Pierced

I know I don't need to explain to anyone on here about how much I've always loved the look of piercings. I wouldn't say I have any truly outrageous piercings (I have to keep it restricted to places like my ears and other areas that I can cover up as I work in a conservative office and facial piercings of any kind would most likely get me fired.) Because of this, I have stuck to decorating my ears with piercings.

Back in February I had my industrial done. I knew I would want to then try and balance my ears out as going from having just a few piercings to having a bar on one side made it seem like the left side was too heavy. I knew exactly what my next piercing would be as well—my tragus.

Now, I go to school in Spokane, WA, but I have never had anything done in Spokane (until this piercing). It's either been done when I would spend a weekend in Seattle or back in my home town in Switzerland. I was pretty hesitant to get anything done in Spokane. I can't really explain why, I just feel like I wouldn't be getting the same quality I would be getting in a large city like Seattle nor would I have the overly anal, sterile environment that I get in Switzerland. I really didn't want to wait though; my industrial was finally healed and I wanted pierced right away. Despite this seeming hasty, it really wasn't. I did my research on various places in the city. One of my good friends had come up to visit his new boyfriend and when I met him, I couldn't help but notice that he was pretty nicely pierced (including having his tragus done.)

I asked him where he had gotten pierced and he told me about Bullet Proof—which is literally 5 minutes away from where I live, so in terms of proximity it was great. He loved it there. He said the guys were affable and clean. As it turned out, he wasn't the only one who had enjoyed it. I was hesitant because my roommate had her tattoo's done there and they were mediocre (something she was really disappointed about.) But, the way I figured it, piercings were different from tats, and this guy kept raving about the place so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I decided I would go in on the weekend. Originally I was planning on going alone but this girl in my complex had mentioned how she wanted her rook done and asked if she could come along. Then my roommate wanted to come along since she got free touch-ups on her tattoos from Bullet Proof and she wanted the shading fixed, so she came along as well.

This place had a completely different vibe then the two other places I normally go for modifications. It's hard to explain but it felt unprofessional. The guys were nice enough though. I told them what I wanted and was told to sign a release form. My last couple piercings, I've had to fill out paperwork listing my medical history, have I eaten anything, have I had anything alcoholic, etc. This time, it wasn't even a full piece of paper. It wanted my name, birthdate, and ID number. That was that. That was the first thing that seemed strange to me. But, the guys seemed nice enough, and seemed like they had experience with their own numerous tattoos and piercings. So, I still went ahead with it.

Firstly, the guy never gave me his name. I've always had them introduce themselves to me—which I like. It makes me feel more trusting towards the person getting ready to jab a needle through my ear. Secondly, I'm used to what some would call over sterilization when it comes to <a href="http://piercingmap.com/ear-studs-c187/">ear piercing studs</a>. I'm not saying that this wasn't a clean shop, it's just that I didn't see any of this sterilization at work. Everything they used came prepackaged.

Then, they swabbed my ear with alcohol to disinfect the area. I didn't get to see the location or anything, he just sat me down, asked me to tie up my hair, and said, "Take a deep breath. Exhale." And it was done. That was that. He straightened out the CBR and told me congratulations, my tragus looked great. (And to be fair it does look great. I just am used to having approval in every step of the process, having what's going on be talked through to me. And I like knowing how it's done.) It didn't hurt all that badly though. Something I had been told by numerous people who had their tragus's done all said that they felt a horrible pressure and heard an equally horrible crunching sound. I didn't hear or feel any of this. It felt...well, just like a needle punching a hole through my skin, but it wasn't particularly bad in any way shape or form.

Afterwards, my friend went back and got her rook done. While waiting for her, my ear started bleeding. Bleeding fairly badly actually. I was given something to wipe up the blood with and just held it there as we waited for my roommate to have her tats fixed up. When that was done we all paid respectively.

Then came the aftercare instructions. The aftercare they gave me seemed contrary to everything else I've ever been told about piercing aftercare. They told me to wash it with warm water and anti-bacterial soap. I've always been told to use an anti-microbial soap to clean off my piercings as well as twice daily salt water soaks. When I asked about this, they told me that saline soaks dry out the piercing where as the anti-bacterial soap kept it moisturized. I then asked about using the anti-microbial soap versus the anti-bacterial soap. (I've always been told that it's better to use something that says anti-microbial because it gets rid of potentially harmful microbes as well as removing bad bacteria, but lets good bacteria stay.) They told me this was false and to just use the soap.

I said okay to this but am actually using this stuff that I stocked up on when I was home in Switzerland over the summer. It was what I was given to clean my conch when I got that done a couple years ago. It's a puncture wound spray called BepanthenPlus. I don't know how or what it does but it has magical healing powers. My conch healed up quickly with it, and my industrial had a long drawn out healing process, but once I went home and started using that, it healed completely in about a week.

I spray some onto a Q-tip and clean around the jewelry and also will spray it directly on the piercing site itself.

Since this was only a couple days ago, it's still fairly sore, as all new piercings are, and the first night I had it, I must have rolled over on it and caused it to start bleeding again because I woke up with a slightly bloody ear. I haven't had any serious problems yet though, and it does look great. Even though I will probably never get any work done in Spokane again, I do really love my tragus piercing.

For those of you who are considering one, I say go for it. You won't be able to really use headphones or hold the phone to that ear for a while, but it looks great and at least in my case, didn't hurt nearly as badly as some of my other piercings.

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