To celebrate the end of my Christmas exams, I decided to make a start on turning my ears into rainbows. The finished product will be seven piercings up the rim of both my ears, the first with red jewellery, the second with orange, and so on until purple. I hope to get my piercer, who enjoys making jewellery, to make me an ear spiral to fit them once they're healed, into which I shall put beads. Rainbow-coloured beads, of course - it's my favourite colour. Yes, it is a colour.
At A Glance Author popecatapetal Contact popecatapetal@bme.anon IAM popecatapetal When A month ago Artist Mark Studio V Piercings Location Dublin, Ireland I already had one set of lobe piercings, gunned when I was eleven and well healed by this time. Now I needed to get my second set of lobe piercings done, and this time I was going to get them pierced, rather than punched with a blunt sterling silver stud ('punched', 'blunt' and 'sterling silver' are all very rude words within the body piercing community, but unfortunately not in the mainstream world).
I went in to my trusted piercer Mark and filled out the usual form, and then headed down to the piercing room in the basement, trying to calm down my rather nervous boyfriend. He had only seen me get pierced once before - my nostril. It resulted in him getting queasy and almost passing out (I was fine). We were trying to desensitize him to needles so that he'll be able to sit in on my first play piercing on my 21st birthday this September. He was much more nervous than I was.
That's not to say that I wasn't nervous too, though. I don't like people touching my ears, as they are quite sensitive (in much the same way as other peoples' nipples are sensitive). I had screamed rather a lot when my ears were gunned, and I wasn't entirely looking forward to the pain. That said, I was rather excited at the same time, as I hadn't had a piercing in about two months and I had been craving one for a while. So it was all a bit mixed up in the piercing room.
Except for Mark. He was wonderfully calm, as he always is. He set up his instruments and gave me the choice of rings or barbells. He recommended the bars, as there would be less chance of things getting caught in them. At the time I couldn't think what would get caught - I have short hair that doesn't need brushing very often. Now, I am very grateful for the bars. Towels and sweaters would be awful with healing rings... He also advised a 1.6 mm bar, rather than the slimmer 1.2 mm one I had been imagining - I have plans for an industrial in each ear, and the long barbells only come in 1.6 mm width.
So first of all, Mark changed my 1.2 mm rings in my old lobe piercings to 1.6 mm ones, which was dead easy, as they had been so well healed. Then he marked up the right place to pierce, complaining about my unevenly sized, which I'd never noticed before then. He changed his gloves, got his first needle all lubed up and pushed it through the right ear. It was crunchier than I'd expected, and I let my breath out in a hiss. It turned out the needle had caught the little tail of cartilage that extends a little way down into the soft lobe. He apologised profusely and I reassured him and my boyfriend that I was okay (my boyfriend had turned a little pale). The other ear was as smooth as butter. No cartilage there. I barely even felt the needle slip through.
The jewellery went through no bother, even on the cartilage-y ear, and all of a sudden, I had two piercings in my ears. I was very happy with my tingly ears, which were now glowing red and very warm, and we went upstairs, paid, tipped, chatted for a while and then wandered off into the night.
Sleep was a restless affair that night - normally I sleep on my side or on my stomach with my head tilted to one side, both positions which were no longer as easy as usual. I finally found a way to cup my hand under my ear which relieved the pressure on them, and managed to get to sleep, but when I woke up, my hand was no longer protecting them. I had tossed and turned in my sleep, and my ears were now swollen just as much as they had been right after they had been pierced.
This happened almost every night, and every morning I took care to soak them to get the swelling down again. The left one has healed up almost completely now, two months later, but the right one (the cartilage-y one) is still crusting up quite impressively every night. It's not painful anymore, (in fact I quite enjoy picking at the crusties *embarrassed*) but it's taking longer to heal than I expected. Oh well, it's certainly not going to put me off my ear rainbows!
So if you're considering ear piercings, remember that it could be uncomfortable to sleep on them for a while. I don't think it should put anyone off, it's just something to think about beforehand.