This is an article detailing my experiences with my ampallang over the past year, beginning with the aftercare, up to my decision to remove it. I had the piercing for a little over a year. I'm not going to go into to why I wanted it, and will stick with just the details on the healing.
At A Glance Author Tirial Contact Tirial@bme.anon IAM Tirial When A year ago Artist Matt Cotrell Studio Planet Ink Location Ottawa, ON I had it pierced by Matt in mid December 2004. I already had a 4-gauge Prince Albert, and was quite adamant about wanting my amp to be trans-urethral. Prince Alberts heal so easily and quickly partially because urine is sterile to your own body, and peeing x times a day naturally cleans the piercing. I felt this was the way to go with the ampallang.
The piercing went well. Matt is an excellent piercer, and nailed the location.
I made it through the initial healing phase, and got to the point where I was just cleaning off crusties in what seemed like a very short period of time, just a week or two. I found Chamomile tea soaks to be very soothing. Many people suggest lavender tea, or salt soaks. It really comes down to the most important aspect of any piercing: know your own body. Everyone reacts differently to every treatment. Some people can heal piercings fine using naturals like pure tea tree oil, but other people need something more like spectro gel. Find one works well with your body, and stick with it. For me, that generally means herbal tea soaks, and cleaning with spectro gel and then rinsing in the shower.
However, this piercing was unlike any other I have tried to heal. I stayed in the stage of daily crusties for the entire time I had the piercing. No matter what I tired, from LITHA to twice daily cleaning and soaking with a variety of treatments, I simply could not get the piercing to stop crusting.
My body generally heals very quickly. Even my nipples did not remain crusting for anywhere near this amount of time.
The piercing did stabilize, and slowly began to heal a little more and a little more as I went along. From about March until December I found it to be the same. Daily crusties.
I believe I finally found the reason for my problems with the healing. First of all, upon close examination of the piercing, the exterior of the holes seemed to be very well healed. They formed scar tissue rings around the barbell, and never seemed irritated except when the crusties were sharp and were poking the surface of the glans. I feel that the cause of the crusties must be the interior holes. Usually those are the fastest part to heal. A good example is a PA or a labret. The side of the hole inside the mucus membrane heals significantly faster (at least for my pa and labret) than the external hole.
My Ampallang and Prince Albert were able to touch inside my urethra, if I squished them together. I thought it was amusing to make the clicking sound on occasion, but that was about it. Unfortunately, I'm fairly certain this was the cause of the problem.
Months after I originally got the piercing and began having sex with it, I found that I would often be sore afterwards. And the soreness was almost entirely inside, in the urethra.
I believe that the Prince Albert and the ampallang would pinch the surface of the urethra between them. Now I don't mean just squishing as would be the case if the ampallang was not trans-urethral, but that the urethral wall actually bends a bit, and get caught between them and pinched, like if you get your thumb web skin caught in something.
This pinching prevented the piercing from ever healing completely, and produced all the problems with crusting I was having. Urethral flesh is far less robust than skin, and is not designed to handle the daily wear and tear of use the way skin is. And since there was no scar tissue surrounding my entire urethra, there was nothing to protect it.
I really enjoyed the ampallang, and I'm considering getting it redone, but next time I will be getting it higher up and further back. Essentially to make sure it doesn't conflict with the Prince Albert next time. Obviously an ampallang is a piercing that takes a very long time to heal, and requires a lot of care and attention, so I'm going to hold off for the near future. I just stretched my ear cartilage to 4 gauge and am seriously considering stretching my Prince Albert to 2 gauge.
I hope my experience helps with those who are having problems with their ampallangs, or are considering getting one. I did enjoy the piercing very much when I could keep it healthy.