Pierce Your Own Cartilage

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Piercing the cartilage in your ear can be a painful process, and requires preparation and care in execution. While professionals can do it for a fee, it is still cheaper to do at home and if you have a high pain tolerance fairly simple and stress-free. Professionals often lack credentials or proper medical training for what is essentially a medical procedure. [1] [2] While your experience may be no better, it is not necessarily advantageous to seek a professional. Maintaining the piercing after requires basic hygiene at the wound site, and avoiding any irritants or corrosive substances at the ear.

Steps

Preparing for Piercing

  1. Acquire materials and choose your piercing site carefully. There are significant health risks involved in cartilaginous piercings and minor complications are frequently reported. There are often no minimum qualifications for one to practice body piercing, which represents a serious health concern. [3] The health risks associated with cartilaginous piercing are not significantly higher than with a lower piercing of the fatty lobe tissue.
  2. Sterilize your ear and equipment. Purchasing sterilized, sealed piercing needles is key. Your jewelry should not be made of nickel or any metal you may have an allergic reaction to, and should be a gauge smaller than the hollow piercing needle.
  3. Use an autoclave to ensure absolutely sterile materials. You can use a pressure cooker on objects to achieve a similar effect, by setting a high pressure and temperature with water in the cooker so as to steam disinfect the items to be used. Soaking in a disinfectant like alcohol or dilute bleach will sterilize the materials, though not as effectively.
  4. Set up a sterile area to work in. Have gloves, topical disinfectant to prep the site (iodine is preferred), a marker to designate the piercing site, a stopper to help prevent the needle from poking your scalp. Set up a sterile work bench for the materials to rest on, as well as a separate site for handled materials to be placed on. Do not handle non-sterile items and sterile ones interchangeably.
  5. Clean your ear using an antibacterial soap. The location is difficult to clean, so consider just taking a shower. Hot steamy water also helps to loosen your skin, making the piercing a bit less painful. Clean the area thoroughly, and make sure that the site is marked with an indelible marker or pen.

Piercing the Site

  1. Avoid topical anaesthetics or numbing agents. These will not reduce the overall pain significantly as these topical solutions do not affect the avascular cartilage. Ice is not recommended. It causes the skin to contract. Contact with the ice pack or ice itself can cause dermal tissue damage and make it more difficult to target the site or maintain sterility.
    • This will hurt. If you wish to avoid pain, do not put a large hollow needle through any part of your body, and do not pay anyone to do this for you or to you if you truly wish to avoid a wound in your ear.
  2. Apply a topical antiseptic like iodine to the ear. Apply liberally and cover the back of the ear as well. Avoiding infection is key as intervention for infections resulting from piercing often requires draining, surgery, and the removal of the piercing, and symptoms include severe pain and fever.
  3. Place a stopper such as a sterile cotton ball behind the ear so that way the needle does not poke the scalp. Avoiding discomfort or contact of the needle with any unsterilized or unintended surfaces is critical to avoiding infection. A friend can be extremely useful with this part, as placing and holding the stopper and performing the piercing can require some dexterity.
  4. Push the needle through the ear. After breaking the first layer of skin, make sure the needle is angled correctly to push through as you like it. There will be resistance, and a total of 3 distinct pops as you pierce the skin, cartilage, and then skin again.
  5. Have the jewelry ready and sterilized, and put it in the back of the hollow needle. Make sure your needle is one size bigger than the jewelry, so you can easily do so. Again, avoid use of any metal you have an allergy or sensitivity to, as simple contact dermatitis from metal exposure can morph into an infection with repeated contact of the wound site.
  6. Pull the needle out of your ear. This should leave the jewelry in your ear. Screw the ball or holder into place to hold the jewelry there and maintain the piercing. Do this quickly, as the process is painful and will require repeating at a different site if you make a mistake and wish to avoid mangling your cartilage or inviting infection with a larger wound on your ear.

Maintaining the Piercing

  1. Wash with a sterile saline solution twice a day. Don't pick at any crust or scabs that will form. It can take up to a year for the wound to heal completely. Poor blood flow in the area of the upper cartilage of the ear keeps the risk of infection high and the rate of healing low during the entire process.
  2. Keep an eye on the piercing site. While keloids, deposits of skin, and some malformation from the pierced cartilage are expected, redness, swelling, heat, or oozing from the wound that persists for days is not. See a doctor if symptoms last as long as a week, as courses of antibiotics and surgical intervention may be required, and average hospital stays are over two days.[4]
  3. Avoid using sterilizing or antimicrobial solutions like rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide to continue cleaning the wound site. These solutions kill living cells and can damage the capillaries and healing tissue in the ear. Keeping the site clear of foreign debris and clean will help significantly reduce the risk of infection.
  4. Anticipate cartilage fracture, whether a piercing gun is used or a piercing needle is administered by hand. However, for a number of piercings of specific structures of the ear a piercing gun cannot find adequate purchase, as they are designed around use on the earlobe. [5] Seek immediate medical attention if ear deformities begin appearing.

Tips

  • Needles designed specifically for body piercing are significantly sharper than household needles. This means the piercing itself will hurt less. They also come packaged individually in sterile packaging and the correct gauge (thickness), reducing the risk of infection and unnecessary irritation.
  • Chlorine in swimming pools can dry out the piercing and it can tear out easily so be sure to keep it moisturized.
  • Wash your hands before you handle anything that is going to be in or near your ear. Sterilize anything you are going to use.
  • Having a friend around to assist can be extremely useful. Make sure the friend is versed in sterile technique, maintains hygiene and hopefully has some experience to assist.
  • Be careful and diligent with aftercare: infections are dangerous, expensive, and can lead to lifelong deformities or require plastic surgery.
  • Performing your own piercings can be risky. Infection, rejection, and poor placement may result. For the safest and best piercing, see a professional body piercer. Look up any accreditation or training required of professional piercers in your area.
  • If you have multiple piercings already in your cartilage, space them farther apart if you want to wear earrings that are large.
  • Choose high quality stainless/surgical steel or titanium jewelry to reduce the risk of allergies. Do not use silver, which tarnishes and can discolor your piercing. A good rule of thumb is that, if the metal is not suitable for use in surgical procedures, it is not suitable for use in a piercing.
  • Wait 6 months to change your piercing.[citation needed]
  • Avoid sleeping on your piercing.
  • After piercing your cartilage, do not twist the piercing.

Warnings

  • Make sure you are not allergic to any jewelry grade metals or have risk of contact dermatitis.
  • Do not soak your piercing needle in bleach of any kind. Bleach is harmful to human skin.
  • You may get infected if you do not use a sterile, sharp needle, have interruptions in your sterile technique, or are simply unlucky. Be prepared to see a doctor early if there are any signs of infection.

Things You'll Need

  • Disposable gloves
  • Iodine (disinfecting the ear)
  • Indelible marker or pen
  • Hollow piercing needle
  • Cotton ball or another stopper
  • Intended jewelry
  • Autoclave or steam sterilizer
  • Saline solution (for post-piercing hygiene)
  • Rubbing alcohol (for surface sterilization)

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24909453
  2. ↑ http://journals.lww.com/pec-online/Abstract/1999/06000/Ear_piercing_techniques_as_a_cause_of_auricular.7.aspx
  3. ↑ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196070998900035
  4. ↑ http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00405-014-3346-2
  5. ↑ http://www.jprasurg.com/article/S1748-6815%2807%2900334-8/abstract

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