Since I got my first standard lobe piercings when I was 5 (of course the standard mall piercing gun piercings), I have always wanted more holes. I'd wanted something that would mark me as one of the cool, rebellious kids that everyone was slightly scared of. Since I attend a strict school that allows nothing but lobe piercings, have basically the same rules at work, and am underage, I don't really have a whole lot of choices for piercings currently besides more holes on my ears. Thankfully, I live in a small, Christian, Southern family-values type of town, it does not take a whole lot to be different from every one else. I only wanted to have two more piercings on my lobes, above each one I already had. I decided, along with a few of my friends, to let a guy we knew who had pierced he and his brother's ears to pierce our own.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist An awful amateur Studio In his house I had not done any previous research on piercing, which was really stupid of me to begin with. I didn't know that alcohol did not completely sterilize anything, that piercing guns were bad, or that shoving piercing studs for said guns through your ears was bad. Nothing about cross-contamination, unsafe environment, or bad equipment crossed my mind. I also did not know anything about aftercare of piercings.
We had heard that piercing studs would be better than safety pins since they had a pointed end and, since we didn't have very much money, it would be okay to just use one pair on all of us.
Unfortunately, we decided to do just that. When it came down to the day of the piercing, only one other person besides me wanted to go along with it. We wiped the two studs we had previously purchased and marked my friend's ears. She decided that she wanted four more piercings, so we numbed her lobes with ice, pushed the studs through one at a time, and quickly putting in other studs after pulling the piercing ones out. All we did after each piercing was wipe the stud down with another alcohol pad. We shared the studs for the six piercings we did, which was definitely a big mistake and I am sure it led to the many problems I had with the healing process.
As my friend's last piercing was done, my stomach started to churn. I'm not a dumb person, and I knew that it probably wasn't the best idea to get my ears pierced this way, but I decided to trek on anyway.
We then marked my ears several times with a black Sharpie marker. The markings were never symmetrical, and I just was not satisfied with them at all. After a while of re-doing the markings, the guy doing the piercings got irritated and told me to hurry up or he wouldn't push the studs through. I was never very happy with the placement, but decided to just do it and to hell with how they came out.
We numbed my ears with ice thoroughly and he pushed the studs through. I felt the popping of each layer, and became vaguely aware of the warm trickles of blood from each ear. Pain was absent for a few minutes, at least until the ice wore off. I was a bit confused, since I didn't remember my other piercings ever bleeding this much. However, the guy doing the piercings said it was normal and to just keep the piercing studs in overnight, then change in the morning.
I did as he said, cleaning frequently with alcohol pads. The pain hit full on when I woke up. My ears throbbed, and it felt like I was dragging around ten pound weight in both ears. Later on in the morning, I changed the studs out, but the holes kept closing, so I had to re-pierce them about four times. They bled for a very long time, almost a month, afterwards and the bleeding evolved into pretty bad infections twice. I had a lot of problems, and the piercings were both crooked when they did heal.
I have, however, decided to keep them, as a sort of memento to think before I do anything too rash. I still have a few problems with them; they tend to get very easily irritated and liquids still collects in the holes.
I must strongly encourage any person looking to get any kind of piercing, not just standard lobes, to go to a professional. If you decide not to do so, please make sure you are happy with everything beforehand and don't just go along with it because you don't want to be a problem. Also, use the correct STERILE equipment. Piercing studs meant for piercing guns definitely are not the way to go.