My conch diary

[ChaseTheLight]

Thanks Grace!

Day 3

Super uneventful. No pain unless I knock it, no bleeding, no lymph or crusties. I'm managing not to sleep on it at all, or not as far as I know. Embarrassed to discover today that I've been banging on about it being a 2.5mm piercing when it's actually 2.4mm - still a novice so apologies in advance for my nonsense. Wondering if in the next few days I'm going to get it caught in my clothes or bang it somehow. No, that's not if really is it, it's when.

[ChaseTheLight]

Day 4

Another uneventful day, ear is still a bit swollen and bruised on the outside but there's no pain, no blood and no lymph. Cycled a proper distance and and in a helmet for the first time today, neither helmet nor straps touch the piercing or jewellery but my ear didn't like it all the same. Reminds me of how my ear didn't like me wearing glasses for the first week when I got my rook done, so I'm assuming it isn't really a problem.

[ChaseTheLight]

End of 1st week

Since I last posted the bruising and pain has pretty much gone. I've knocked the bar occasionally but not hard enough for it to get angry, and I've adjusted the mental map of my body so that now getting clothes on and off and dealing with combing my hair is no longer a minefield - I can avoid bashing because I can now sense exactly where it is. Does that make sense? Because in the first two days I really didn't instinctively know where it was, resulting in me shying away from things that were no-where near and bashing the bar without having a clue how I'd done it or what it was that I'd touched it with. Glad that bit of self adjustment is out of the way now.

Yesterday it bled very slightly at the back, though I wasn't aware of banging it or even of any soreness at all - I saw the scab at the base of the piercing when checking with a mirror after giving it a soak, otherwise I'd never have known. Today it has been vaguely itchy... argh! The itch is a terrible thing, but at least it shows the healing process has begun.

[ChaseTheLight]

Almost a fortnight in and I'm really chuffed with how settled this piercing feels. No pain, the bruising (it was pretty colourful round the back of my ear for the first week) is finally gone and wearing my bike helmet is more comfortable every day. The cartilage round the hole at the back of the ear is still swollen, but only a bit. There's no lymph; occasionally bloody scabs form at the back but they flake off almost immediately. It's comfy, clean and looks fantastic. I'm not kidding myself though, I know it's barely started to heal. Is it shallow of me to love that it looks healed though? My rook looked horrific for about six weeks after piercing - despite the fact that it didn't hurt, barely got knocked, never got slept on and was generally treated like the crown jewels it would bleed regularly, leaving sticky gobs of blood that would cling stubbornly to the jewellery and generally look sordid. Conchie on the other hand looks wholesome, shiny and bloody gorgeous.

I did manage to thwack it quite hard this morning while combing my hair. It's the first time I've actually caught it properly, and for a second the pain was stomach turning. Only for a second though, five minutes later it was like nothing had happened.

At this rate it feels like the healing process will be quite uneventful, and to be honest how brilliant would that be? Fingers crossed...

[ChaseTheLight]

Just over a fortnight now. Last night my conch started to ache and throb quite randomly - hadn't knocked it or anything and it hasn't really been painful for the past week so it's a bit of a reminder that this is still a very fresh wound. There was no extra swelling or anything different that I could see. A sss made it throb even more. A couple of nurofen stopped the pain in it's tracks though, so I knew there wasn't anything to worry about. I was pretty tired and stressed last night to be honest, so that's probably why it was acting up.

[Mints]

Glad it's going well, hope it stays that way!

[ChaseTheLight]

Glad it's going well, hope it stays that way!

Thanks Becky, me too! It's almost spooky how well it's going!

So conchie is three weeks old tomorrow, and things are going really nicely. A couple of days ago when I was soaking my ear, the bar loosened enough to move a bit so I was able to look at the entry wound for the first time - no crusties, blood, redness - nothing. I barely feel it now apart from occasionally getting it caught in my hair (I have a LOT of hair) but it still seems new when I look in the mirror and see the lovely shiny titanium ball nestled there. I sometimes wonder if anything's happening at all - I thought that lymph was a sign of healing but I've barely had any. It seems daft to worry that my ear isn't oozing crusty stuff so I won't, and I'll enjoy the (so far) easy ride I'm having. And dream about all the lovely jewels I'd like to buy to wear in it...

[ChaseTheLight]

Hah, so last time I wrote I was puzzled at the lack of lymph, crusties and general undemandingness... how things have changed! I was quite pleased to see crusties around the top ball yesterday as although it doesn't look nice, I felt that at least something was happening. I had almost wondered if I wasn't having some kind of delayed healing process for some reason. Silly I know... anyway, this morning I don't know what the hell I was doing but somehow I managed to smack myself right on the ear with my fist while struggling out of my pajamas, and oooooof, I knew it wasn't good. Went to the bathroom to check, and it had bled. Not huge amounts, but enough for the top ball to be sunk a third of a way into a freshly forming scab. I soaked it immediately, which dissolved some of the blood, but I didn't want to aggravate it more so I didn't touch it. Had to wear my hair down today to hide it a bit because it looked yuk. After giving it another soak this evening and having a look, I can see that a red bump has appeared. Drat! That's what I get for going on about how trouble free I was finding things! It's a bit sore, but I'm hoping that will go by tomorrow if I manage not to bang it again. At least I've already trained myself to lie on my left because of having my rook done last year. Wonder how long I'll have this flippin' bump for. Sigh.

[Sira]

Ah, I so know the pain of knocking fresh piercings. I had that with my boring old lobe piercings. The left one healed beautifully, the right one experienced two big traumas. First time it was the shower puff caught it and I yanked it. God that was horrible, it was on the day I had it done too. Then in the middle of the night 2 months later the jewellery caught in a loose bit of the pillow case. Yanked it and tore the tissue and it was bleeding. Ended up with a bump too which took a while to go. That was gross. I just kept SSS it, used warm camomile tea bags and used some emu oil and changed to a shorter shank so there was less chance of it being caught on things. It was sooo frustrating, took twice as long to heal and it looked bad. The fistula was damaged too so changing was painful and awkward. It felt all ragged and the jewellery wouldn't go in cleanly. I think it nearly doubled the healing time on that. It sucked. I find ears pretty challenging to avoid harming because I'm just so much less aware of piercings in my ears. Face is entirely different for me. I hope it's not as bad as mine was! Keep us updated

[ChaseTheLight]

Hi Sira! Ouch, that moment when you catch a fresh piercing - horrible! I was so scared of catching mine that I was dressing and combing my hair in slow motion for a fortnight yet I still managed to basically punch myself in the side of the head! You have my sympathy, bet it hurt like mad to get your lobe caught so badly on the first day. And aww I don't think lobes are boring, I still love my lobes and how versatile they are

Ok, so I've neglected this diary for a while but it's worth telling what happened after bashing my piercing, in case someone out there does a similar thing and is worried that they've just set themselves back a bit.

Week 7

So, a bit over two months, and things are feeling a lot more settled now. Just under a month in I bashed my ear really hard, so hard that it bled lots, developed a red bump and looked and felt generally sore and damaged. I didn't want to do more damage or get an infection, so although I did saline soaks twice a day for about a week I did very little to try and remove the scabs/crusties that developed. It looked bad, so I just hid it with my hair. I think the hot salt water soothed it a lot, and probably increased blood flow too. After a couple of days it stopped being sore and started itching really badly, and on my last soak I took a cotton bud and gently removed what crusties I could. And the bump was gone! I've basically LITHA'd it since then, and that's going really well.

I'm amazed at how quickly my ear recovered from being bashed. I put it down to not letting myself poke about to clean it up, which took a lot of self discipline because I am a terrible picker and also it was quite a large scab which looked pretty unpleasant. No-one wants to be walking about with a big ol' scab on their ear! But when I did finally clean it, the bump was gone and although fearsomely itchy there was no sign of damage.

Aside from itchiness my conch now feels really good. I could probably sleep on it now if I wanted, but I've trained myself so well to sleep on the left side ('cause of healing my rook last year) that I never do. I can put my bike helmet on confidently and not worry too much that the straps are suddenly going to shift and put pressure on the piercing. Up until I bashed it, a month in from being pierced, it had felt slightly tender and my whole ear was prone to a bit of discomfort, but since then it feels like a lot of healing has taken place in quite a short space of time. I get occasional crusties which I'll sometimes (very gently) remove with a cotton bud after my shower, but to be honest they mostly fall off by themselves. Although it's been more painful - and for longer - than my rook, my conch seems to be a lot less temperamental. My rook is still liable to get slightly pissy 14 months on! Fingers crossed conchie keeps on like this...