For my own records, and for anyone else that, like me, browsed around the internet to figure out what the heck was going on with my industrial piercing.
Day 0:
I got my industrial piercing on Friday, the 21st. For the first two hours, it was red, painful, and throbbing like curaaazzyy. Surprisingly, after the first two hours, it calmed down a lot and settled, no longer hurting very much. I applied solution after I got home, sea salt soaked after shower, and solutioned again before I went to bed.
Day 1 – 5:
It didn’t even hurt! There wasn’t really any swelling and barely red.
For these days, I applied solution twice a day and sea salt soaked every other day, since my ear seemed to be doing pretty well recovering. From hereon after, I won’t mention it but by default, I solutioned twice a day and sea salt soaked everyday. I didn’t rinse my ear after applying solution and soaks, which I probably should have done.
Day 6:
I think this morning, my ear was getting itchy, which I remember to be pretty normal from my previous piercings. While at work, my ear started to throb more. It might be because I might have accidentally scratched somewhere around it, and I do remember turning it a little. My jaw felt tighter this day but I’m not sure if this had anything to do with the piercing (even though I’m not sure what the reason would be). I didn’t have any of my solution/sea salt with me so I went to the nearby Walgreen’s to look for some piercing solution. They didn’t have any so I asked the pharmacy people who were around. They told me that using alcohol swabs should work. I later researched online and realized that I was totally not supposed to use this on my piercing (supposedly, the alcohol dries it out). I went home later that night and did the regular sea salt soaking and solution. The top piercing area started swelling this day.
Day 7:
The ear was still throbbing and red in the morning. I brought my materials to work. Because it was still throbbing, I applied solution to it a few times, which I think I might have overdid and irritated it more than it needed to be. At some point, the side of my head closest to the piercing started hurting like crazy, so I took some Tylenol. (Apparently, ibuprofen is supposed to be the best drug to take because it’s an anti-inflammatory drug.) My headache went away and I think I managed to be okay for most of the afternoon. When I got home, I sea salt soaked for a few minutes to ease it out.
I was more or less fine (or just occupied) until later on that night. Maybe it was from all the energy exertion from singing karaoke for a few hours with my favorite karaokeist, or maybe it’s cuz I use too many of my facial muscles when I x10 laugh (very plausible, mind you), but I got soooo exhausted and my head was starting to hurt again. Needless to say, my ear was throbbing. (Yes. I sang so much, my ear hurt.)
Additionally, near the end of the night, I noticed that a bump had formed behind my earlobe. That x10 freaked me out and I basically tried to chill out for the rest of the night. (Also because I was feeling exhausted.)
Day 8:
After a good night’s rest, the pain definitely seemed to have lessened, but was still not as gracefully comfortable as the first few days of the piercing. When I woke up, there was some light greenish pus around the top piercing (closest to my eye), with a spec of blood on it. I felt exhausted and didn’t even feel like talking this day (maybe from the x10 energy exertion day).
Henry took me back to Zebra so the piercists could take a look at it. I told them that my head around the piercing has been hurting a lot, and that the top pierced area has been swelling. They confidently said that it was fine and normal. Thank goodness.
Then, I asked them about the lump behind my earlobe. The bump isn’t really visibly noticeable so I don’ think they saw it. They gave me confused looks, “Behind your earlobe? Hmmm I’ve never heard of that before. That shouldn’t be related–just impeccable timing with your new piercing.” Ooooooookaaaayyyy *slightly still panicking again*
Nevertheless, the placebo effect of knowing that the pain and swelling was normal was totally making me feel better. (“This placebo effect is totally working!”) I got some ibuprofen to get rid of the headache and napped for a few hours, definitely making me feel better when I woke up.
Later on that night, there was some pus at the top hole again, and some coming out from the other end of the hole (the top inner piercing). I made sure to thoroughly rinse off the sea salt water and solution this day, when I didn’t really bother too much before.
Day 9:
My ear and head most definitely felt better yesterday. Noticeably, I could feel that the muscles around my ear (and where I was getting the most headaches, closest to the top piercing) would strain when I laughed/smiled too much. (HOW TRAGIC!) I probably busted something around there on Friday from laughing/singing too much, too forcefully for too long.
There was crust around the top holes in the morning. I cleaned it off and thankfully, my ear didn’t bother me too much through the day. It started throbbing a little mid-day and I sea salt soaked to soothe it, which totally worked. I saw that there was still a little bit of pus forming around the top holes, but not a color that was too alarming.
I made sure to follow the cleaning procedures of only treating it 3 times a day, and not being paranoid and going overboard.
At night, when I was cleaning off some of the crust, the top hole had blood after I removed some of the dried pus (maybe I wasn’t gentle enough to not tear anything?). The same for the top inner hole, the other side of the top hole. I didn’t want to irritate the piercing too much so I cleaned it the best I could and rinsed thoroughly. It started to feel really itchy at night.
Day 10:
Today, instead of cleaning off the crust with a wet qtip, I decided to rinse my ear down first with some warm water, which seemed to really help wash off the crust without feeling like I was tearing it off. The top hole definitely bled a lot less. It looks less swollen from three days ago (my ear doesn’t look like it awkwardly sticks out at some weird angle anymore w00t) . And I’m sooo relieved to notice that the bump behind my earlobe has slowly been going away. I think only treating the piercing three times yesterday helped a lot, since it probably minimalizes contact and doesn’t rile any of those nerves up too frequently. It’s less red and less swollen today. W00T!
Hopefully the rest of this day goes well *crosses fingers*
P.S. I’ve been good about not sleeping on it. (Which is kinda ironic since I’m such a wild sleeper–I move all over the place and kick everywhere, but from past experiences, I’m pretty good about not moving to certain sides in my sleep if I have to.) Any abrupt contact would be when I accidentally bump it against my jacket or when I pull a shirt on/off and such. I’ve been pretty good about having it dodge people’s appendages and heads when hugging.
Lessons Learned (this seems to work for me, at least *shrug*):
- Don’t use alcohol to clean piercings
- Don’t turn the piercing too early on
- When remedying the piercing, thoroughly wash everything off.
- Instead of cleaning off crust with a wet qtip, rinse it off with some warm water first.
- Don’t over-treat the piercing–it’ll irritate it more
- Take ibuprofen for piercing headaches (hohohoho piercing headaches!! get it???)
- Get a good amount of rest so that the piercing can do it’s healing thang at night when sleeping.
- Eating healthy is supposed to be good too (even tho I’ve x10 been eating unhealthily).
- Don’t go buck-wild crazy cuz when you do, your new piercing is like yo momma sleeping and yo smile is like the kid that’s trying to wake yo momma up to play catch and yo momma’s like, “Go away! Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep!?” and you know it’s best to just let her sleep, but if you successfully wake her up you know she’ll be pissed off for the whole day just because you woke her up just to play catch! (And depending on what she’s dreaming about when you wake her up, she could even be x10 times more pissed off!)
Edit: 01-02-08:
Day 10 (cont.)
I went to Safeway today and found the Band-Aid Antiseptic Foam that I used for my previous cartiledge piercing which was a really successful piercing experience (I didn’t even do the salt water soaks! All I used was the Band-Aid Foam!). I was thrilled to find it! It’s rather amazing that all the Walgreen’s I went to didn’t have it at all. BOO! I mentally felt relieved to find it!
My ear got a lot better through the rest of the day. I was able to laugh more without hurting my head muscles, and the swelling lump at the back of my earlobe noticeably diminished. (Some sites online say that this is a swollen lymph node that happens because of a collection of pus, indicating that the pus is preventing an infection from spreading to other parts of the body. PHEW!!) I like the foam a lot because it feels a lot less irritating on my skin when using a moist qtip. Plus, the foam seeps into the crevices that I usually can’t reach. Throbbing stopped, and my ear got almost back to normal color. Woohoo!
Day 11:
My ear’s gotten almost back to how it was the first few days of when I got pierced. The only difference now is that it’s ridiculously itchy!! Woohoo! I’m in the clear! My skin’s healing! The trick now is to not scratch it. aldfjaasd Hot water feels sooooo good on it >:O
I’m very glad that it’s back to normal and that I can laugh again! Woohoo!
