, no gain. So on another day trip to York I stopped by the York Body Piercing Clinic with my best friend. During my last trip I'd tried to find said studio, but ended up going to Classix instead. These days I wouldn't dream of going to a piercing studio at the back of a clothing shop, but back then it was the next best thing. My conch piercing I had done in Classix healed perfectly anyway.
At A Glance Author starless_dark Contact starless_dark@bme.anon IAM starless_dark When Two years ago Artist Jon Archibald Studio York Body Piercing Clinic Location York, UK So, back to the experience. Emma and myself made sure we had eaten to keep our blood sugar up, stepped into the Piercing Clinic and asked about our piercings - she was to get a helix, I an anti-tragus. I wanted the piercing to line up enough with my tragus piercing so that I could turn them into an orbital once both were healed. The head piercer, Jon, used calipers to measure the angle and position my anti-tragus had to be pierced at for this to work. I asked for it to be done with a curved barbell as I'd read it was better for healing. He told me that he'd had both anti-tragii done - one with a barbell and one with a BCR, and the one with the bar had rejected, so he would only use a BCR.
I took his word for this, as I thought "Oh, he's a piercer, he must know what he's doing". Now I know I should've been more persistent and that just because someone pierces for a living, doesn't mean they know better than you all the time. I was also advised on how to stretch my tragus up from a 1.2mm to 1.6mm so that the piercings would be the same gauge. Jon recommended a layer of clear nail polish on the tragus bar left to dry, then reinserted into the hole, repeated every few days until the coats of nail polish had built up the gauge to 1.6mm. Once that was done, he lead me through to the piercing room for the painful part.
He readied his equipment, opened the needle packet in front of me and asked me if I was happy that I'd witnessed this and knew the needle was brand new. I answered yes. He cleaned the area of my ear with a wipe and I think it was numbed if I remember rightly. He asked me to take a deep breath and counted "1... 2... 3..." Cue me going "Ow!", "Fucking hell!" and other expletives. The needle got halfway through and he had to give it one last push for it to come out the other side. This was really painful and my instinctive reaction was to slightly jerk my head away as he pushed, so he told me to try and relax. I did and eventually it was done. He threaded the ring through, snapped on the ball, and cleaned up the blood. I was provided with a 14mm diameter ring to link the piercings once they were healed, as it should fit exactly. I had to sit down for a minute and drink some water from the water cooler they had in the corner. When I felt fine again I walked through to show Emma in the waiting area and she thought it looked great. As I went to the counter to go through aftercare, she went through to have her helix done.
I was given the aftercare sheet and recommended to use the little pot of saline solution provided. Other advice was to leave the piercing alone for a few days, use Savlon Wound Wash (which some people have a reaction to) and turn the piercing every day after that. Also on the aftercare sheet was Jon's number, so if there was anything we were worried about concerning our piercings, we could contact him. I already knew that turning it was bad advice, but I went to get some Savlon with Emma and we were on our way.
My anti-tragus was throbbing a lot as we went round town and when I got home I realised it had bled again when my mum pointed it out at the dinner table, before telling me not to get any more piercings. Now we go onto the aftercare.
I cleaned it every morning and night with a cotton bud and the saline solution I'd been given. When that ran out I sprayed it with Savlon Wound Wash to see how it would go, and eventually learned of sea salt soaks, which I . I didn't turn it. As the healing of that piercing was taking place, I stretched up my tragus piercing. I'd bought a spare 1.2mm bar to coat with nail polish and successfully stretched up to 1.6mm without trouble.
Unfortunately once I got to uni my anti-tragus kept developing a bump (the dreaded bump) on the exit hole of the piercing, which would come and go as it wished. I tried everything to get rid of it for good, and when it'd finally gone for a few months, I went to Holier Than Thou in Manchester (around February the next year I think) to get Marcus to switch the bar in my tragus and BCR in my anti-tragus for the 14mm BCR after I got another piercing. That went fine, he said it looked great, and I went off happy. However, that was short-lived as I noticed scarring appearing on the entrance hole. I reluctantly removed the BCR after what was probably a month or less. I had bought a curved barbell in preparation for the jewellery change, and so put that in my anti-tragus.
Unfortunately over the 2 years I've had it the bump has gone up and down many a time. I've tried everything I've heard can help - sea salt soaks, chamomile teabag soaks, application of hydrogen peroxide to eat away the scarring, a tiny splash of Dettol in warm water to do the same, wearing a bioplast retainer, but nothing has removed it completely. The Dettol worked very well on the first few applications but then stopped having an effect. I'm resigned to the fact that I'll always have an ugly bump at the entrance hole of the piercing, whether it be tiny or huge. At the moment it's gone down a fair bit but swelled massively a few weeks back when I had my hair cut and the hairdresser sprayed his hairspray with wild abandon onto my head, irritating the piercing. Luckily the exit hole bump has been gone about a year now and I doubt it'll come back. I don't think I'll ever have the 14mm BCR back in the piercings, which is sad because it was my favourite piercing in its brief mome nt of glory.
I'd advise anyone wanting this kind of orbital to get both piercings done at the same time, maybe even with the BCR as initial jewellery so that the holes line up with each other when healed. However, this may cause more problems than it solves, so if getting them done with separate jewellery, have barbells, straight in tragus, curved in anti-tragus, and really look after them.