A few nights ago, I got my ears pierced by one of my friends. She had done it before and even given a few piercings to herself, but she is not a professional. It was in my earlobes and it was the second time I had gotten them pierced (the first holes closed up) and it was very easy and almost painless. She used a sterilized sewing needle that pierced a hole big enough for earrings. She told me to clean the holes at least 3 times a day and specifically said NOT to twist them. I listened to her and have been cleaning them. When I called my mom and told her, she said “Remember to clean them and make sure you twist them from time to time to keep the earring from healing into your ear.”
I’m not sure if I should twist them or not. I tried doing research online on several websites and they are all giving me different answers. If you’ve gotten a piercing done non-professionally, did you twist them or not? What was the outcome? Or at least what would you suggest? I have been twisting them today and there are little crusties that make it harder for me to twist them. Is that normal?
Had my ears pierce as a teenager by a friend (well actually, she kinda chickened out, so I mostly pierced them myself) who said twist them, and I did.
Had a couple more holes put in by a professional piercer, who said NOT to twist them, and I didn’t.
They were fine in both cases. It made sense to twist them–it was kinda hard not to. But your ear isn’t going to permanently adhere to the earring in any case. I do remember the crusties.
I did have a problem with the amateur piercing in that I picked earrings whose studs were too small, and one of them went through my ear, causing grief. This actually may have been caused by twisting it. It eventually was fine.
You should speak a lot louder.
Oh wait, that would be eardrum piercing questions.
I have several piercings in my ears (though I usually only wear one pair these days), all self inflicted, and I always twisted.
I’m the dad of a girl who had her ears pierced twice, because she didn’t adequately take care of them the first time and they closed up (she was too young to have it done in the first place; her mother did it behind my back). The second time involved a long, long healing process, lots of cleaning, and lots of twisting.
From everything I could see, twisting was a great help in keeping nastiness from forming, adhering, and allowing the peroxide we used to clean the holes to get into the teeny places it needed to get to. So, put me firmly in Camp Twist.
Here’s a previous thread on the topic. **WhyNot **says emphatically “don’t twist!”
Me too. I would wash them in the solution provided by Claire’s and twist them. I never had any problems.
Me tutu! I’ve got one professionally done, and one all punk rock (done with a safety pin, even). Twisting didn’t hurt if you wanted to get the blood out of the way for cleaning.
I pierced my own ear in 1986, mostly to celebrate my divorce and entrance into mid eighties rock and roll life. I pierced it with a sewing needle and a little isopropyl alcohol. I had a small zirconium earring. Shortly after I did it I woke up one morning and my ear had pretty much grown over the earring. Like it was trying to absorb it! Got it under control. I stopped wearing an earring when I started wearing my hair short. To me, a guy wearing an earring was a biker/pirate/viking thing and once you lose the long hair and beard…to me it didn’t look right.
Years ago, when I was an exchange student, a group of us were getting ready to go swimming when we noticed this one local girl still had her earrings in. We reminded her to take them out, and she showed us (with a few good tugs) that they wouldn’t come out. I think all of us exchange students cringed in unison. So apparently they can get permanently stuck–this was in a Latin American country where girls’ ears were routinely pierced in infancy and this girl had probably had hers for 16 years–but it would probably take a long time and quite a lack of attention. I don’t know if she ever had them (surgically?) removed. Suck to go through life with the same gold studs.
Anyway, I don’t know about twisting. I just thought I’d share.
I’ve had 15 piercings of lobes and cartilage, plus other facial and miscellaneous parts pierced. In the cases of them being done in tattoo shops where a hoop was inserted, at cleaning time the hoop was to be moved through the piercing. When I had studs done, those were to be rotated. In any case, slow and gentle moving was done after some soaking (after/during showering is easiest) and a dot of plain gentle liquid soap and water is all that’s needed. Anti-bacterial soap was expressly not recommended. Peroxide is a total no-no and probably contributed to slow healing mentioned upthread - it damages tissue.
People took their earrings out to go swimming? Why?
My own baby studs wouldn’t have come out with a tug, but a slow twist did the trick painlessly. Sometimes you don’t need to apply more force but smarter force.
Don’t twist.
You know, I don’t remember (I didn’t have pierced ears at the time) so I don’t know if we were afraid of them getting lost or afraid of them getting tangled in something.
Well, that little lying B…
Thanks for finding that so I didn’t have to!
As an update, I followed WhyNot’s advice - what did she say, again? Oh yeah, don’t twist My ears came out fine.