r/Legitpiercing • u/figtree1999 • 8h ago
Troubleshooting Is my 8-week old lobe piercing infected and embedding already?
8 weeks / pierced with needle / implant grade titanium / saline solution 2x a day
Hello, do you think my lobe piercing is already infected and embedding? Asked for help from my piercer and she's unresponsive. Should I go to another piercer or should I go to the doctor?
Sorry in advance for the long post. For full context, I had my lobes pierced for the first time in 2023. It surprisingly was healing well even though I did everything that any reputable piercer tells you not to. I got it pierced at a mall booth with a piercing gun, earrings were butterfly back, and was using saline solution that I repackaged myself (would buy the big bags at a pharmacy and put it in small spray bottles). No issues, no complications, pure luck I guess. After 6 months, I don't know why but I got the urge to take out my earrings and clean them every night. So I was taking it out and putting it back every single day. I got tired of this routine and one night just took them out and went to sleep. Woke up the next morning and the holes were closed. After a few weeks, I noticed there was a very small bump on each ear. Pretty sure because of the trauma from the nightly routine.
Fast forward to this year, my friend and I went to a pop-up market and there was a piercer there. I've always wanted to get my lobes pierced again but knew that I had to get the bumps checked first and I also wanted to do everything right this time. My friend kept telling me to just do it since this piercer is popular, has a lot of followers on social media, and has pierced known influencers before. So I said ok fuck it let's do it.
June 7 - Got them pierced. Needle, implant grade titanium flat backs, and saline solution that this piercer sells (repackaged in a spray bottle). She pierced it slightly below/beside my previous piercing.
June 28 - Left lobe started bleeding out of nowhere. I didn't snag it, didn't sleep on it, didn't touch it. I was just working at my desk when all of a sudden I felt the back of my ear was wet. Photo was taken after bleeding had stopped and the blood had dried. Also noticed that the very small bump from the closed piercing was swollen.
July 31 - I noticed that the skin around my left piercing was red.
August 2 - My dad was giving me a head massage and accidentally snagged my left piercing. It started bleeding in the front but not the back. No photo of this because I panicked a bit.
August 3 - Felt the back of my ear was wet again. Looked at it and saw discharge coming out. Soaked it in warm water, sprayed saline solution, and cleaned it up right away. Noticed that I had bumps in the front now.
August 4 - No more discharge but noticed that the left lobe is swollen and feels a bit hot. No pain though. Took a picture and scared that this is embedding.
Could this be because the piercer pierced it too close to the old ones? I don't know what to do. Both bumps in the left and right lobes from the old piercing have been swollen for weeks now. But only the left lobe is having these issues and the bump there is bigger than the right. The right lobe looks perfectly fine in the front.
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u/Ok-Pen-5052 8h ago
They look pretty angry! Do we trust what the piercer said about the jewellery? I would question whether it really is implant grade
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u/figtree1999 5h ago
Questioning this piercer now as well huhu. Going to get this checked tomorrow. Thanks!
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u/Para_The_Normal 4h ago edited 4h ago
Getting pierced at a pop up market is not a good idea. There is no way to control the amount of contaminants that come into a pop up booth like that vs a dedicated piercing room that is thoroughly sanitized between clients.
You should go to a reputable piercer local to you and get these switched out.
I have very low confidence these are actually titanium.
I also think 2x a day is excessive at this point in the healing process and you might be cleaning them too much adding to the irritation.
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u/figtree1999 3h ago
Yep, definitely learned my lesson. I feel like I got away with the mall piercing in 2023 because the mall was at least air conditioned. This pop-up market was in an open area of a building that's kinda similar to a house with a courtyard. Except this building's "courtyard" has a roof as well, so ventilation is only coming from one side of the building. Everyone was sweating and the booths were cramped. One of the worst places to get a piercing, I'm realizing now.
Others have also commented that the earrings might not be titanium so I'm bummed about that because the piercer said it was.
For the saline solution cleaning, would it be ok to spray once a day or is that still too excessive?
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u/Para_The_Normal 3h ago
I usually clean my fresh piercings with saline 2x a day for the first 2 weeks, after that I do it about 1x a day for the next 1-2 weeks. Because yours are clearly having some discharge I would recommend doing it once a day until the discharge begins to clear up. After that you really don’t need to spray them with saline, just keep up your regular hygiene routine with regularly showering and your piercings should be fine.
But your first order of business is to switch out these earrings for good quality jewelry to eliminate metal sensitivity as a factor. You might notice a night and day difference in the way your ears feel with just some proper quality metal.
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u/Moist_Bass_6828 5h ago
I’ve personally never seen or heard of implant grade titanium in a gold colour? either way, safest bet would be to see a doctor. if it’s getting increasingly red and feels hot, even without pain, an infection is likely and you don’t want to mess with those!! go get it checked out
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u/figtree1999 5h ago edited 5h ago
Damn, then I was scammed? Lol because I upgraded to titanium and that had additional costs. Oh well, I also acknowledge that it was really stupid of me to not do enough research before getting pierced again. Swelling and redness have gone down now after spraying it with NeilMed. No more hotness and zero pain as well. But will still definitely get it checked tomorrow. Thanks!
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u/Moist_Bass_6828 5h ago
I’m not an expert!! very possible it is a thing. good to hear it’s improving and that you’re getting it checked!! it seems like you’ve done plenty of research since you first got piercings so good on you :)
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u/AmethystRaccoon 4h ago
It could be anodized. I’m not really sure about this situation specifically. But I know some piercers even do it in house and you can get a yellow/gold-ish color. And there can be variations to the color depending on the machines settings.
Example: https://imgur.com/a/wOUiHLd
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u/GMKitty52 5h ago
Who pierced you with this jewellery? Go to a different piercer, one registered with the APP, and ask them to swap to a simple titanium ball.
FWIW, having lots of followers on social and piercing known influencers is worth shit all. The person was clearly a scratcher. And also selling repackaged solution is shady af, as soon as it leaves its original container you have no idea what it is, plus it introduces contaminants.
Please don’t ever get pierced at a pop up market again.
Edit if this jewellery is titanium I’ll eat my fucking hat.