Hey there! Sorry I didn’t post a couple days back, finals are coming up and I’ve been swamped. That aside…

I’ve had my industrial for about 2.5 years. Almost 2 years of it being a complete pain in my ass, difficult healing and again, just a pain in my ass. That being said, I stuck with it and it has now been happily healed without scarring for around 6-7 months. Even through all that, I never once thought about taking it out and I absolutely adore it. It’s been my favorite piercing up until this July when I got my tongue done, which is the complete polar opposite of my industrial.

In short, yes, it does take forever to hear. Low estimates will tell you that it takes about 9 months-1 year to heal. I imagine that would only happen in the absolutely ideal, perfect conditions-which, realistically, isn’t going to happen. Mine was mostly ‘healed’ by about 9-10 months in, but developed some hypertrophic scarring which needed babying up until about 6 months ago. I normally generalize and say that it took 2 years to heal, AND be happy, which is the important part.

When it comes to laying on it, yes, it can be a pain. Mostly just for the first couple weeks, when you’re in that paranoid ‘I don’t want anything to touch it’ stage. You get used to it and learn to sleep on it. I actually found a GREAT, cannot stress that enough, little piece of advice somewhere online, that helped me immensely. Granted, I didn’t learn it until about 6 months in. Had I known sooner, I think I may not have had as long a healing period. The trick is to buy any old neck pillow and sleep with it, just not in the traditional way. Rather than around your neck, lay on it so that it’s like a ‘C’ and your ear can hover in the hole, without coming in contact with anything. This really works for any type of cartilage piercing, and is a godsend. I bring my neck pillow with me everywhere. Also, keep your sheets and pillowcases very clean during the initial months. If you sleep with pets, either stop-or change your pillowcases daily. Alternative is to put a clean towel over the pillow you sleep with when you go to bed and just change it the following night.

In regards to your question about the pain not dying down for weeks, I’ve never heard that-nor, did I experience that. It was about a 6/10 on the pain scale getting it done, and about a 7.5/10 in the following several hours. The second hole is of course, worse than the first and it gets really hot and swells. I went out to dinner after, and it was throbbing just terribly. But that all subsided by the next morning. The following days it was tender, but very, very bearable. More like an annoying, sensitive bruise type pain. For ear piercings, I have 3 lobes, a right industrial, a right snug and a left conch. The snug hurt the most out of all of them, probably an 8.5/10, though it was very brief and did not hurt for as long after the fact. That is still giving me the same pain in the ass problems as my industrial, though its only about 1.5 years old. I’ve decided that once it’s healed, that I need to give up on it, as I don’t think it will ever ‘settle,’ and will just continue to flare up. The conch was probably my most painless piercing yet at about a 3/10 which surprised me, and healed super easy and has given me virtually no problems.

Is it a piercing I would get again? Unfortunately, that’s a hard question for me to answer. Seeing how it ended up now, yes, I think I would. But when it was at it’s worse, and I never thought it would get settled, I can’t say I would’ve. It really put me through the ringer. I had pretty bad hypertrophic scarring on the inside and outside hole of the outer helix rim forever. It would get better one week, and then seemingly just get pissed for no reason and flare up. I never got any sort of infection, but had the blister like scars and lymph fluid for months and months. I had to avoid swimming, or pay the consequences. Everywhere I went, I had a bottle of saline with me. About 10 days after it was pierced, I went to a Mayhem Fest (metal festival) and decided not to go into the pit to protect it, but of course a crowd surfer somehow managed to land directly on me (and I was 10 ft away from the crowd!) and nail me in the ear. It bled and bled and bled, and of course definitely prolonged the healing.

All that trauma drama aside, it is a wonderful piercing. I love it, and it has an aesthetic that I just don’t think other ear piercings can match up to.

BUT….it is a piercing that takes MASSIVE commitment. Pretty much expect to marry this piercing. It’s easy to say, ‘well I’ll just do the sea salt soaks like I’m told and not let anything bad happen to it.’ Easier said than done. Something will happen, and it will get pissed. Whether you hit it with the brush (yes, you do have to learn how to brush around it). Or sleep on it wrong one night. Or someone grabs it. Or you smack it with the phone. Or who knows, but it will happen. Mine has gone through many a mosh pit and come out bleeding, numerous times (more so my snug, but the industrial has had its fair share). This is not a piercing for just anybody. You need to dedicate at minimum 10-15 minutes every morning and night to soaking it, for the foreseeable future. Don’t just say ‘oh i can soak it 2x daily for the next 6 months.’ Soak it until it is happy and settled, and even then, continue to soak. Don’t attribute my problems to the fact I went to concerts and mosh pits. It’ll be healing for a year, so expect that something whether provoked or not, is going to hit your ear, more times than you care to imagine.

If you still want it, make sure to go to a reputable piercer. Keep in mind what side you sleep on normally, and what side you use to talk on the phone. There are two methods of doing this piercing. One is with the single barbell connecting the two piercings. This is the way I did mine to assure it healed in the proper alignment. Some will also have it pierced with two separate barbells, and once it’s healed, switch in the long bar. This isn’t as preferable because if something alters the placement angle of the piercings when they’re done or during healing, it will be uncomfortable to put in the long jewelry, may start your healing process again and most defnitely cause scarring. Having it heal with the long bar in assures that it will heal in the comfortable position it needs to be to have no scarring.

Here is mine at 2 years old this past summer. Healed and happy even after a day swimming in a quarry 🙂

Let me know what you decide. And if you have any other questions, I could go on and on, but I’ll stop for now. This is why I wanted to wait until I could give the post my full attention before responding.

Good luck!

Thanks for posting, great read.