I’m sharing what little tips I have with anyone who has just recently gotten an ear pierced, or is planning to. This all comes from personal experience, to put more advice out there on this subject since I realize how hard it is to find practical suggestions online. I should note that this advice is mainly for cartilage piercings, lobe piercings tend to heal very fast and do not hurt half as much.

Prephase:

1- If you’re planning on getting pierced, try to do it before the weekend. This would help you avoid additional stress or pain. Going to school or work could cause additional stress you could do without. If you are a veiled girl, you should make this your top priority. Try to avoid putting anything on your head for the first days, getting pierced right before the weekend is a great idea. Stay home and let your ears adjust.

2- This will hurt. No matter how many people tell you they didn’t feel a thing, and I realize people’s pain tolerance levels are different, but you can expect at least some “uncomfortable” feelings. Be prepared and be determined; initial throbbing/redness in your ears will occur once your body feels the shock and this may last for some time. It’s all worth it though.

3- Think very well before you go get pierced. You would not want to go through the pain only to remove your jewellery a month later, now would you?

4- Have the person who’s piercing you mark the place they will pierce, or you mark it for them to show them what you want. Don’t assume that they “know”, they don’t. Make sure the dots are aligned properly as you want them, if you’re getting multiple piercings, also make sure none of the dots is too close to the outer edge of your cartilage (that hurts and causes problems).

Postphase:

1- Don’t touch your ears and avoid bumping into anything ear-first (Big mistake). Keep your hair away from your ears because if you don’t your hair will get stuck in the jewellery and removing it will hurt.

2- If you’re in too much pain after you get pierced, put ice cubes on your ears as that will ease the throbbing. Pain killers work as well.

3- Don’t even consider cleaning your ears with anything but very gentle soap and water. No alcohol, it will cause inflammation and unnecessary pain.

4- Don’t sleep on your sides, obviously. This will take some time for you to get used to but you will have to cope with your new situation. It will be a couple of weeks, up to a month or two, before you can sleep on your sides and on your ears again.

5- If you’re a veiled girl, you will go through double the trouble because of the pressure the veil puts on your newly pierced ears. Try to wear very loose veils and try to minimize the pressure.

6- Once your ears hurt less, which will be in a month’s time or so, you could put in smaller jewellery. That actually helps since the holes will shrink and heal faster (unless you’re stretching). Personally, I change from the thickish medical earrings to much smaller gauge rings as soon as I can even if the process hurts a lot. What works for me might not work for you, but that works brilliant for me.

7- Once your ears heal totally, you can experiment with jewellery. But initially you must stick to sterling silver, gold, or platinum because they usually don’t cause irritation.

I hope this helps you make a better decision and care better for your ears. Lovely sparkles, shine!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 9:57 am and is filed under Body Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.