Question:
Greetings, all – and Happy New Year. As the subject header says, I am having Big Trouble with a keloid on the exit side of my relatively new ear cartilage pierce. Here’s the story .. Was pierced about 10 weeks ago at by a professional piercer in Toronto (Ontario, Canada). The hole is on the rim of the ear, about half way up. I have been very good with cleaning, according to piercer’s instructions: warm water & epsom salt soaks 2-3 times/day, hands etc. off, and so on. Despite my best efforts, the pierce became infected. My doctor was very supportive (unlike the fellow at the walk-in clinic who took one look and wanted to pull the ring!). I was on oral antibiotics for almost 3 wks. The infection seems to have passed, but the pierce is not healing. There is a largish, active lump on the exit side (back) of the ear … it was relatively inert for a while, giving me hope that when the infection healed, the lump would gradually resorb. In the past week however, it has become painful, and continues to ooze, sometimes bloody fluid. I am *very* discouraged. I have tried incresind the soaks, icing the lump, aspirin paste and aspririn creme (Aspercreme) at my doctors’s suggestion. She also gave me an antibiotic creme which has no effect on the lump itself. At my initial visit, she said we should give it at least 6 months to settle before woryying too much about the keloid (if it was one – it was only just forming then). I plan to see her again this week, and am feeling like pulling the ring may be the only way to go … sigh. If anyone has any suggestions for tactics I have not yet tried, I’d appreciate hearing them. Also, in your vast collective experience, if I pull this ring, should I worry about this happening again? Was it a product of the infection? of my cleaning regimen? I like this pierce (my first non-lobe), and had been planning others – but all is now on hold until I achieve some resolution with this one. Frustrated, Allison
Response:
Well Allison, I don’t mean to put a downer on things but I had a similar thing going on round the back of my ear ( up top thro’ the cart.) It had healed fine so as with my other pierces I gave up on the cleaning and got on with my life. 3 weeks later I noticed that my ear was a little sore ! There was this huge lupm growing out along the ring. Not your usual big pusy spot but more of a hard lump. So back to the cleaning I went. Two years, 3 re-pierces, alot of sadness and various jewellery later, the best I can manage is a small lump within my ear. To cheer myself up I’m trying to decide on a nice ‘below the neck’ pierce to do. I’d like a frenum but the thought of a bad infection down there is a bit worrying!!! The only thing I could suggest is to put in jewellery that is smaller than the original pierce guage, but once the lump is there I think the best thing to do is to take the ring out and put it in somewhere else… Let your imagination run riot, Happy New Year, Paul
Response:
snip > Was pierced about 10 weeks ago at by a professional piercer in Toronto > (Ontario, Canada). The hole is on the rim of the ear, about half way up. snip > I am *very* discouraged. I have tried incresind the soaks, icing the > lump, aspirin paste and aspririn creme (Aspercreme) at my doctors’s > suggestion. She also gave me an antibiotic creme which has no effect on > the lump itself. At my initial visit, she said we should give it at > least 6 months to settle before woryying too much about the keloid (if it > was one – it was only just forming then). I plan to see her again this > week, and am feeling like pulling the ring may be the only way to go …
snippety snip You don’t mention what sort of stud/ring you have. After I had my nose pierced a small keloid developed on the inside. I tried heaps of things to get rid of it, but in the end decided that I could live with it (Which I did for two years.) Three weeks ago I changed the ring (silver) for a SSS ring [do so like those bright and shiny things 
] and the keloid has now disappeared *completely*. I have lots of silver earrings and have never had any problems with them, but it seems that cart. pierces can be more sensitive to the type of metal. [Anyone else found this?] hang in there dude. Xian
Response:
>Allison A Taylor lamented about a keloid-type lump on her cartilage
pierce. >You don’t mention what sort of stud/ring you have… >…Three weeks ago I changed the ring (silver) for a SSS ring [do so >like those bright and shiny things ] and the keloid has now disappeared >*completely*.
People react differently to different metals. As we have discussed here before, sterling silver is not the optimal metal to wear on pierces, especially if they are not healed. For myself, I had my tragus pierced with an SSS bead ring, and while it never got "infected," it kept crusting for a year! I finally changed to a niobium (which is more inert, apparently), and the crusties and flakies seem to have disappeared! — UH School of Library & Info Studies. "Whatever the cost of our o|<0_0>——* libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant =^-| |_| | nation." -Walter Cronkite [R.a.b.bit--FAQ Maintainer: "Think Ink!"] _B}_B}
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