I go to college about a half hour north of Boston. One afternoon while in the city with some friends I pierced my rook, since I had been wanting to for some time. The piercing itself went really well, except for in the beginning I somewhat embarrassed myself. The piercer marked where he was going to place the piercing...but didn't mention this beforehand, so when he said, "take a look" I got really exciting thinking the entire thing was over. "Wow! That did not hurt at all!" I had said as I walked over to the mirror...and then realized he had not pierced it yet. After I got over feeling incredibly stupid, the piercing went well. It was painful, but not horrible, and after eating some Ben & Jerry's I did not feel too lightheaded afterwards either.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When A year ago Location Boston I took good care of it, washing it with anti-bacterial soap twice a day, and also doing saline soaks. Initially, the healing went really well. It took a few days to a week before I could sleep on that side again, but pretty soon it seemed to be nearly completely healed.
A few months later, however, I began noticing a small bubble forming on the top of the piercing. This started to worry me, and certainly did not look attractive. However, I knew people who had upper cartilage done, which sometimes had bumps on the back of the piercing that was otherwise still healed. I switched to sea salt and bactine on the recommendation of my sister, who has her nose pierced. She said that the sea salt would be more concentrated that my saline, and she just loved the bactine. So I did that, and for awhile it did not seem to get any worse (but did not greatly improve either).
After some more time, it seemed like the bubble had grew, so I headed over to the health center at my college to ask their opinion. This was mildly humorous, as the people working that day happened to be two old ladies who had never seen a piercing in this location of the ear. They seemed quite fascinated that I had gotten it pierced. They advised me to take out the piercing (since the cartilage doesn't get much blood flowing to help with infections) and gave me some bacitracin to help heal it up.
That same day I called my mom, because I really did not want to take the piercing out. I loved it, and also did not want the infection to spread inside once the jewelry was removed. Since I knew I would not be able to take it out myself anyhow, my mom advised me to keep it in, at least until I came home from break and she could look at it herself. (She does not have actual piercing experience, but does have a lot of good motherly instinct with these sorts of things between me and my twin sister.)
So, the bubble continued its gradual growth and soon I went home for break. My mom advised that I try popping the bubble to see if any pus came out. I took one of her sewing needles, disinfected it, and stuck it into the bubble. It went in....but nothing happened. So, I took the needle out and squeezed the bubble to see if anything would come out. Just a little blood. So, I cleaned it with some bactine, which also helped numb it a bit, and tried again. Same thing! I was getting kind of frustrated, and began squeezing pretty hard. Eventually the bubble popped...but nothing was inside! It was just like extra skin that had grown. It was kind of bloody, and at this point I was kind of tired at doing this to my own ear. I showed my mom the deflated bubble was really only skin, and she took a pair of tweezers and removed it from my ear.
To this day, I haven't had any more problems with my rook. A few weeks after break, however, the ladies from the health center called to check up on my ear! They were really interested in knowing how it turned out, so I told them I hadn't removed the piercing but that it had healed up eventually after I had popped the bubble. Perhaps next time someone walks in with an infected piercing, they will know a little bit more! When I had my daith pierced about 6 months after my rook, I had a similar experience with the bubble-phenomena, so it seems that this is the way my body prefers to heal my cartilage piercings. I have 11 ear piercings total, as well as one tattoo, and this has been the only main problem I've ever had with healing. I love my ears, and these bubbles did not cause any permanent scarring in the least, which was quite exciting.