OK, I get these things all the time and I know I’m not alone - the only two people I’ve mentioned them to get them also. Little spherical shaped lumps in the earlobe that appear and disappear over a week or two. My question is - what are they and can they be destroyed? I suppose technically this is a medical question, but I refuse to annoy my doctor with earlobe lumps, so I hope the mods will let this one through.
Pimples/blackheads, perhaps?
The only lumps in my earlobes are leftover scar tissue from when they were pierced, and they don’t go away.
I have one in my left earlobe. S’been there, oh, about ten years.
glares at uglybeech for having ones what go away after a week
Mine are whiteheads. I just squeeze them.
Are they tender when prodded? If so it’s most likely a pimple, since you mentioned it eventually clears up. If it has no sensation, then you got me. If you’re really concerned, see a doc.
I get them too. They aren’t exactly like a pimple or an infection. Sometimes I pick at them and they bleed, but no pus or anything. I’ve wondered what they are myself. They come and go. Sometimes I have ones that last for months.
My mom calls them keloids.
(What could “stuirring” possibly mean?)
I’ve had these before, inside my earlobe. If it’s inside the lobe, it’s not a pimple. The doctor said it was a cyst, and it would shrink and grow. He wasn’t concerned about it, though.
That was my experience as well (including what my doctor told me). I get them in different places on both earlobes, and they go away after a few weeks. If I lance them, I can get lots of gross pus out (like, a lot), but they never come to a head. I usually leave them alone unless they are in an uncomfortable position.
I had a large one of those burst once. Lots of foul-smelling pus all over my shoulder :puke smiley:
I had them and once or twice a year my ear lobes would swell.If I lanced them,I’d get the pus.My doctor said it was an infection that children usually get.I got the bumps(nodes?) removed and I haven’t had a reoccurence since.Minor but I’m glad I got rid of it.
I have one where my pierce is and it shrinks and grows and I have never worried about it. I once had a rather painful lump on my ear, it turned out to be an ingrown hair. My friend Michelle fixed it for me. What a great friend.
I have one that’s been there for 35 years. It’s a cyst. It came about at a time when I was prone to getting boils on my earlobe. Talk about painful!
I’ve also had zits there; they create a tender lump which eventually erupts to the surface, like any other zit. Maybe your immune system gets rid of them before they get to that point.
Sometimes, they’re pimples. Other times, they’re something else entirely. Last year, I had one that got infected, and lemme tell ya, that was freakin’ nasty. My earlobe got very firm, very purple, and jutted out at an odd angle. When my neck started to feel tender, I did a “oh crap, it’s spreading” and ran to the doctor’s office. He agreed with me that it was an infected sebaceous cyst, and it had to go.
I tried to relax while lying on my side, while he put a drape over my ear and shot my ear full of something to numb it (which made my ear feel even MORE distended and painful), then sliced the back open with a scalpel. The nurse later told me that the foulness which issued forth hit two walls behind the doctor. Anyway, he squoze that sucker dry, which made a sickening loud cracking sound, then packed the lobe with gauze soaked in Betadine or something and sent me on my merry way (after I got over the queasiness of having something packed inside my earlobe) with a prescription for some antibiotics. I oozed a bit for the rest of the afternoon.
The next day, I had to have my then-fiancee pull out the gauze, about which she was not thrilled. But, we both survived. Nasty, nasty.
OK thanks all for your personal earlobe vignettes, which at least let me know not to mess with them - I could live without foul pus spewing out of my lobes. I still don’t understand how they got there, since they’re not like a pimple, but are completely buried under the skin. Or for that matter, why I don’t get random pus-filled lumps anywhere else. But I suppose there are some thing’s man isn’t meant to know.