Darxus' conch piercing

I currently have 3 piercings: I removed the 8ga CBRs from my earlobes to let them close up. I was originally planning to get them punched and stretched to 2ga (I have the ebony (black wood) plugs), but I may just leave them unpierced. (6/16/02)

Timeline



~1995
Very roughly when I started wanting to get a ring in my left earlobe.

1998
I got a coworker named Ann to drag me to get my left earlobe pierced. Fortunately, she cared enough to not let me go to a mall booth. Mall booths use piercing guns which are not sterile and cause unnecessary tissue damage. Ann took me to Infinite Body Piercing. A very good call in my currently more educated opinion. I got them to put a (tiny) 16ga FBR (fixed bead ring) in my left earlobe.

6/10/2001
I met pinkee at a Linux User Group meeting. She had 3 years of professional piercing experience. Before the first time we hung out on 6/10/2001, I was only interested in increasing the size of the ring in my left lobe, probably to something like a 10ga 7/16" diameter CBR.

7/4/2001
I got pinkee to put a 6ga (0.16" thick) steel barbell (big hunk of metal) through my left inner conch (significant cartilage), with the intention of putting a captive bead ring in when it heals. She used a 4mm (betwen 6ga and 7ga) biopsy punch. It was done at a barbecue at N-tropy's house in front of several friends. I believe it is healing well.
Read more about this piercing.

7/28/2001
I went to rabcon (rab = rec.arts.bodyart) with pinkee. At the event, I got a pair of goodart 14ga captive bead rings, and got pinkee to put one of them in my existing (left) lobe piercing. I also developed an interest in getting the matching ring in my right lobe, and decided that the numerous people wearing 00ga plugs in their earlobes looked nice.

8/26/01
pinkee pierced my right earlobe to match my left, and put the matching 14ga cbr in it.
Read more about this piercing.

9/1/2001
At pinkee's suggestion, I changed the jewelry in my conch from the 6ga barbell to an 8ga titanium barbell, to encourage healing.

11/8/2001
pinkee put 12ga 1/2" Revolution 314 LVM stainless steel CBRs with hematite beads in my lobes, replacing the smaller rings.

1/15/02
I took out, cleaned, and put the jewelry back in my conch all by myself :) (1st time). It's still not quite healed.

1/26/02
I put 10ga 1/2" diameter CBRs in my earlobes. This was the 3rd time I'd ever removed/reinserted my own jewelry, and the first time I ever stretched my own piercing. I did it right after a hot shower, and it was unbelievably effortless/painless. Because of how well it went, I plan to go up to 8ga in one month. I want to switch to plugs soon because the CBRs are starting to get big.

3/4/02
I finally put a CBR in my conch - 8ga 1/2" diameter steel. I like. It fits snugly the way I wanted. 7 months from the time it was pierced until I got the jewelry in it that I originally intended. The CBR went in easy, so I guess it is at least close to fully healed. I knew it would take a long time to heal, this is no surprise.
I also stretched my lobes to 8ga 3/8" diameter steel CBRs. The smaller diameter is a nice size. A little while ago with some input from pinkee I got 2 8ga wood plugs for my lobes and an 8ga labret stud for my conch. They all had flange type things, and I never managed to get any of them in.
Before today I did not need any tools to remove any jewelry. Now I need pliers to remove all of it. I should get a pair.

4/8/02
I took the CBRs out of my lobes. In a couple weeks I plan to have pinkee punch them at 6ga and stretch them immediately to 2ga (ebony (black wood) plugs). They need to be stretched immediately because of how elastic lobes are, otherwise there won't be enough pressure to stop the bleeding. This happened as a result of noticing some scar tissue on the top of the front of my right lobe piercing, probably related to it being pierced with a needle. I am currently very annoyed with myself for insisting that pinkee needle my right lobe instead of punching them both. Punching results in cleaner, healthier holes, so I'm basically doing this for the long term health of the piercings. I don't plan to stretch my lobes beyond 2ga.

1/2/03, 7:19pm
pinkee punched my nipples horizontally. This may be the first time any male had his nipples punched. She used 1.5mm (between 16 and 17ga) dermal biopsy punches (miltex part #33-31A), a taper, clamps, corks, and 12ga polished titanium Industrial Strength barbells. I have been looking forward to, and fearing this event for some time. The fear was largely from how close I came to passing out when she did my conch. This time we made sure I ate, and I came no where near passing out. The part that was worst was probably the longer sequence of events. When getting my conch punched, it was pretty much make a hole and put jewelry in it and you're done. With my nipples, it was: I unfortunately feel the need to state for the record that this list completely skips all the steps taken for cleanliness (3 or 4 pair of gloves were used), among other things.

Anyway, I guess I didn't feel right decorating my body when I was so unhappy with my weight. After I lost 50 pounds (and have kept it off for 5 months), I thought rings in my nipples would look nice. As I did with my conch, I'm healing with barbells, then switching to rings. I don't know if I'll stretch up, or what diameter rings I'll use. I expect them to take roughly 3 months to heal. I think they look nice. A day later, It's weird looking down and seeing metal bars through my nipples and not feeling pain. It looks like that shit should hurt. A note moved from the "things I was considering" section: pinkee believes that there is a fair chance that my nipples will reject piercings, so we'll see how it goes.

2/22/03, 11:31am
I had lost a bead on one of my nipple barbells. pinkee just put in my old 12ga rings with hematite beads, using the taper we used during the piercing.

9/22/03
I finally put in my (shorter) 3/8" barbell shafts in my nipples thismorning. The long ones had been to make room for swelling, which hasn't been an issue for some time, the best evidence being that I finally gave up on keeping people from playing with them a while ago. And the length of the longer ones caused them to be more likely to stick out and get caught on things. Any bets on how long my girlfriends take to notice ?
After nchanter nibbled on them I asked if she noticed anything different, she paused, then said "are they shorter?"

8/14/04
Took the cbr out of my conch for 3 days for a Motorcycle Safety Foundation class. Didn't want to worry about it being uncomfortable in my full helmet 9 hours a day for 2 days. It took some effort to get it back in, in the shower. It popped in place a bit, hurt a little. Took about a week to reheal, but has since been better healed than it was before (after a full 3 years). Until that point, I would still support my head with my hands when laying the left side of my head on my pillow, to keep pressure off my ear. Taking the ring out for 3 days has made that nolonger necessary. So I've taken the ring out for a couple days at a time since then to let it breathe more and encourage more healing. Considering doing that with my nipples. Itching to get more holes.

3/26/05
Put a 14ga ring back in my left earlobe, misusing a 12ga taper (backwards). Tip of taper wouldn't go through right lobe. I plan to get it repierced at 14ga and stretch them both back up to 8ga. I still have all that jewelry. The scar(?) that inspired me to remove my lobe jewelry for 3 years is nolonger noticable. And I don't want holes in my lobes large enough to punch the existing tunnels out.

9/10/05
Put 12ga ring back in my left earlobe. Still need to get the right one re-pierced.

3/14/08
Taking the ring out of my conch for one week was proving uninteresting, so I left it out for two weeks and it was very difficult to get back in. I expect this to add a little more useful healing. Not that it has been a problem, but there seemed to be room for it.

7/7/08
Maybe a month ago I switched my conch to 10ga in an attempt to get the damn thing to finish healing (itching). It seems to have been effective, and I'll probably put the 8ga back in next time I see it.
Pinkee prefers industrial strength barbells and anatometal rings.
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Sat Sep 10 13:43:07 EDT 2005