My nipple piercings tended to act up every now again and just be sore, and bleed a little bit. I'd had them for just about three years and had never had any problems with them, they healed beautifully.. but every few months, sometimes longer, they would just decide to be bitchy. It could be hormones, could be.. whatever.
At A Glance Author miss rebecca riot Contact miss rebecca riot@bme.anon IAM miss rebecca riot When Three months ago The right piercing had been bothering me for a few days, just being sore and cranky. When I woke up one morning it was stinging like nobody's business. I checked on it, and it had bled just the tiniest little bit.. but I noticed that just to the left of that nipple, there was a HUGE lump in my breast. It was slightly sore, but the area wasn't inflamed looking or anything.. no redness, no heat, no puffiness. Just a huge lump. Of course, I'm thinking 'breast cancer' even though I'm only 22 and I know that's extremely unusual. (Also, the lumps that indicate cancer usually appear in the armpit area.)
The lump did start to get a little inflamed. It wasn't really painful, still no heat or anything, but it was red and a little puffy. I was performing sea salt soaks religiously, and that was helping with the actual piercing itself. From everything that I had read, and after talking to my piercer and having her take a look at it, and my grandmother who is a nurse, it looked like it was just just a cyst. I started taking vitamin e, as the grandmother told me that would help it clear up. She also told me that things like that often have a lot to do with where you are in your cycle and apparently I was just at the right time!
The lump stayed 'dormant' for a while, as in, it didn't get any bigger, wasn't swollen, wasn't red, and wasn't painful. Then, within a couple of days it doubled in size, and became pretty red.. still not painful or swollen and there was no heat. I decided to be a little more aggressive in my care of it, other than the hot compresses, and sea salt soaks. I took the jewelry out, and did a hot compress with saline solution on the piercing. After a few minutes, I barely even touched the lump and immediately yellowish discharge, along with a little blood, came oozing out of the piercing sites. I wasn't quite sure what that amounted to but I called my piercer and described all of it to her, and she said that it was good that it was draining that way. After about 45 minutes of alternating hot saline solution compresses and prodding at the lump to get it to drain, I thought it was done.. finally nothing was coming out but lymph and a very tiny amount of blood. I did a sea salt soak, made another one to let my jewelry get clean in while I took a shower, and that was that. I kept the jewelry in because I wanted the holes to stay open for any other gunk that was in there to drain out.
At this point I should say that during all of this, I had no health insurance.. otherwise, I'd have been at the doctor's at the first sight of this lump. Being that I wasn't in school at the time (over the summer) my health insurance had lapsed, and I was waiting for a letter and a bunch of red tape (I have military insurance) to come through so that I could prove that I was enrolled in school for the fall semester and thus qualified to get my insurance back. I was really trying to laugh this off as something not that serious, although I knew it could end up being very, very bad.
After all of that, the lump had all but disappeared. There was no more redness, no heat whatsoever, it was practically invisible. I was babying the hell out of the piercing, etc.. school started that week so thank god, I was getting my health insurance back because when I woke up a week or so later the lump was back, with a vengeance. It was twice as big as it was the first time it appeared, it was red (still no heat, though.. ) and while not painful, the area was slightly tender to the touch.
I saw the doctor the next morning. He did not have to cut me open, thank god. He sent me off with a massive prescription for antibiotics (that consequently wreaked havoc on my stomach) and instructions to continue with hot compresses, and to leave my jewelry out. He did say he didn't think it would close up, since I'd had them for so long. After a month of weekly visits, an ultrasound, and several mentions of visiting a surgeon to remove any lingering scar tissue, I was pronounced 'all better.' I didn't ever have to see a surgeon.
I didn't think that the piercing would heal up, since I'd had it for so long, so I left the other one in even though I have a strange obsession with symmetry. Unfortunately, it did heal slightly. I have yet to attempt to get it re-done or put the jewelry back in. I opted to leave it alone when it didn't go back in easily when I tried to replace it. But, I consider it my lesson learned for not just biting the bullet and going to the doctor in the first place, even if I did have to pay for it out of pocket. Maybe I'd still have both of my nipple piercings right now.