A while back I wanted to change my small silver-ringed ear look. I currently had eight earings up to the top of my cartilage but I thought it needed something else. I slowly put more and more silver sleepers in my lobe piercing, I got up to an eight gauge so I went and bought a proper surgical steel ring. I left that in for quite a while. Later I felt that I wanted to go bigger so that I could have a visible flesh tunnel in place of the 8 gauge earing. I bought another 10 gauge surgical steel earing while I was in the States on a trip and proceeded to stretch the 8 gauge sized hole with the sleepers again, then I fit in the 10 gauge. I didn't like the look of two rings, so I went to the local piercing shop in downtown Vancouver BC. I gazed at the flesh tunnels with envy. I wanted one so badly, I could just imagine seeing through my ear more than the gap between the two earings I currently had. So I bought a 2 gauge one sided liped tunnel with a little black "o ring" on the back. I brought it on the bus home and I couldn't stop looking at it. I went home and tried to get it in all sorts of different ways but my hole wasn't big enough still. So I had to wait. While going through torture of trying to get it in, myself, I made my ear really irritated and yucky. Later, I went to the other piercing shop in town and asked the girl there if she could put the tunnel in my right ear. She told me that I needed to stretch it gradually and lent me a 6 gauge claw. I waited about two weeks, then came back and she lent me a 4 gauge claw this time. So I waited another two weeks for the inside of the hole to heal. This time it was going to happen. I walked in the waiting room of the piercing store and asked the salesperson if the piercer could put the tunnel in this time. The salesperson told her and she came in the room and took me into her personal room. I was excited, and a little bit nervous. She layed me down on the long chair and gave me some aromatherapy. I layed back and watched her prepare her taper rod with some sort of clear jelly lube. She approached me with the rod and took out my jewlery with her squeeky gloved hands. She proceeded to place the tip of the rod in my 4 gauged hole. Pushing it further and further inside the hole, it began to get hot and I felt a little stream of blood trickle down my neck, I didn't care. I could say that this was more painful than the low garth that I got much later. My lobe got swollen and began to turn red. It was expected. There it was, my 2 gauge flesh tunnel. I was a happy girl! I got what I wanted.

Next, it was the low garth. I had never seen it pierced before until I came to the BME site. It is called low garth and helix. I had thought about this piercing for some time, and finally decided to get it instead of getting a facial piercing. I wasn't sure which way to go with the facial idea so I thought the ear was a nice alternative. I thought it was in a very flattering place so I went ahead and did it. The shop has a deal that when its your 16th birthday you get the piercing free with purchase of jewlery so I went ahead of time and set it up for June 4th. I waited until it was my birthday and got real nervous every time I passed the shop. Then the big day came, I brought my close friend to the shop with me as I frantically signed the form with all the information they needed (like what I ate for lunch) I waited for about 20 minutes then it was to the dark purple room! I walked in with my friend following the head piercer of the shop. I sat down in the chair and waited. This time I had an audience to watch me get pierced. Funny, but I wasn't nervous when I went into the room and sat down, I was more exited and shaky. There were two apprenticeships happening at the time but I didn't mind, it was making me more exited. For some reason I wanted this piercing to be done with clamps, just so I knew where it was going to happen. He made little marks with a pen checking with me to see if they were ok. Then he placed the clamp on the side of my ear. It felt cool because I knew what was going to happen. He poked and pushed the needle through the inside of my ear to the outside. I asked if it was done and he said yes, but two seconds later there was a problem. He said that it was in the wrong place, so I asked "is it puckered?" he said "yes" So he had to make the outer hole again not going through the cartilage again, this time it hurt a little more. It was through again, but he still wasn't happy with it. The third hole was the last, this one hurt more than the rest because all these little holes in my ear were getting annoyed. It was perfect the last time he did it. It looked great, I was happy. I didn't mind the two fault piercings, it made it more exciting. There are two little scars that you can barely see now but my low garth looks great. The healing is still on it's way. It's a little swollen but it'll heal with time. I recommend these two modifications. As soon as I get a picture of them I'll put it up. You can also find some other rad stories about piercings at BME, mine's there, with a picture also.