I receied a message from a woman who was experiencing some problems with her VCH piercing:

I have attached a few images of my VCH piercing that I got about 6 weeks ago( I have drawn on one of the images to help explain what I am talking about). It was fine for a while, but I think my body is rejecting the piercing. i.e as you will see in the photo the top of the piercing has ripped through, this started as a small rip but the piercing was still fine, so I started cleaning it again so try and start the healing process, 2 days later I noticed that it had completely ripped through, which doesnt bother me too much, just thought my piercing would be a bit smaller now, however I got home yesterday from work and the top ball had gone into the top of the piercing. I have now placed the jewlery so that it is sitting higher, but it will fall straight back down if I try and do any big movements (i.e. exercise!!)

Let me know if you want me to try and take a photo a bit different. But yeah basically I have half the amount of skin holding onto the piercing then I had a week ago.

I was hoping that you would be able to give me some advise on what to do, if I should take it out, if it has been placed wrong (i have just been looking at your website and this seems to be the biggest issue) and I am also a bit worried after reading your site that maybe I didnt have enough skin on the hood to start with and shouldnt have got this piercing at all.

Please advise as soon as you can, in the meantime I am going to get some lighter jewlery to see if this helps and talk to the only piercing place in the town that I now live in so see if they have any advise.
Regards,

My reply:

Sorry--I've got some bad news: you're going to have to take your jewelry out and abandon that piercing.

Due to the migration and tissue loss you have experienced, the piercing is too close to the edge of your hood for safety at this point.

After it settles down, you can check using the q-tip test here to see if your hood is deep enough to try again, but for safety, the new piercing would need to be a few millimeters higher up than where this one started out.

Also, you would need to wear lighter jewelry. I think that for you, the lower ball on your bar may be too big for an initial piercing on you.

In the image above left, I marked a spot on your bar that looks like it might be discolored. The photo quality isn't great, but if your jewelry is not high quality (which the image suggests) then that could have been more responsible for your problem than the large ball.