I'm writing this for the benefit of everyone who gets a cartilage piercing or any other similar piercing (rook, etc.); it seems like it's a tricky area because it's very susceptible to infection and complications. I had initially gotten my cartilage pierced with a gun and it had developed a strange, green pussy infection, so I drained it and when it didn't get better, took the piercing out. It healed fine but I still wanted that area pierced pretty badly.
At A Glance Author anonymous Contact anonymous@bme.anon When A month ago Studio chameleon Location cambridge, ma I was super excited to get the piercing again; I heard about this place called "Chameleon Body Arts" in Harvard Square in Cambridge, and I got signed up to get my cartilage pierced. The signing up for the piercing, the waiting for the piercing, and the piercing itself took about five minutes, total. My piercer (I forget his name, but he was great!) had everything sterilized, wore gloves, and got the piercing from a little plastic bag, so I knew everything was clean. I told him to pierce like a millimeter below where my first cartilage piercing was. He put a little dot on my ear and asked me if the spot was ok; I said yes. I was bracing myself for the worst, but as soon as you start feeling the pain, it goes away. You also get a kind of endorphin high after you get it done.
I looked at it in the mirror; I was thrilled! I had minimal bleeding, and it looked healed already. Yay, I thought to myself.
But although the initial piercing was without much complication, about five days after I got it pierced, my ear started throbbing and got really really red. I was perplexed as to why this was, because I wasn't bumping it or even sleeping on it (READ: do NOT sleep on your piercing at ALL during the healing process, just to be safe.) It hurt to touch, so much so that I had to take ibuprofen and was up to the maximum recommended dosage per day! Naturally I freaked out, and went back to the piercer to see if it was infected. He said that it wasn't infected, it was my body finally realizing there was a piercing there and inciting a healing response.
Phew! I thought...at least it wasn't seriously infected. I went back home, chilled out a little, and just decided to grin and bear it. I took ibuprofen for the pain and also because I heard it reduces inflammation and the chance of infection (unless you have an oral piercing, do NOT take aspirin!) I continued with my sea salts, too; sometimes it's hard to soak your ear completely in the water, so you can use cotton balls and put those up to your ear. What I ended up doing was actually getting a little circular tupperware thingie and laying on my side and soaking the whole thing, just because I wanted the water to reach absolutely everywhere. I'm a little OCD like that :)
I really loved the way my piercing looked and everything was going swimmingly until about a month after the procedure.
I looked in the mirror and saw a little bump growing on my ear, on the front part of the piercing, right above the hole where the needle was inserted.
Oh NO, I thought. I had read other entries on this site that basically say that scar tissue, such as I thought was forming on my ear (apparently "hypertrophic" or raised scars happen very often on people with fair skin), was EXTREMELY hard to get rid of once it started. So I frantically searched the internet looking for some kind of help.
What I found were (besides sea salt soaks) two answers: tea tree oil, and hydrocortisone cream (like "cortaid," you can get it at the drugstore). Instead of deciding on one treatment, I decided to hedge my bets and use each one, once a day on the forming scar tissue on my ear.
Lo and behold, everything went away in a week!!! I was thrilled. Now the area looks almost TOO healed (totally soft, and white) so I'm going to let it do it's own thing for a few days, but go back to tea tree oil just to keep the area dry and disinfected.
Unless your ear is really and truly infected (in which case I'd go to see your piercer AND your doctor, because these things on rare occasion have serious complications), keep at the aftercare until the piercing looks the way you want it! Even if it is infected, many suggest not to take the piercing out because it drains the fluid in the ear.
Be good to your ear, even if it has a weird reaction. If you have hypertrophic scarring, try the cortaid and tea tree oil, both once a day (more if you dare, but limit applications to three times a day). It can only help; do it when the scarring starts and nip it in the bud.
I love my piercing now, and it looks completely beautiful. Fight the good fight, and happy piercing!