ear piercing aftercare

Factual Questions
1

hi all, tried to do a search but it didn’t come up with much.

anyway, I just got my first ear piercing, and I have a few questions, obviously.

So I’ve been cleaning it daily and all that, but how important is it to do the “pillow trick” where you put a shirt over your pillow that you change? I’m not really prone to infections, but how likely is one to get an ear infection from sleeping on a new piercing?

Also the lady at the store said I should wait a month before taking the piercing out, but does that apply for changing to a different piercing? I don’t particularly like the stud they put in (i used an at-home one-time-use piercing gun) and I wanna change it to something less… shall we say effeminate? (seriously though, it’s a little stud piercing that’s obviously meant for women and I wanna switch it to a little gunmetal grey ring I have, which is obviously manly cause it’s called “gunmetal” :p) so when would it be safe to do that? after 1 week? or should i wait the full month?

Anyway, any help you guys/gals/non-compliants could give would be most appreciated.

2

I never heard of the pillow thing. I never got an infection after all four separate time I’ve had my ears pierced. Keep cleaning your ears, rotating the stud, and you’ll be fine. I think I waited a month or so before attempting the change the earrings, but I don’t know that it’s all that important. I would wait a couple of weeks at least, or until the site of the piercing is no longer tender. Also, be careful of the earring you’re replacing the studs with. You don’t want to put cheapo earrings in.

3

I’ve never heard of the pillow thing. I also waited for quite a while to be on the safe side (my last ones closed up, so…yeah).

4

hmm, good to know, thanks. One of my students totally busted me on my earring today. I have a bandaid over it, which covers the front part but the big part behind the ear still shows a little from certain angles. Been telling my co-workers I got hit in the ear playing basketball and it split, but one of my students yelled out “you have an ear piercing?!” (in japanese) and I told her it was a secret, hehe. S’pose I knew what I was getting into though.

5

I’m surprised you can even sleep on that side. As I remember, I had to sleep on my back or with the pierced ear away from the pillow because it stung too much.

I didn’t like the stud they used on mine either, but I didn’t change it until it stopped crusting over (where it “broke free” every time I rotated it). I can’t remember now if I used alcohol or hydrogen peroxide on it, but cleaning it a couple times a day was enough so that I never got an infection.

Oh, and it was my cartiledge, not my lobe, so maybe it’s slightly different.

6

Piercing guns, even single use ones, are horrible and increase the likelihood of scarring and other problems, but too late now.

Swap out the crap stud for a decent piece of jewelry ASAP. “Decent” meaning surgical steel or high karat gold. (Or titanium, or niobium, or glass, but I’m assuming we’re dealing with mass market earrings, not body jewelry.) Taking it out for the few moments it takes to swap jewelry isn’t going to cause any harm, but leave the new jewelry in until it heals, since swapping repeatedly could cause irritation.

DO NOT turn the jewelry-- if you’re using good metal and not thread like in the Grapes of Wrath or other porous, easily rotted material, there’s no risk of your ear bonding to the jewelry, and turning the jewelry is just going to irritate things.

When it gets scabby and crusty, soak it in warm salt water. The benzalkonium chloride solution sold by most places that gun ears is often of dubious potency and can be very irritating. You want to strike a balance between keeping things very clean to avoid infection and avoiding anything that will delay healing (peroxide) or cause irritation (alcohol) which can lead to inflamation which can lead to your body rejecting the jewelry in gruesome ways. Regular, careful washing with a gentle anti-bacterial soap is a good compromise depending on how your body reacts to it.

The pillow trick is a very good idea. Resist the urge to touch the jewelry with your germy germy hands under any circumstances other than cleaning! Most things heal fine with the amazing piercing salve known as LITHA-- Leave It The Hell Alone!

Why yes, this is a major hobby of mine.

7

I’ve always heard people say bad things about piercing guns, but I’ve used them three times and nothing bad has happened. Also, I’ve never had any irritation from turning the jewelry and everyone I’ve ever talked to says that turning=good. Are you sure about that?

8

I’ve heard bad things about guns as well, but never anything bad about using them on an earlobe.

9

QFT. In my opinion, there are two very distinct schools of piercings and aftercare, the “go get my ears pierced at the mall” set and the “single use hollow needle” set, who vary wildly in directions for aftercare.

10

Huh. I have a 00 gauge earring in my left lobe that was just put in a couple days ago, and that piercing is only four months old and started as an 8 gauge. I never had a problem sleeping on any of them.

11

I’d wait a couple of weeks before risking an earring change, as the hole is still inflamed and you run the risk of having trouble getting the replacement in easily (or at all). Especially if you’re switching from a stud to a ring as the ring will have a bit of a curve in it. IIRC, when mine were done, I was told not to put anything but studs in for a month (but I could swap studs out after 2 weeks).

Never heard of the shirt/pillowcase things before - my daughter (ear pierced a year ago) wasn’t advised to do so. It certainly couldn’t hurt, but is probably not necessary.

Hers were done in a mall kiosk (as were mine, rather more than a year ago!).

I’m surprised at the poster who said not to rotate the stud - especially at first, that hole is going to be oozing a bit and you don’t want that to adhere to the post. Obviously you’d want to wash your hands before doing so.

Can’t comment on the cleaning solution - my daughter used it and I expect it helped somewhat. She did have one lobe get infected - on two separate occasions, the ear got swollen and we could feel a lump, we removed the earring and pressed and it oozed pus (blech). The first time, we treated it by soaking the lobe with a hot wet compress, then doctoring it with neosporin (antibiotic ointment) for a few days. The second time, we removed the earring, let it heal up, and redid the job a couple of months later. This was good anyway, as that lobe’s hole was a bit too low; the repiercing looks much better.

12

I did Neosporin, too, for mine, Mama Zappa.

13

It’s quite possible the stud is 14k gold or surgical steel, actually. My daughter’s ears were done with 14k gold. Possibly surgical steel was another option, I don’t recall for sure. I’d be surprised if the shop offered anything other than 14k or surgical for piercing. So while the stud may not be the OP’s taste, chances are it’s fine, quality-wise.

I wouldn’t recommend (and I suspect you’d agree) rushing to the gunmetal gray ring however, because the OP may not know what sort of metal mixture it’s made of.

14

The ear is not going to adhere to the stud in any meaningful sense. Yes, oozing lymph is going to glue things in place until you soak it off, but that’s not flesh growing onto the metal itself. Turning the stud tears up the dried crusty and potentially rips up the new cells.

Imagine I’ve skinned my knee. Would you suggest I scrape off the scab every day as a way to promote quick healing free of scars and infection? That’s essentially all that turning the post does. (Heck, turning the jewelry when plasma has things gummed together can cause the unpierced skin near the piercing to tear as the crust’s will to stick is stronger than it-- I’ve witnessed this in action with a girl who thought she should rotate the barbells in her nipples. Oh the blood.)

Turning the stud is a holdover from when materials much more porous than what modern jewelry was made of was used. If you happen to have to wear pieces of bamboo in your newly pierced ears, than you would want to regularly turn them, but it’s unnecessary and traumatizing otherwise.

As for why guns are bad, even on earlobes: the primary issue is that the piercing stud used in a gun is invariably dull and pushed through the tissue with force. Imagine a railroad spike compared to a razor sharp chisel.

Guns have other flaws, depending on design, but another issue that could apply in the OP’s case is that many force the studback on ridiculously tight, which obviously isn’t good for healing tissue.

Yes, many people get their ears gunned, rotate the studs, pour on harsh chemicals and ultimately heal lobe piercings without issue. But I’ve also seen some really gruesome keloid scarring, holes that don’t ever seem to heal, and a tremendous amount of unpleasant irritation (not to mention poorly placed or angled piercings) that could easily be avoided by getting needle pierced instead of gunned. But I like to minimize risk as much as possible when opening my flesh, even in tiny ways. (Yes, I put bandaids and Neosporin on papercuts.)

Speaking of Neo, if I remember correctly, it does say on the packaging not to use it on puncture wounds. An ear piercing is different from stepping on a nail, in that both ends of the puncture are open, but I’m still iffy about introducing something thick and oily into a hole.

Why yes, I can talk about this stuff for days.

15

oozing? I’d read a bit about this, but I’ve seen nothing coming out of my ear and it’s been almost a week. Oooing seems a rather unpleasent thing to look forward to. I’ve been rotating the stud once a day or so.

The backing of the stud is gold. can’t comment on the carrot…age? erm, yea. Anyway, the package was all in Japanese and my kanji is crap, so yea.

As for the gunmetal grey ring, I was referring to the ring itself, the connecting part (that goes through the actual piercing) is a shiny steel, and no I don’t know what the metal mixture is.

As for the pain and sleeping on it… it was a bit sore that first night (a couple hours after the actual piercing) but since then I’ve been able to sleep on it as per normal (it’s in my left ear, and I usually sleep on my left side, so I just naturally roll over onto the piercing as I’m lying down/getting comfortable)

16

Everything Sebastienne said. Don’t touch. Don’t turn. Don’t ever use a gun again. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

Hope you love your new piercing! We just want it to be a good experience for you.

Kim (six lobe, 1 conch, 1 nose, 1 navel & 1 clit hood - no rejections or infections)

Why yes, we piercing purists are snobs, why, do you ask? Well, we spend lots of money and time and pain (albeit pleasant to most of us) modifying our bodies.

17

I dunno, maybe cartilage is worse. It didn’t ache; it felt more like a small burn. It burned for a day or so after I had it done, but then didn’t hurt unless something touched it. I’ve never had a lobe pierced, so I can’t compare.

18

My children had their ears pierced too young (at 9). One must have “worried” the butterfly at the back too tightly and the skin started to grow over it. That was so much fun getting sorted out. We put in ones that had a long curved post rather than a straight one so she didn’t play with them too much and risk tightening them again. Now she’s too chickenshit to change them and has been wearing the same ones for 1 year and a half.

The other one had an infection and took out both earrings and won’t put any new ones in. She claims she’ll have it done again but I still see where the hole is (was?) and she won’t let me near her ears to see if they are truly closed up.

cowardly children.

19

I had mine close up because it hurt too much to change them, plus I didn’t care enough, kbear and then I had them repierced last year. I waited a fairly long time to change them (well, only a couple months) but only because I was paranoid about them closing up. But I think the more you do it, the better it is.

20

What about salt water? You’ll want to use NON-iodine salt, so table salt is a no-no. Most people use sea-salt, although I use kosher for cleaning my nose.

Salt Soaks

Oh, and this is the forum where I’ve gone to get advice on my nose piercing. They’ve always been very helpful! (They are, however, very anti-gun)

:smiley: