My 15 year old son has gotten really into piercing over the last year.
He learns how to do each different piercing on YouTube, and of course these days you can buy all of the equipment cheap on Amazon.
I don't have an issue with his hobby at all, infact as you read you'll see how much I support it. I have however asked that he doesn't pierce his tongue or eyebrow, and instead get that done professionally.
Matching helix piercings
On September 1st I got him to pierce my nose. And after that he was like "Mom, we should pierce our ear nipples" 🤣 Ok, I'll explain...
We both have this extra skin on the top of our left ear.
When I was in elementary school my bff was always calling it my ear nipple hahaaa and she begged me to pierce it. I said "I don't want to draw more attention to it! No."
Fast forward 35 years...
We did it! I was surprised at the pain and swelling. He said his didn't hurt much.
My mistakes
The first mistake I made was using a hoop as my initial jewelry. I should have used the proper stud. The hoop moves around too much and slows healing.
The second mistake I made was changing to a different hoop after 1 month. You're not supposed to change Helix jewelry until at least 3 months. Again it slows down the healing.
When I changed the hoop it was so painful, it was just like I freshly pierced it all over again.
My son switched his stud for a hoop that day too.
That's mine, I liked the tiny gold hoop...
The third mistake I made was always sleeping on that ear! I tried everything not to roll onto that side.
I set up a barrier in my bed, but I would wake up with the barrier destroyed and me on the piercing side.
I bought a special pillow so that my ear could go into this hole in it, but I'm such a tossy turner sleeping, and I sleep so deeply that pain of it being misaligned from the hole didn't even wake me up.
So needlessly to say, after almost 2 months my helix still wasn't healing at all, even with proper after care. Cleaning twice a day with saline, never touching it or moving the jewelry, warm compress when I slept on it too hard lol.
Helix takes 3-6 months to heal.
My son was the first one to cave and take his out. He was having the same problem as me, but his was because he always has his big headphones on. He chose to lose the piercing rather than comply with not wearing them on that ear.
He has pierced his lip, septum and lobes 6 times and he says the helix is the worst by far for pain and healing. All his other piercings healed so well.
He said it felt soooo good to have the helix out lol. I remained stubborn for a couple weeks after him.
Then I caved the other night from pain and said "Just get this fucking thing out of me!" 😂
And it feels sooooooo good 😅 so does sleeping...
Have you had any messed up piercing situations? I'd love to hear!