Magnetic implants. However, you can’t stick things to them long-term, because the pressure between the magnet and the object causes the tissue in between to die.
Well, I got it done. It’s just a small stud in my left lobe for now. I think it looks cool.
Hmm, I got whatever “normal” is.
By the way, thanks all for the responses.
I’m also surprised by how little the piercing hurt.
Yay!!
Yay! I went through a piercing phase a few years back; I ended up with the 4 I have now. My earlobe is an 18ga, eyebrow and tongue are 14ga, as is my PA.
I don’t like gauging. I think it looks stupid and foolish. YMMV, of course, but the important part is to be happy with what you get!
Add that to the list of things I didn’t know. I didn’t even know you could get a PA in 14 gauge. When I got mine they told me 10g was on the small end of the scale.
Heh. I thought the 14ga looked better than anything larger. IME, piercers have commonly tried to talk me up, so to speak, to getting something larger than what I like. I didn’t ask for the 14, though, it was just what was offered.
I’ve seen only one or two people who have gagued up their ears that looked all right. Some of the plugs I’ve seen people with are gorgeous, though, esp. the ones made out of semiprecious stones.
As for PA’s and the like…HOW DO YOU MEN DO THAT?!? :eek:
Funny, I think anything smaller than 6 gauge looks funny. I have orbitals in my cartilage done at 12 gauge, but you can’t change gauges with orbitals because there are two interdependent holes.
Haha woah, I read that as 41! That’s what I get for skimming. I used to have 8, and felt pretty hole-y. I imagine you’d start running out of places after about 30 or so.
The PA was fine. It’s just a thin band of skin, and it’s over in no time. Don’t even talk to me about the nipples. The pain from those were probably worse than all my other piercings combined. (The PA is retired now, though). My only other genital piercing is a cute scrotal one that I did myself. Not in the “I’m so hardcore I’m going to grab a safety pin and poke” kind of way, but in the “I want to give myself a piercing because I can” kind of way with sterile equipment and everything. Painwise, it was a breeze. Technique-wise, well, I oopsied and took off the clamps before the jewelry insertion. Inserting a ring into a big floppy ball sac is hard, even trying to use proper needle-following technique.
Also, I think most people can pull off anything up to about a 0g, unless they just look like tools to begin with. Past that is where I start getting underwhelmed. It’s night time right now, or I’d take a good picture of the plugs I have in right now, but here’s a crappy picture that someone took with my phone one day. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v321/theygoboom13/IMG_0120.jpg
(they’re rainbow dichroic glass, but you can’t really tell in the picture. Now on to the pictures of everyone’s PA I say!)
So getting a piercing in the upper ear through the cartilege is pretty painful? I thought about getting one there but haven’t decided yet.
I guess I’m too late to recommend from my experience that you make sure your GF pushes the needle all the way through, and not just the point, so that by the time the ice cube numbness has worn off you aren’t essentially making the hole by shoving the post of the stud through your lobe. 
It’s not…unpainful. But it’s not oh-god-kill-me-now painful, either. Mostly it was hot. And, in fact, I embarrassed myself by sort of dazedly looking at the ceiling and murmuring to my piercer “Mmmmm…this is really hot!” I *meant *temperature wise, but it came out sounding all sexed like. :smack:
I’ve had some itching and soreness with mine (done in November, on the side I prefer to sleep on), but nothing that’s made me regret it. The only thing I’m not crazy about is that the back, which is a flat piece of metal, doesn’t lie flat on the back of my ear - which means when I brush my hair, or put on sunglasses or things like that, it sometimes snags and tears open a bit, and then needs a few days to heal again. I think I built up a little bit of scar tissue in a bump on the back of my ear preventing a close fit. I’m thinking of trying a switch to a hoop to see if it’s better - I think he said I could switch out the jewelry at the beginning of May, so maybe it’s time for a visit.
Yeah, I was a little surprised at how much my upper ear cartilage piercing hurt, I guess because my only frame of reference was an earlobe piercing. At the time, it was a short sharp pinch of pain and the sound was startling, a sort of moist crunch noise. That was it, I figured. Then I turned my head on that side as I slept that night… OW!!! It hurt like a bad bruise when touched or jostled for quite a few weeks, and it seemed to take a while to heal. No infections or anything, but I was scrupulous about after care. I’ve twice had the ring catch on hairbrushes and be pulled out since then, but only once did it cause any bleeding.
Mine hurt enough (and ended up infected) that I would never consider a cartilage piercing ever again.
By the way, now that I have this piercing, how best do I take care of it? The pamphlet they gave me suggested soaking it in sea salt twice a day, then putting some kind of anti-bacterial liquid on it (is liquid hand soap okay?).
But beyond that, I’ve heard contrary opinions as to whether the barbell should be rotated or not. Some say it helps prevent the ear from healing into the barbell, while others say it can cause scar tissue and infection by “dragging the crusties” though it. What’s the straight dope on this?
Also, should I use hydrogen peroxide to help clean it?
Agreed. I had my nose pierced, and as I was getting it done I made myself a mental note to remember- “This is the most fucking pain I’ve ever been in!”. If I hadn’t thought that (and remembered after the piercing-induced andrenalin euphoria wore off), I would’ve had it redone by now. I can’t even remember what the pain was like, just that I never, ever want to experience it again.
Did you go to Body Manipulations? I really like them.
You found me out – great place. People were cool