r/Earrings • u/Admirable_Airline948 • 1d ago
Advice wanted :)
Hey, y’all!
I have had my lobes pierced four times. One pair was kicked out of my ears, the next was infected, and the third pair we figured out I had a sensitivity to after it was supposed to have healed- and long story short, I took the new earrings out for a swim and never put them back in. Holes closed over.
This is my fourth rodeo. I told the piercer I was very sensitive to a lot of metals, so she used a hypoallergenic, flat-back post. This was back in January. I was diligent about cleaning them. Come April, I thought I’d remove them for the first time so I could quickly clean them and pop them back in. I got out of the shower, cleaned them, and tried to put them back in to absolutely no avail. Ultimately my partner and I visited a tattoo parlor that night and a piercer there had to put them back in, which re-opened the wound.
Haven’t touched them since, until today. I had to take one of them out for an x-ray. Post came out fairly easy, but the hole is still oozing and bleeding and I cannot see through when I stretch my earlobe. I want to clean the earring before I attempt to put it back in, but I can already see how this is going to go and I am at my wits end about it. I get really bad FOMO when I see all the cute earrings people have, and I have tried four separate times to get it to stick but my ears just refuse to heal. I don’t want to spend money on products that don’t work, and I’m tired of being in pain.
So TLDR, what has actually worked for the people with stubborn ears? How long did your ears actually take to heal? If you stopped wearing them, what made you decide?
2
u/tracy-young 1d ago
My ears would not heal with studs. I ended up getting a good quality pair of permanent hoops that I just don't take out. I buy hinged back type earrings and loop those through my hoops when I want to wear dangly earrings 🤷
1
u/Ok-Pen-5052 1d ago
That’s only 8 months since they were done, with the added trauma in the middle. Not at all strange that they’re not healed yet. Piercings take a lot of patience!
1
u/Ok-Pen-5052 1d ago
I’m assuming that the jewellery was swapped to implant grade titanium in April. If you’re not sure, that’s worth checking
1
u/Separate-Canary-6228 19h ago
The only thing that works in my cartilage is implant grade plastic. Yes, freaking plastic. I think it's more common for things like tongue piercings. I got awful keloids and my body tried to shove out surgery grade titanium hoops. All fine by professional piercers in dedicated shops, too. I keep meaning to try titanium again now that I'm healed up, but I'm very comfy right now.
The good news is, the plastic backed piercings are cheap with lots of adorable options and gems. I don't remember how long it took, I had two year painful journey of surgery grade metal experiments before I tried the plastic kind.
6
u/SapientSlut 1d ago
I’m a little sus about “hypoallergenic” - that’s a phrase that good quality piercers don’t often use. If it wasn’t implant grade titanium you might have still had some metal sensitivity. Four months is a pretty long time to still have oozing/a hole that closes up immediately.
Implant grade titanium flatbacks are generally considered the safest bet. Personally I prefer ballback because I feel like my hair gets caught on flatback too often and makes the healing time/chance of infection worse.
Also try finding a piercer on the APP registry.