body piercings

I received a question and photo from a woman who has an ear cartilage piercing that is experiencing problems. Below is a somewhat condnesed version of our correspondence:

I've read your book many times, but I wanted to seek guidance from the author herself! I got my helix pierced at a tattoo and piercing parlor about 3 weeks ago.  The piercer put a rather large ring in my piercing with a bead.  

He then told me to clean the piercing with alcohol and Dial soap (I knew better after reading your book, so I just nodded and smiled).

Instead, I did nightly sea salt soaks, but the piercing seemed fine after about a week- in fact, it felt and appeared to be fully healed.

 However, about 4 days ago, it started to feel warm and red.  2 days ago, the skin around it (basically the top half of my ear) is very warm to the touch, purplish red, and sore (the piercing throbs).  However, there is no strange discharge or swelling from it- all of the discharge is clear to light yellow and it's very minimal and there is no swelling.  What's going on with my piercing? The bump looks a little more irritated than usual because I just got out of sparring practice and had a good amount of contact with my ear.  

Unfortunately, I was unable to go and get the jewelry changed as I left for school a few days after.  The piercing is not painful, tender, or warm (although I can't lay on it, that's not surprising as I usually can't lay on my ears in general).

 

I received a message from a woman whose nostril I pierced. Unfortunately, they started to give her a hard time about wearing the jewelry at work. So she got in a clear quartz crystal retainer and concealed it:

Hope your well and your travels are treating you good.  Well, today is one day shy of three months from the initial nostril puncture piercing.  Yay!  I have pulled it off.  I still have the clear retainer being covered with a hole punched micro pore skin tone bandage, but is it safe to remove now without risking the piercing site from closing?  If I can remove it when having to be here at work Wed, Thurs and Fri and replace it Friday evenings upon arriving home?
 
Please advise when time permits.

My reply:

I'm glad to hear that it is still in and that the tape has been working for you with the retainer.

Unfortunately, 3 months is the minimum time that can be expected for the piercing to epithelialize and no longer be an open wound--though it can certainly take longer for initial healing to take place. Some find the piercing takes 6-9 months or so to heal!

I received a message from a woman I'd pierced previously. She went to a different piercer to get her nipples done and ended up with initial jewelry that was inappropriate (too small):

Good morning Elayne,
I wish to thank you for your help and insight in regards to my recent nipple piercings that I did for my husband's birthday in Key West, Florida. It will be one month tomorrow since the piercing was done. They seem to be healing ok, no pain, but I am getting a thick, yellow-greenish discharge on an almost daily basis from each nipple. Is this NORMAL? I clean the daily crustys off with a saline soaked Q-tip, and I am trying to get at least two saline soaks in each day (however, somedays I only get one in).

I am concerned about having the ring in and having the piercing not straight (rounded on the ends) and am wondering if I can exchange the jewelry and put in a straight bar for the  rest of the healing period?

Also, you had mentioned to my husband that if we wanted to "play" with them, that it would have been better to have gone to a 14 gauge. If I do this, is the healing process the same, and will it have any effect on the looks due to being re-pierced? Hopefully, if I do this I will only have you do it...I will check your schedule and see where you are going to be.
Thank you again for all your help and expert advise.

My reply:

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I received a message from a woma who wanted to put a "belly button ring" in her  vertical clitoral hood (VCH) piercing.

I just have a quick question. I got my VCH done back in the beginning of June. I was just wondering if it was safe to put a standard belly button ring in the VCH piercing, or does it require a completely different kind of ring? I was also wondering if it would be too soon to change it? It's been a very painless process and I was able to be sexually active a week after getting it pierced with no complications. Thanks for you time.

My reply:

I received a message from a woman who had concerns about her recent tongue piercing:

Okay so I got my tongue pierced Tuesday and this is how it looks not on Friday. Is that just bruising? Is it normal? It bleeds whenever I sleep so I think I'm just biting it...my boyfriend had his pierced a couple months ago and it healed completely different...do I need to go see the piercer?

My reply:
Bleeding, bruising and swelling are all normal consequences of piercing. I couldn't tell for sure, but it didn't look very swollen, so it seems yours is doing the first of the two more than the last. It is more common for the tongue to swell instead, but your reaction isn't necessarily abnormal.

That said, it couldn't hurt to pay  your piercer a visit. They ca get a lot clearer look at it than I can from here.

Is this the oral aftercare instructions you're following?

Here are some additonal suggestions from The Piercing Bible that could prove helpful to you:

Below is my correspondence with a young woman who is having trouble healing her nipple piercings. They've been taking an extended period of time to heal, and get bumps (possibly localized piercing pimples) periodically:

I've had my nipple piercings for over a year now, and they're still healing, which is fine with me, however they keep forming bumps. The bumps will appear for awhile, go away, and then come back; it's been doing this for about 3-4 months now (and gets worse when i'm menstruating). I also believe that they may have migrated from the original position they were pierced in. I've considered retiring them for the past two months, but I'm just not sure if they're being fussy or if I should actually retire them. Any help you could give would be amazing!

I have read through the troubleshooting part of the Piercing Bible again to see what I could do to help these bumps; i've been very consistent with warm saline soaks, i've been massaging emu oil onto the area at least once a day, i've tried chamomile teabag compresses, one piercer suggested I try neem oil (which worked for a bit, but stopped helping after awhile), and I very briefly applied peroxide to the bumps (less than a week) to see if that would help them disappear. They do seem to get smaller and go away, every now and then, but they keep coming back.

Below is some correspondence with a gentleman who was having trouble healing his second set of nipple piercings:

Dear Elayne,

First off, I want to thank you for all the things you've done for the piercing and body modification community. You are truly a pioneer and have helped so many of us along our journeys with your work and writing. 

I have been having some trouble with a newer nipple piercing and have been unable to resolve the problems I've run into, so I figured that I would turn to the most knowledgable person I know of when it comes to piercings, you.

About two months ago I got my nipples pierced a second time, I already had a set of well healed and toughened horizontals for years.  The piercings were done complication free, tucked right behind the existing horizontals at the base of the nipple, possibly ever so slightly into the areola.  They began to heal relatively problem free and I commenced with my usual aftercare of daily Provon washes and twice daily sea salt soaks.