At A Glance
Author	Deadly Poison
Contact	kayleigh.a.smith@gmail.com
When	A month ago
Artist	Debbie
Studio	Piercings By Debbie
Location	Stamford, Lincolnshire, UK

I shall pick up where my last snug piercing left off. I had it for about 6 months in all, it was doing pretty well but for the last 4 months of the piercing I had rather a bad HS lumps, one outside one inside, the inside lump cleared up quite well over the course of 2 weeks, but during the last 6 weeks of the piercing the outside lump got progressively worse, so I decided to go see the doctor who had successfully cauterized a lump off my scaffold 3 weeks previous, no complications the lump disappeared. The cauterizing was not painful, slightly itchy during the procedure; I only asked her to cauterize the lump not the surrounding tissue as I didn't have problems with the actual piercing or surrounding area. The problems began as soon as she had finished, I went to the ladies to see what she had done and she had not only cauterized the lump, she had cauterized the inside, the area around the lump and right next to the piercing itself, it became very apparent she had over cauterized the area. I had to go to work that day after the appointment, I visited my piercer, Debbie, who told me to clean it with water only as she didn't know what anything else would do to it. When I got home I followed my piercers' instructions and cleaned it with cool water and Q-Tips. It easily and painfully pulled off the cauterized skin; it was shortly after this cleaning that I had to remove the piercing, it took me a few minutes to stop the bleeding, but it took a further three weeks for it to heal down, it was only then we realised I had lost a very small amount of my ear, (noticeable to me and my parents but nobody else).







It healed surprisingly well, I had taken it out October 31st (I only remember this because I was stressing that I had to tie my hair back out the way, instead of leaving it down for Halloween) I won't deny it was not only painful to keep clean, but a complete pain... because every time I cleaned it, it bled. It became very sensitive for the duration of the cautery injury healing. By mid January it had healed down quite well, but had left two dimples where the piercing used to be, quite obvious, to me atleast, which had driven me crazy since the end of December. I had been trying to figure what I could have done to fill in the gap where my snug used to be, without getting it re done. My ear looked bare. I was slightly annoyed by the dimples being there and the piercing not, so I took a barbell and tried to shove it back through myself (not the best idea), unfortunately due to the angle at which I had to push the bar, and the piercing being in a damned awkward spot, I could only get it half way through. No blood though. Knowing I was only going to be annoyed by the dimples and lack of piercing I decided to get it re-pierced instead of a conch piercing. The piercing itself went easily, Debbie set up the instruments, and we decided on a straight barbell as it moved less and would not irritate, I barely felt the piercing itself, only when the canular was being swapped for the jewellery, was it a little sore. Debbie said it wasn't as hard as she was expecting at all, as must not have been healed all the way through yet. She then called me a prat for trying to re do it myself. I got HS lumps again, a large one on the inside of the piercing that masqueraded as swelling for a good week or so, and one on the outside that was exactly where the problem lump had been those months previous. Neither looked very sore or unhappy so I left them alone and cleaned my piercing as I had been doing, with 6% hydrogen peroxide (20 vols). The inside lump disappeared after a few days but the outer lump started to cause me problems, bleeding and weeping most of the time, the peroxide was no longer cleaning it and was just painful and messy. After another couple of days, the lump, imploded when I was cleaning it, and decided to bleed uncontrollably for a good half an hour, not even applying pressure to it would stop the blood, after around half an hour the blood has just about stopped enough for my to try and clean it out, which was when I realised I had a hole in my ear where the lump had been, quite a way in as well, atleast half way through. I wasn't expecting to have complications from the cauterizing procedure, but it seems I have them. My piercer, Debbie, is however happy with the healing and assures me it's doing fine.

No matter what, the lumps, bumps and blood, this time it stays – I wont get it done a fourth time.