Originally, I had intended on having a set of five piercings in my right ear: three cartilage, and two lobe. A few years back I got a triple forward helix piercing at a random piercing parlor on a whim… all three piercings rejected. This time around I spent much more time choosing my piercer and thinking about a piercing that I would like, which also worked with my anatomy.
James at American Skin Art let me know that the two helix/scapha piercings I was looking to get were, in fact, a good idea and that they would be in a location that wasn’t likely to reject. My experience was really great this time, much different than the first set of cartilage piercings. Those were considerably more painful and ended up not healing at all.
In contrast to the previous session, these two piercings were very quick and pretty painless. The moral of the story is: if you’re under the impression that selecting a piercing professional doesn’t matter or that you might be able to do it yourself, be warned!
After seeing my piercings start to successfully heal, I decided to go back a few weeks later to get a third (and final) lobe piercing. They are all healing up very nicely and now my ear looks just as I intended.
