Sunday November 4th, 2007 @ 4:49 PM
Hi there!
Just a quick question about the emla cream. I have had all my piercings so far without using it, but now I got hold of some and I would like to try it for nipple piercings. Thing is, my piercer would prefer I did not use it at all, he has seen some really bad reactions to it. I say problems should only arise if you use it for genital piercings ( I did mine without ) but female nipples should be fine. What do you think? ( I asked this about a month ago, but no answer yet… I know you are busy and this is not an emergency at all, but I still would appreciate your advice!!!)
thank you
manu
I think that realistically, there is a pretty small chance of the EMLA causing any problems with your piercings. However, there is no way to know for certain. So, that’s one thought. My first thought however, was that using EMLA for any piercing is really not necessary, so why bother. I also think that you’ll likely get very little benefit from it, unless it’s psychological.
And hey, if you have a piercer you trust to do your piercing, why not trust their judgment when comes to whether or not to use the EMLA.
0 / 0 votes 
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Posted by Derek Lowe | Permalink | 5 Comments
Saturday November 3rd, 2007 @ 12:54 AM
I’ve had my medusa (aka upper middle lip) for about 2 years now and it has refused to heal. I get a small infection every now and then to one side of the hole. This just involves a small pustule forming under the skin, more often than not it’ll leak out on its own accord but I’m left with a swollen lip and goop coming out. I also experience a lot of crusties. I salt soak it twice a day and I’ve been putting vitamin e cream around the area (I have very dehydrated skin). I’ve also changed the jewelry to a different metal twice but that didn’t help. When I take the jewelry out I notice a patch of very different textured skin on that side…that may or may not be scar tissue. I’m reluctant to remove and heal it for some stupid reason, but if that is my only option I’ll take it. It’s just really annoying and I know that putting up with it for 2 years seems really absurd. Any suggestions as to what is causing it and how I can fix it?
I’d be willing to bet a body part (although not one I need for piercing) that the problems you are having are related to how the jewelry is sitting in your piercing. After 2 years of never fully healing, the most likely problem is that your jewelry is causing continual irritation/pressure to the piercing, which is preventing it from healing full and is causing the recurring bump/”pustule”.
No amount of salt soaking or anything else you put on the piercing will help if you’re suffering from a mechanical irritation. Think of it like this: if you have a cut on your arm and you constantly poke it, play with it and pick the scab, your body is going to have a very hard time healing it. Your piercing is also a wound your body has to heal, and if it’s constantly irritated, your body has a very hard time doing that. Until you relieve the irritation, everything else you try is really just treating the symptom and not the problem.
While i think that jewelry causing irritation is the likely culprit, it is also possible your body simply doesn’t like the placement of the piercing. Perhaps your upper lip webbing is thicker and the piercing going through that connective tissue is causing the irritation.
Either way, it may be necessary to remove the piercing to get everything to calm down. However, a trip to a reputable piercer in your area is probably in order. Being able to see and feel your piercing will go a long ways in figuring out how to proceed. Best of luck.
+1 / 1 votes 
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Posted by Derek Lowe | Permalink | 1 Comment
Saturday November 3rd, 2007 @ 12:44 AM
I got my labret pierced about 2 1/2 weeks ago . It was a little swolen at first and i thought this was normal. Now its like a bump all around the stud in the piercing and im alittle worried that it wont go away its been like this for a while now is this normal and if not can it be fixed?
Without being able to see your piercing, it’s going to be nearly impossible to say with much certainty exactly what is going on. However, in my experience, when piercings start “acting up” that quickly after the piercing is done, it’s almost always either a badly-placed piercing and/or the jewelry is the wrong size. In the case of a lip piercing, my guess is that the initial jewelry wasn’t quite long enough to accommodate the swelling, which caused additional irritation and even more swelling, and has no contributed to the “bump” you are seeing.
My suggestion would be go visit a reputable piercer in your area and have them look at it. They should be better able to tell you what needs to be done to return your piercing to the land happiness.
0 / 0 votes
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Posted by Derek Lowe | Permalink | 1 Comment
Friday November 2nd, 2007 @ 5:23 PM
I took my surfacepiercings out a month ago and now I have 2 little scars on that place , my question is , if it is possible to get 2 micro dermals on those scars from my surface or would this make it easier to reject afterwards ?
greets Robine
It would be possible to have microdermals done where the two scars from your surface piercing are. However, scar tissue can make it harder to get the microdermal jewelry in place and can make it harder for it to sit flush/correctly. If the jewelry isn’t seated properly, there is going to be a higher chance of rejection and/or difficult healing.
If there is a way to place the microdermals so that they will cover the old scars but be away from scar tissue, that would be best. Of course, that would then leave you with two sets of scars should you remove the microdermals at some point.
0 / 0 votes
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Posted by Derek Lowe | Permalink | 2 Comments
Friday November 2nd, 2007 @ 3:29 PM
Can I wear the kaos silicone tunnels in my 4 gauge vertical hood piercing? If not, then what is suitable jewelry? I currently wear a captive ring, but it twists and pinches, and is rather large and heavy. I’m getting sick of this piece of jewelry, but i don’t know what to switch to.
I have seen silicone eyelets worn in a variety of non-ear piercings, including genital piercings. You probably won’t know for sure if that particular style and material will be comfortable for you until you actually try it. You may want to consider getting the “parylene coated” version for use in a hood piercing, as it has a less tacky surface.
Other options to reduce size would be a straight or curved barbell. In addition to being “small”, a barbell is going to tend to sit/hang different than a ring and should help increase your comfort level. To reduce weight, you could consider titanium jewelry.
+2 / 2 votes
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Posted by Derek Lowe | Permalink | Comments
Friday November 2nd, 2007 @ 2:26 PM
I absolutely adore Hand Web Piercings, and while I’m fully aware of their very high rejection rate and how much it’s gonna affect my life, I really want to give it a shot. Scars (from piercings) just remind me of awesome times in my life and remind me I did what I wanted to while I could. So if/ when it rejects I wouldn’t care about the scarring.
I asked my favourite studio how much the piercing would cost, or if they’d be willing to do it, and they said they were worried about hitting a nerve or causing nerve damage… something along those lines.
Is that true?
I’m talking about the webbing between my thumb and index finger.
Also, which would be the best jewellery to use?
BME
The hand web is one of the piercings that just shouldn’t work….ever. However, once in a while, they miraculously heal. I had one total miracle heal on a hand web once. A client of mine was a sculptor in art college. His hands took abuse everyday and yet somehow it healed.
As for nerve damage, this was just a cop out, or an uneducated piercer. If you go into it knowing that I am more likely to sleep with Angelina Jolie than you are to have this be a long term piercing, you won’t be disappointed.
For the best possible chance of healing use a fairly short 12 gauge titanium barbell. The short barbell will be as unobtrusive as possible, the gauge will be large enough to be tough, but small enough to not be too invasive and the titanium will be lightweight and more biocompatable than 316lvm. For placement the piercer should mark every potential fold in the webbing. Then find the spot centered between the largest gap between folds. For healing use whatever aftercare works best for you, but pay special attention toe vents in your daily life that could contaminate, irritate or damage your new piercing.
+1 / 1 votes
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Posted by Sean Philips | Permalink | 5 Comments
Friday November 2nd, 2007 @ 3:02 AM
i’ve had my nose pierced for about two months. around three weeks after the piercing, i developed a small bump. it didnt hurt and wasnt really that noticeable so i let it be. now, two months in, it is a noticeable, red, bubble. its not hard like scar tissue and it doesn’t hurt or ooze anything gross that would make me feel like it’s an infection. it looks just like its filled with something, fluid maybe, im not sure. but it just looks like a pimple. how do i get rid of this? is it the jewelry? i got it pierced with an 18g SS CBR and aside from this bump thing i haven’t had any problems whatsoever with it. i’d appreciate any input on this, because nothing i’ve tried has worked so far. (sea salt soaks, provon, LITHA, bactine (once), i don’t touch the jewelry or pick at it with my bare hands or anything, and i just can’t figure it out. HELP!
i hope the picture is good enough to see what i’m talking about
Ah yes the pesky nostril piercing bubble that many often dread. I myself had them for awhile but that was a result of a nice magnesium burn from sparklers…Remember boys and girls lit sparklers do not belong through your septum during new years eve, OUCHIES!
What I would suggest to answer your question however is to visit an experienced piercer and switch the jewelry from a CBR to either an 18ga ASTM F136 6Al-4V ELI Titanium Nostril Screw that is custom bent for your nose, or an 18ga Labret Stud (ie: like the threadless ones made by: NeoMetal). Make sure the jewelry is sterilized in an autoclave before it is inserted into the pierced pathway. Once the jewelry is in there you can do the sea salt soaks (1/4 teaspoon sea salt to 8oz of distilled water, or buy sterile saline wound wash) OR an alternative aftercare method would be to do a Chamomile Tea Bag compress by doing the following:
“Use 100% Chamomile tea bags only. Submerge the tea bag into the freshly boiled water & allow to steep for a few minutes, cool slightly & apply the tea bag directly onto the piercing, leave on for 10 minutes & whilst you are doing this you can drink the tea which is left in the cup! Chamomile is a natural anti-inflammatory, and is excellent for relieving swelling or soreness in fresh or irritated piercings.”
That is a little information guide that we personally provide our clients who are experiencing similar problems. But yeah as I said switch to either a implant grade Ti custom bent nostril screw or a 18ga implant grade Ti labret stud and don’t use the ring. As CBR’s are prime candidates for bacteria to collect onto the ring and then be rotated into the piercing to cause irritation/problems/complications,etc.
So I believe if you change the jewelry and do a mixture of the sea salt soaks & chamomile tea bag compresses, this problem will go away.
0 / 0 votes
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Posted by Warren Hiller | Permalink | 4 Comments
Thursday November 1st, 2007 @ 7:01 PM
Hey! I got a cleavage piercing about 3 weeks ago, and I’m not sure if it’s rejecting or migrating, or just healing. I’ve looked at tons of images, and I do have the scar tissue, but I don’t know if its just because it’s new, or what… It doesn’t seem like the bar is coming through my skin, and its not sore. The redness scared me though…
Any help would be great. I will give virtual cookies and stuff!
That does look mighty cranky, but I have to say, I’m generally hesitant to give specific advice about a piercing I haven’t seen in person. A certain amount of redness can be reasonably expected in a fresh piercing, but yours is much worse than that. Sternum/cleavage placements are pretty notoriously hard to heal, bear in mind, and if you have a lot of flesh there moving around it’s pretty much a given that you have really low odds of healing this piercing. That jewellery does NOT look like a surface bar, there’s just so much upward pressure going on with it - was it done with appropriate jewellery or PTFE? It really looks like PTFE to me, and if it is, I can almost guarantee that this piercing is doomed. (Oh, look, I know some people heal weird placements with bad jewellery choices, but bear with me, your odds are better with better jewellery that sits nicely under the skin!)
You can try things like chamomile compresses to soothe the redness, and I’m a big fan of using neem oil twice a day to settle down irritated tissue, but if you try these things for a week or so with no signs of improvement, it’s time to go back to your piercer and see what they have to say on the subject.
And I know I’m dooming myself to all sorts of contrary comments when I say this next bit, but it’s my opinion and I don’t care - if your piercer’s answer is that they use PTFE all the time and they just don’t get why your piercing isn’t healing, or better yet, say that it’s your fault in any way (e.g. your skin doesn’t like surface piercings or you’re not looking after it or something), it’s probably time to find a new piercer with more a clue about surface work. The only real reason I can imagine some piercers prefer PTFE is that it’s about $1 a metre and self-threading and therefore a heck of a lot cheaper than, say, beautifully made titanium internally threaded surface bars from quality jewellery companies (I personally swear by the Anatometal surface bars), adding greatly to a shop’s profit margin. It’s commonly accepted wisdom in the industry that surface bars are the way to go. 
+1 / 5 votes
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Posted by Lori St.Leone | Permalink | 5 Comments
Monday October 29th, 2007 @ 3:44 AM
Filed under: Ear
I have had my ears at a 9/16 for four years and decided it was time to move on to 5/8. I bought some plugs and couldn’t get them in so I made the mistake of buying silicone eyelets. They felt fine, just mild burning which I thought was just the stretch. After 2 days I couldn’t take the pulsing and burning and knew this wasn’t right. Long story short the eyelets had stuck to my inside lobes. After taking them out my ears were swollen and bleeding with clear liquid dripping out. I cleaned them very well before bed and woke up with my lobes actually crusted together. After a long sea salt soak the only jewelry I could get in were a pair of 0g tapers. A week later now, and my ears are slowly getting better with mild swelling and soreness although it seems like the hole has shrunk to a 0g! I’m wondering what I can do to get my lobes back to the way they were and how long I should wait to try and stretch again?
The wonderful joys of stretching with silicone jewelry. Sorry to hear of the trouble you’ve had involving this matter, it doesn’t sound very fun at all.
In regards to how you can get your lobes back to the size you were at and waiting periods,etc you can be directed to the previous entries involving stretching:
Waiting Time
Stretched Ear Jewellery
0 / 0 votes
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Posted by Warren Hiller | Permalink | 4 Comments
Monday October 29th, 2007 @ 3:16 AM
I got my vertical labret piercing 2 days ago, and the piercer said not to use chapstick or anything because it could irritate the piercing, and to just sit it out and the chapped lips would go away. Well, my chapped lips are driving me crazy and I am just picking away at them which cannot be good for the piercing either. Can you give me any remedies?
Lots and lots of water. Chapped lips are often a result of the body being dehydrated and not getting the amount of daily water intake it requires. I would strongly advise to not drink anything else other than water for the next couple weeks. As often caffeinated drinks(Soda, Coffee,etc) tends to dry the body out.
Usually if you can start drinking nothing but water for awhile it will keep your body hydrated and not be so dry and chapped. Also try not to chew/pick away at the chapped lips as that can increase swelling and problems with you healing piercings.
0 / 0 votes
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Posted by Warren Hiller | Permalink | 8 Comments
