Help! My surface piercing (vertical tragus) fell out!

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Wednesday August 27th, 2008 @ 3:12 AM

Filed under: Piercing

I was trying to remove the balls on my vertical tragus surface piercing (done with a surface bar - well, a straight bar that my piercer bent into a ’surface bar’) to change them for blackline spikes, but I accidentally let the bar fall out, and when I tried to put it back in I succeeded only in aggravating the piercing and making it bleed. The piercing WAS fully healed (I think - or nearly) but I’m concerned that if I have to leave it with no bar in it’ll soon heal up. If I have to, I can go to a piercer tomorrow to get it fixed, but it’s quite far to go, so I was hoping someone could give me some advice as to how to get the bar back in!! Thanks!

First things first, how old is the piercing? I’m almost inclined to say only a few months if that? Or have you had the piercing for longer than 6 months?

Also are you aware that bending a straight bar into a “surface bar” is not the ideal way to go? And quite often can increase the chance of failure due to “human error” in properly bending the jewelry. Not only that but there is a increase chance damaging the internal wearing surface, potentially even gouging the surface. This is why most reputable artists will only ever use a proper surface barbell pre-made by a company, and not attempt to fashion on themselves.

If you’re unable to insert the jewelry yourself, the best option is to visit a piercer and have them look at the jewelry and the pathway and see if it should/can be re-inserted or not.

Also not just to yourself but to anyone reading this, I implore you. If you are interested in getting a surface piercing make sure it is done with a proper surface barbell, not a straight barbell bent into some crude example of a surface bar. When looking to get the piercing ask what type of jewelry would be used and if it comes is pre-bent or if its bent into shape from a straight barbell. If they explain they are going to take a straight barbell and make it into the shape, I strongly encourage you to seek out a more reputable artist.

There are many artists out there, myself included, who have quite a library or horror pictures. I also know I am not the only one with a number of pictures of, hand-bent surface bar, surface piercings on file. Proper surface bars have been around for quite some time now and have been perfected by various manufacturers, there’s no real reason why piercers should still be hand-bending their surface bars.

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