piercing jewelry

I got this message from a piercee who is having trouble with  a labret (lip) piercing:

I got my labret pierced on the 3rd of december, and in the last couple days the skin on the inside of my piercing has grown (like a white flap on the bottom of the disc about 1mm tall) that rests next to the disc. i don't know whether it would be growing over it, i have a 10mm long stem which i thought is long enough, but i would still like your opinion

I told her that if she thinks the tissue is growing over the jewelry, she should should see her piercer IMMEDIATELY for a jewelry change! I also explained that I couldn't really evaluate a piercing without seeing it--or at least a photo or two. I requested that she send some clear, close up images, and I received these (below). They do show that the post is long enough so she is not in danger of the jewelry becoming embedded (which is a risk when a piercing is healing if the jewelry is too short).

I received a message from a woman who needed advice about her hood piercing:

I removed my HCH piercing when I was pregnant with my 3 year old. I couldn't get the piercing in after I had the baby.  About a month ago my husband and I decided to try again.  We used his cock piercing ring which was a bigger gauge with a bigger ball because we were unable to place the ball on my ring.  Within 3 days I could barely walk due to the piercing.  I am not sure if the gauge was too big on his ring for my piercing or we didn't clean everything properly.  I am healed now and I want to put the piercing in again.  What is the proper way to clean the ring and what is the best size? Or is there a trick to those pesky closing balls?
Thanks in advance for your help!
M.

Hi M.,
Inserting an even larger size after a piercing has been out is a recipe for problems. So is inserting jewelry that has not been sterilized in an autoclave.
Is there a reason you don't want to get help from a professional piercer? We have tools called insertion tapers that allow us to gently insert jewelry. There is a bit of a trick to getting the balls in, and most piercers are very adept at it!

This is a brief introduction to insertion tapers from my book:

Here is an email exchange that started as a comment to one of my other posts:

Hey, I wanted to know if I could ask a question about a VCH that was done MONTHS ago (at least 5) and might be rejecting.How do I know?  Would I be able to send a picture and you tell me.. or can I find a picture online?

My response: You are welcome to email me a photo or two to: angel@piercingbible.com and I'd be happy to take a look. What problems are you having that make you feel concerned about this? To see photos and a diagram of properly placed VCH piercings go here: http://ringsofdesire.com/femalegenital.html and http://ringsofdesire.com/q_tip.html. Or, you can watch me do the piercing here. Marie wrote again: