So I was dying to get a horizontal surface piercing on my midriff area and when I got my Christmas money I headed off to Afflecks Palace to go and get it done. I walked in to The Studio and asked for it. Now it wasn't my usual piercing store but the surface piercings here were cheaper and I had a few vouchers.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When Six months ago Artist - Studio Shiva Body Piercing Location Afflecks Palace, Manchester I'd never been in the place before but it seemed friendly and clean so I went ahead with talking to the man behind the desk, who'd done my boyfriend's labret without ID (just asked him his date of birth). Anyway, I was annoyed because he had turned me down even though I had lots of ear piercings and my septum done, so I went home upset. I went back the next day with a copy of my birth certificate but silly me, it didn't have a picture of me so he turned me down yet again. I went into the other piercing place - my usual (Shiva Body Piercing), but I didn't have the £15 extra so, wanting a piercing so badly that day, I decided on getting my Daith done. I had wanted the piercing for a while but really it was more a consollation piercing for not getting my surface done.
It was one day in the week and there was only one guy working in the place. I had only ever had the other two guys pierce me before so I was quite unsure about it. But I went up and asked him for my Daith to be pierced and he spent a minute looking at my ears and seeing which would be the best to pierce.
I had told him I wanted it in my right ear so it didn't get aggravated by my Rook piercing in my left ear. He agreed and he took me into the piercing room.
I was quite shocked because he left the door open! It wasn't a busy day but it made me kind of nervous. He had the equipment laid out on the table and then put the clamps on me. My boyfriend had came with me for moral support. He held my hand and then the guy said, "Now I don't want to do it too deep. Take a deep breath..."
Now, I hadn't expected this one to hurt (much) because I hadn't felt most of my other ear piercings but I can tell you now, it was the most painful piercing I've ever had so far. So much for not doing it 'too deep'. It felt like a very long procedure and I honestly thought that he was sticking the needle inside my ear canal! I squeezed my boyfriend's hand and it must have been quite hard because he was trying to comfort me but I didn't look at him - my eyes were closed.
I tensed up while the needle was going through but it didn't seem to help. It felt like ages before it was all the way through! Then he dragged the curved bar through and that wasn't too pleasant either. Finally, he screwed the other ball on and I remember saying, "is it over yet?" even though I knew he had finished. And he replied, "yeah" so I sat up slowly.
I walked over to the counter and he handed me an aftercare sheet and he said it would probably take around 12 weeks to heal so I immediately thought, 'I'd give it longer than that!'
I left and I felt reasonably okay at that point but then about an hour or so later I was feeling dizzy and getting headaches and earaches. I was really worried but I thought it would calm down soon and I was already on the bus back so there was nothing I could do about it. I said, "I can always go back if I need to."
It wasn't horrible to sleep on but I think I was worried that it would be so I tried avoiding sleeping on that side. I remember knocking it a few times for the first week and so did my boyfriend but seeing as it was in the centre of my ear it didn't really get knocked or caught too much.
I had minor earaches for a couple of weeks after getting it pierced and although I didn't think it had bled, a scab formed on one end. I cleaned it twice a day with salt water and also Savlon cream. I left it in for longer than necessary but I wanted to make sure that it was fully healed. Being so close to each other, it aggravated and infected my tragus piercing and caused my ear canal to become quite crusty. My Daith is still sore today and to be honest, if I had the opportunity I don't think I would go through the experience again!