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lydyI got my ears pierced. Again. I've kind of lost track of how many times I've had my ears pierced. These are the nice, standard, center of the lobe sort of piercing. Which I've done at least twice before. I wasn't wearing earrings for a while, and the holes kind of closed up. This was the least painful of all previous piercings.
The most painful was the first. I was a teenager, and there were these things called "self-piercers." If they are not now illegal in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, they should be. They were basically a sharpened wire on a spring. You located them on the ear lobe where you wanted the hole to be, and then they very slowly, over the course of one to two weeks, bored a hole in your ear. No, really, it was much worse than it sounds. They looked a bit like the wire earrings of the time, and you were supposed to reach up and press on them anytime you thought about it in order to hurry them through the process. The literature said that it was painless. It was not. (It is also a engraved, hand-delivered invitation to any sort of bacterial agent that wishes to infect you to come and party in your ear lobe.) The process might best be described as tortuous. To add insult to injury, my mother and I had positioned them incorrectly, so the hole was too low and earrings looked odd. I waited for them to heal up before re-piercing in a more central location. They never healed, I had a more conventional piercing (I don't remember the technology), and I used to wear earrings in all four piercings. The new ones were directly above the old ones, so one of my fancies was to get some gold rings to wear in the upper holes, and then bird to dangle from the lower holes, so that the birds looked like they were flying inside a golden ring. I thought it was very pretty. Possibly I was right, but possibly I was simply a teenager. So hard to say, really.
There may have been a third piercing of the lobes at some point, I don't remember. If so, it was probably done with a gun. Remember the piercing guns? They were a terrible affront to the tissue, hurt like bitch, and the healing path was longer than it should have been. I also have a piercing a little up from the lobe, but not on the shell. I don't remember how or why I had that done.
I remember being very angry the day I had four pierces put in the cartilage in the shell of my right ear. I no longer remember what I was angry about, but self-mutilation seemed like the absolute best response. I think I was still living in Iowa City at that time. Possibly I was angry at my entire fucking life. That certainly would have been a rational response to the situation. Those never did heal. Many years later, I was still waking up with pain in my ear from sleeping on my right side. I don't know how long I stubbornly continued to wait for them to heal. Ten years? A really long time. I finally took all the earrings out, and let those holes close up. I regret that it didn't work, I liked the look of the piercings, but they just never stopped hurting, and got infected regularly.
I know that I got at least one piercing done at the Claire's in Southdale back when I was living with Peter. It was done with a gun, and it might be the one not on the lobe and not on the shell. I'm not sure. Possibly it was another lobe piercing.
Back when I was in school, they had a bunch of rules about what types of jewelry you could have and do your clinicals, and you weren't allowed to have dangly earrings and you weren't allowed to have more than two holes in your ears, one per ear. I ignored the rule to the extent that I left in the very slightly dangly earring that has a moonstone that my mother gave me that I wear in the odd pierce not on the lobe, but took out all my other earrings. Based on the fact that the silly lower holes done with the self-piercers had never quite closed, I assumed that I didn't need to worry about wearing studs in the holes I wanted to keep open. I was mistaken.
So, then I couldn't wear earrings for a bunch of a long while.
I was over at Elise's to pick up this gorgeous pendant that I'd bought, called "Castles" and was admiring other shinies because shinies, and I fell really hard for this pair of earrings. They are brown and gold and there's a darkish blusish flash on the faceted beads and hard to describe. They are called "Her Usual Haunts" and they probably won't photograph worth a damn, but hah! I have them now so she doesn't have to photograph them, after all. And in a mere six months, I can wear them.
This last round of piercings was amazingly less painful. Instead of the scary gun, there was something which appeared to be a little plastic rig that was muscle-powered, and it didn't hurt much at all. No popping sound as it forced its way through the lobe. A wee bit of pain, not much. (And this includes the fact that the first try didn't actually go all the way through, and she had to try again. I did not enquire as to exactly what was going on. When she was done, there was an earring there and it didn't hurt too badly, so we're just going with that.) I chose sparkly cubic zirconium studs. Because sparkly. About ten minutes afterwards, I did get an endorphin rush, which included being ever so slightly dizzy and talking rapidly and without much logic for a while. Although there wasn't much pain, my body was lodging a protest. I figure it was entitled to do so.
They also gave me a 20% off coupon for anything in the store. It being Claire's, there really wasn't anything there I wanted. I kind of wanted a set of bangles (so that I could clash them for emphasis, of course) but the only set of bangles they had were too small to fit over my hand. Sigh. At the check out, there was a keychain that had a weird sort of deformed slinky in rainbow-anodized aluminum that I loved, so I got that. I have no particular use for an additional key chain, but hey. It's pretty, and it goes sproing. Shiny sproing, all good.
Final note: I was expecting the first night to be difficult, since I sleep on my side, which means sleeping on my freshly-pierced ear. It was not painful. I have had some slight itching today, but that is it. I am utterly amazed at how unpainful this has been.
The most painful was the first. I was a teenager, and there were these things called "self-piercers." If they are not now illegal in all fifty states and the District of Columbia, they should be. They were basically a sharpened wire on a spring. You located them on the ear lobe where you wanted the hole to be, and then they very slowly, over the course of one to two weeks, bored a hole in your ear. No, really, it was much worse than it sounds. They looked a bit like the wire earrings of the time, and you were supposed to reach up and press on them anytime you thought about it in order to hurry them through the process. The literature said that it was painless. It was not. (It is also a engraved, hand-delivered invitation to any sort of bacterial agent that wishes to infect you to come and party in your ear lobe.) The process might best be described as tortuous. To add insult to injury, my mother and I had positioned them incorrectly, so the hole was too low and earrings looked odd. I waited for them to heal up before re-piercing in a more central location. They never healed, I had a more conventional piercing (I don't remember the technology), and I used to wear earrings in all four piercings. The new ones were directly above the old ones, so one of my fancies was to get some gold rings to wear in the upper holes, and then bird to dangle from the lower holes, so that the birds looked like they were flying inside a golden ring. I thought it was very pretty. Possibly I was right, but possibly I was simply a teenager. So hard to say, really.
There may have been a third piercing of the lobes at some point, I don't remember. If so, it was probably done with a gun. Remember the piercing guns? They were a terrible affront to the tissue, hurt like bitch, and the healing path was longer than it should have been. I also have a piercing a little up from the lobe, but not on the shell. I don't remember how or why I had that done.
I remember being very angry the day I had four pierces put in the cartilage in the shell of my right ear. I no longer remember what I was angry about, but self-mutilation seemed like the absolute best response. I think I was still living in Iowa City at that time. Possibly I was angry at my entire fucking life. That certainly would have been a rational response to the situation. Those never did heal. Many years later, I was still waking up with pain in my ear from sleeping on my right side. I don't know how long I stubbornly continued to wait for them to heal. Ten years? A really long time. I finally took all the earrings out, and let those holes close up. I regret that it didn't work, I liked the look of the piercings, but they just never stopped hurting, and got infected regularly.
I know that I got at least one piercing done at the Claire's in Southdale back when I was living with Peter. It was done with a gun, and it might be the one not on the lobe and not on the shell. I'm not sure. Possibly it was another lobe piercing.
Back when I was in school, they had a bunch of rules about what types of jewelry you could have and do your clinicals, and you weren't allowed to have dangly earrings and you weren't allowed to have more than two holes in your ears, one per ear. I ignored the rule to the extent that I left in the very slightly dangly earring that has a moonstone that my mother gave me that I wear in the odd pierce not on the lobe, but took out all my other earrings. Based on the fact that the silly lower holes done with the self-piercers had never quite closed, I assumed that I didn't need to worry about wearing studs in the holes I wanted to keep open. I was mistaken.
So, then I couldn't wear earrings for a bunch of a long while.
I was over at Elise's to pick up this gorgeous pendant that I'd bought, called "Castles" and was admiring other shinies because shinies, and I fell really hard for this pair of earrings. They are brown and gold and there's a darkish blusish flash on the faceted beads and hard to describe. They are called "Her Usual Haunts" and they probably won't photograph worth a damn, but hah! I have them now so she doesn't have to photograph them, after all. And in a mere six months, I can wear them.
This last round of piercings was amazingly less painful. Instead of the scary gun, there was something which appeared to be a little plastic rig that was muscle-powered, and it didn't hurt much at all. No popping sound as it forced its way through the lobe. A wee bit of pain, not much. (And this includes the fact that the first try didn't actually go all the way through, and she had to try again. I did not enquire as to exactly what was going on. When she was done, there was an earring there and it didn't hurt too badly, so we're just going with that.) I chose sparkly cubic zirconium studs. Because sparkly. About ten minutes afterwards, I did get an endorphin rush, which included being ever so slightly dizzy and talking rapidly and without much logic for a while. Although there wasn't much pain, my body was lodging a protest. I figure it was entitled to do so.
They also gave me a 20% off coupon for anything in the store. It being Claire's, there really wasn't anything there I wanted. I kind of wanted a set of bangles (so that I could clash them for emphasis, of course) but the only set of bangles they had were too small to fit over my hand. Sigh. At the check out, there was a keychain that had a weird sort of deformed slinky in rainbow-anodized aluminum that I loved, so I got that. I have no particular use for an additional key chain, but hey. It's pretty, and it goes sproing. Shiny sproing, all good.
Final note: I was expecting the first night to be difficult, since I sleep on my side, which means sleeping on my freshly-pierced ear. It was not painful. I have had some slight itching today, but that is it. I am utterly amazed at how unpainful this has been.
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no subject
Date: 2014-09-29 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-29 10:41 pm (UTC)I suspect that the "never healing" problem means you have an allergy to metal. Usually the training studs they put in when they pierce them are some sort of pure metal that supposedly doesn't trigger allergies, but... who knows what's in them? Over the years my formerly robust earlobes have developed metal sensitivities, and now I rarely wear earrings. I had to stop wearing anything remotely heavy and replaced all my base metal ear wires with silver or gold. Sterling silver works the best, but even then my ears get sore if I wear earrings regularly. It's very sad.
I hope your luck is better this time around. If the studs they put in don't heal well, you could try removing them and replacing them with the most expensive silver studs you can find.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 12:36 am (UTC)The ones that never healed were in cartilage, and I guess that's a thing that happens, sometimes, with cartilage. It just doesn't heal in some people. The holes in the lobes have behaved perfectly normally. (Just at the moment, my right ear itches. I hate itching.)
I hope I don't end up with a metal problem. These studs are hypoallergenic stainless steel. They were $25 less than the white gold, that is to say, almost half the price, which is why I went with them.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 02:55 am (UTC)When my daughters wanted their ears pierced, I took them to St. Sabrina's and had them done by a piercer with a piercing needle and bought them very nice high-quality studs. Molly can now wear whatever she wants in her ears. Kiera's been having issues and I suspect she may have the same metal allergy that I do. My sister decided she wanted pierced ears again and followed my lead by going to St. Sabrina's, where she was told she didn't need a piercing because the holes were still there, she could just have a fresh set of earrings inserted and it would be a good idea to do the saltwater soaks for a few weeks and leave the earrings in for a month or two.
My issue is that all the inexpensive earring I've ever worn, including things billed as surgical steel and sterling silver, make my ears itch and then swell and hurt. St. Sabrina's uses implant-grade titanium, which would probably also be fine, and I suspect platinum would also be fine. The cheap option I've heard is genuinely hypoallergenic for most people: niobium. YMMV.
no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 02:59 am (UTC)I've also stayed away from tattoos, since metal allergies can cause you to react to inks and you can't just take those out. (Well, I have also stayed away from tattoos because, while I really like looking at them on other people, there are a long list of reasons why I don't want one on my own body, including some weird squick reactions I sometimes get to things like ink and makeup. But if I did want one, I'd need to be really damn careful about the ink.)
no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 03:00 am (UTC)As unnerving as the needle/potato method sounds, it sounds significantly less horrifying than the self-piercer, holy crap.
metal allergies are weird?
Date: 2014-09-30 06:20 pm (UTC)I developed a metal allergy too, but mine are unhappy even with good silver earrings. Not really interested in all-24k gold earrings, so I just let my holes close up.
In the last decade or two you could buy some stuff in the jewelry section at some department stores. You could paint it on the metal bits that would touch your skin, preventing an allergic reaction. I never did try it though. I don't suppose you did?
no subject
Date: 2014-09-30 07:03 pm (UTC)There was a period of at least 10 years when I didn't wear earrings, but I was able to get the piercing in the right ear open with a certain amount of fiddling. The left ear was trickier, and there was blood, but it did go through the old hole eventually -- the earring I used was too blunt to have created a new piercing. After that, I slept with earrings in for a month to let everything heal with the piercing in place.
The left piercing has always been more recalcitrant than the right one, but since then, I can always get an earring through it with a reasonable effort.