So about two months ago my boyfriend had completed several successful piercings on our friends. Several of his friends are professional piercers and he has learned alot getting pierced by them.He never did an official apprenticeship but it's close enough. Anyhow, he had done several girls navels, a set of snake bites, two cartilage piercings and one or two nose on our friends and all had turned out well, so I decided to let him have a go at my ear. I've only had a few piercings before and I have up on all of them before the healing was through. I like the piercing experience but not the healing so much, I guess I'm just a whimp. This time I was determined to keep whatever I got so I made sure I would like it. I wanted something different so instead of picking a piercing with a specific name and location, I grabbed a marker and marked a dot in the indentation of my ear. It ended up being sort of like one half of a helix or an orbital. It went in under the tiny little curve in the top of my ear, near my head and came out the back. Anyhow the actual initial piercing went well and looked very cute. Our jewelery supply was low so we used a 14 gage labret stud which looked fine but was a little big and which later irritated the back of my ear. I went to a studio two days later, where one of our friends is a piercer and she changed it is a 16 gage curved barbell. This was far more comfortable but perhaps changing it so early was the first problem of many.
At A Glance Author Scarlet Begonias Contact Scarlet Begonias@bme.anon When It just happened Artist my boyfriend Studio his house Location SC Healing went well for the first several weeks. I developed a bit of scarring on the back side of my ear but the bump seemed to rise and fall depending on whether or not I treated it well (not sleeping on it, keeping my hair out of it, washing it in saline, etc) so I wasn't worried. It didn't really hurt or turn red or get infected.
One day out of the blue, after I thought it was well-healed I woke up to find the piercing really red, crusty and angry. I poked it a bit found that some puss leaked out and I freaked. I was half asleep and grabbed the first antiseptic thing I could find,which happened to be peroxide. Yes, I know this was very stupid, I know better, I really do, I have no idea was caused me to do this. It burned, stang, and the hole turned red and hard immediately. I'm pretty sure that I burned the interior tissue of the hole and this is where things went wrong. From the next day I started to develop scarring on the front side of my ear as well. The size of the lump remained constant and no longer responded to my treatment and even though I went back to regular saline washes, nothing seemed to help.
Today, after noticing a sizeable enlargement in the scarring I gave up and took it out. I miss it already. Hopefully the scarring will go down and I will not end up with a keloid that grows and grows.I've read horror stories about things the size of lima beans on people's ears and that doesn't sound pleasant. I have cute little ears and I don't want them all yucky looking :( Anyhow I suppose if I do develop excessive scarring I can always get some cortison injections or have it scapeled off but I don't look forward to the cost of it. Anyhow here are my reasons for why I think this piercing failed and thus some things not to do.
1) My position, though neat, was very close to the back of my head and thus a hard place to fit jewelry in. I imagine that if I had a perfectly fitted custom piece of jewelry that would have helped. The curve of the barbell seems to have been what caused the scarring as it was only on the top side of the piercing.
2) My inability to not sleep on it. I tried, really I did but I would wake up and realize I had been sleeping on it without knowing it. I'm a toss and turner.
3) Long curly hair, lots of hair product, sunglasses and motorcycle helmets.
4) A cold and/or sinus issue that has lasted the whole duration of the piercing and longer.
Bah, sadness, oh well lesson learned maybe.If any of you have suggestions on how to lessen the scar tissue or keep more from growing please let me know. Also if you have experience with getting rid of keloid/scarring after they have formed I'd like to hear about that too. With me luck!