I received a message from a woman who experienced a problem with a Vertical Clitoral Hood (VCH) piercing that was almost a year old: (I did not perform the piercing)

I've recently noticed a smallish bump under the top ball of the bar in my VCH piercing. It isn't painful to the touch, I really can't feel it at all, and nothing's coming out of it, but it's visibly noticeable. I've had the piercing for almost a year now and it healed easily without any issues at first, this is really recent. I have been taking the jewelry out for short periods of time while getting laser hair removal treatments, could is have prompted my body to start producing scar tissue?

I got a taper to make the jewelry removal / reinsertion process easier thinking it might be a cause or contributing factor to the issue, but I'm not sure if I should seek out a doctor's opinion (or a piercer's?) I'm afraid a doctor will just be piercing-negative and tell me to take it out. Any advice is appreciated!

My reply:

Are you wearing internally threaded jewelry? Do you have a pin-coupling or barbell style insertion taper?

Are you protecting the area with something during the treatments? That would be wise. I've advised leaving jewelry in and using a clean set of the mini eye-goggles that are used in tanning booths. See photo above. These are very helpful to protect hood piercings during laser treatments or waxing.
 
Since the piercing is so old and was doing fine previously, I do have to imagine that the problem was caused by taking your jewelry in and out, especially before you got the taper! Since there's no secretion then maybe you've got some hypertrophic scar tissue formation there. Check this page of my site, which outlines how to identify it and some things you can try to combat it.

She replied:

Yes, it is internally threaded jewelry, and the taper is a screw one, but I only recently got it. Up until now I've been inserting the jewelry without much of a problem, although it does take me a while as I have to do it very slowly and carefully. Tanning goggles are definitely not something I would've thought of, I'll ask my laser technician about the idea. Thank you for your help.

You've confirmed my suspicion that the problem was caused by the trauma of jewelry insertion and removal. See if you can let it stay put and check out the information on NoPull Piercing Disc, which can be very helpful for that type of scar tissue formation.