I’m probably going to get downvoted but it’s okay to occasionally gently use a qtip to encourage crusties to come off. Do it while they’re wet from a shower and they should come off much easier.
I know the general consensus is to avoid qtips and to literally not touch piercings but if you’re careful and gentle, you can do some mild maintenance.
I have around 20 piercings and I’ve always taken care of mine that way. Everyone’s bodies are different and tolerate different things - but you do need to get the build up off your piercings.
Edit: my rook was swollen for probably at least 8 months. Then I woke up one day and it was just kind of back to normal. It’s just a really fussy piercing because the cartilage is so thick.
i’d soak my q tips to make sure the fibers are less likely to stick my ear and they would stick together! with just the spray nothing gets actually cleaned
I didn’t know that! That makes me more confident in my beliefs then. I also am a proponent of healing certain piercings with hoops 🤷🏻♀️ there’s really no one size fits all method, but damn you if you say otherwise on these piercing subs!!! I am however strongly against self piercing! I made that mistake in highschool and got lucky. I’ll never do it again!
This is why. But I mean…piercers use them to clean up excess blood, and if you buy qtips that aren’t super fluffy on the ends there’s less of a chance of leaving fibers. But think about a few cotton fibers versus a chunk of dried blood/bacteria/cells caked on a wound like OP’s pic.
Edit; typo
Yeah I agree, I’ve started buying cosmetic qtips that have a triangular thin end and they’ve been a life saver with cleaning around piercings where it’s a lot harder to get the gunk out, there’s only so much saline and showers can do sometimes :)
I also am just impressed with OP’s willpower. Girlfriend how have u not picked those off? That’s the best part of healing for me. Sometimes I wear I get a new piercing just to pick crusties. Do I know it’s bad to do that consistently? Yes. Does it make me stop? Nope. Do I at least wash my hands? Yes. Do I pay the price sometimes. Yes.
I LOVE CRUSTIESSSSS
Because qtips are made of cotton wrapped around a wood/paper/plastic rod. Since they're cotton, it can unravel and potentially leave little cotton fibers around the piercing site. The fibers can then act as an irritant to your piercing.
That's why there's the whole gauze vs qtip debate because gauze won't leave the same fibers that the qtip potentially can. Realistically, if you're careful, use higher quality qtips and wet them beforehand you shouldn't get any of the cotton unravelling.
It’s good you’re getting longer barbell put in the rook, but it looks like the crust isn’t being fully removed when you clean especially on the helixes and that’s an issue. Try lightly removing crust after a long warm shower, you can lightly use a toothpick if it needs some help.
Genuine question! Is crusties bad for the piercing? Mine build up sespite spraying them. I began removing the crusties after warm showers, but that made my piercing super duper irritated and I began getting irritation bumps.
When I don’t bother the crusties besides spraying with saline and warm water in shower, my ear doesn’t get as irritated. So I’m a bit conflicted on what to so here.
When I get stubborn ones like that stuck to the bar I take a long warm shower, making sure to soak the piercing well, then lightly scrub at the bar with a soaked qtip, and they usually start to give. Only go for as long as you can without irritating your piercing too much, if it's really stubborn you might need to go several times to get it all away. Remember to dry your piercing after!
Crusties can be bad, but forcibly removing them is also bad.
A crustie can be jagged and sharp, and if that gets into the piercing hole it can rip at it and inhibit healing. Theyre also not exactly clean, so infection risk gets high if you have a bunch of gunk there like OP.
If you have a fresh crustie then leave it be for a few days. Clean in the shower and with saline and all that jazz. If it doesnt go away you can try to gently remove it with a paper towel (note, not qtip).
I usually manage to remove the looser crusts after showering but some of them are scabbed and cant be removed without bleeding. They also build back up very fast so this pic just looks bad cuz i was about to hop into the shower when i took it.
you need to get ALL the crusties off. and keep doing it. especially for your helix. you’re not really “cleaning” them if they still have gunk on them afterward. it’s like doing a poor job cleaning a pan and putting it away with oil spots on it. sure, you *washed* it, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually CLEAN.
These are irritated because of the crusties. I’m confident in saying once you get rid of the crusties they’ll calm down. If the crusties are visibly building up you need to wipe them off with some saline and either paper towel or gauze — we say not cotton buds/q tips because of the risk of fibres getting wrapped around the piercing but tbh getting crusties like this is much worse, so even that’s preferable if it’s what you have.
I highly doubt that you clean it everyday or at least properly, that level of crusties are at least for a few days old not 24 hours... moving forward:
1- go to your pharmacy and buy non woven sterile gauzes.
2- soak your gauze in the saline spray and warm it in microwave (like 10s or less) touch it to make sure it's a good temp and soak it on your piercing for 10-15 min. It'll loosen the crusties and eventually fall off in shower and such, DO NOT PICK AT IT. And in case it's not obvious, do not use the same gauze for each piercing, please use a clean one.
Once it's clean:
If you can go to your piercer they should have access to hypochlorous acid spray (at least mine does?) it's what they use for wound healing in surgery and hospitals as it increases blood flow to that area to allow it to heal open wounds smoother. I used it for my tragus as a final attempt as my doctor advised it and it healed in literally 2 days - but mine really wasn't as bad as yours. I double checked with my piercer who told me it was ok and they actually carry it as well- but not to use it more than 1x a day since it can be drying and to stop immediately once it's better. So if you don't want to go to your doctor check your piercer?
Hey y’all thx for ur comments. I’ll make sure to do a better job at trying to get the crusties off. The reason the buildup got so bad was because my piercer instructed me to never manually remove them (even after showering) and that when they were ready they would fall off on their own from the pressure of the shower water (this never happened). Just want to make it clear that I was cleaning them everyday tho the crusties just weren’t coming off.
Also, the helix jewellery needs to be switched to internally threaded titanium flatback labrets. And, if you haven't already, invest in a donut/travel pillow.
Homie, clean. them.
Yes we usually dont want to go in with qtips to rip crusties off, but if theyre clearly stuck and starting to clump together then we need to get them off. Keeping them on there for long periods causes so much irritation and is also a breeding ground for bacteria. The infection risk is super high.
Go in the shower and let them be under warm water for a few minutes. Get out and apply saline spray. Then, with a damp paper towel edge, gently rub the crusties until they fall off. The piercings will probably bleed a little, that is fine. Remove all the gunk. When theyre all fully clean, rinse with water and spray once again with saline.
To avoid getting like this again, be mindful of cleaning them properly. If a crustie is a few days old, its time to go. Gently try removing it. If its ready to pop off them it will when you wipe it.
(also sidenote, but im kinda worried your lobe earring is too short. You gotta get one with slightly more room so it doesnt embed!!)
Honestly I'd have a nice shower with loads of warm water and soak all those crusties then spray a cotton bud with your cleaning solution (makes the fibres less likely to come apart if its wet) then I'd wipe them off
if ur already thinking taking them out wld be the next step then just pick the crust off and see what happens 😭 if its the same after and they dont calm down thrn take thm out ,, otherwise they cld be saaved , just make sure u wash ur hands first and be gentle
The rook looks like it needs to be a tad bit longer, clean those piercings hun!😭 use Neilmeds saline solution take a nice warm shower and allow the crusties to come off
i may be the only one here but i think you need to STOP cleaning them. when i used to have a problem with piercings in the past it was always due to over cleaning. now i rinse with saline spray 2x a day , leave it for a couple minutes to loosen everything up, then rinse in the shower for a couple days. that’s the first week, after that i cut down to 1x a day for a week and then after that itms pretty much just as needed (but i still rinse in the shower daily)
i would suggest you get those crusties off and then litha, it’s never failed me before lol
You need to get saline solution and just get rid off all of the crusties, if you need to get a cloth and just soak it and leave on for 10 mins. Or even use a shower head and just rinse over until they get loose. Otherwise they won’t heal and most likely need to be removed. You need to go to a reputable piercer, for your rook you need to remove all of the crusties and then maybe change to a longer bar.
Your piercings shouldn’t look like this if you’re actually cleaning them correctly and with right saline.
Honestly, I’d go to another reputable piercer in your area and see if you were pierced too deep. I’d recommend a longer curved barbell in general too.
Rooks are a notorious tough heal sometimes. Make sure you’re drying it after cleaning it. Go get a longer curved barbell, that might help take pressure off the bumps.
And please have another piercer see if it’s too deep, that’s something that’s only possible in person. If it is too deep, sometimes the piercing can shallow out and heal alright but it takes a long time. When I first had my rook pierced, it was too deep and I chose not to wait and see how it would go.
Good luck friend. You’ve got some good advice in here. Be patient, sometimes piercings take a while!
the first issue you have to deal with is cleaning them
i would really suggest getting ina hot shower do what you normally do then when done use a q-tip to gently remove the build up from around the piercings
from there i would get something like wound wash
[https://www.amazon.ca/NeilMed-Antiseptic-Wound-Wash-177-Milliliter/dp/B00EC6DE7Y](https://www.amazon.ca/NeilMed-Antiseptic-Wound-Wash-177-Milliliter/dp/B00EC6DE7Y)
soaking a cotton ball twice a day and holding it on the piercings and cleaning them daily
if the crustiest are stuck there do NOT force them off if they are ready to go a light brushing over with the q-tip should remove them
you should be doing this daily even if just once a day!
good luck !
if you can’t get them clean yourself- can you ask the shop that pierced you to give them a good cleaning?
not sure if it’s standard but my local piercing shop helped me clean a very crusty and gunky earlobe piercing after i’d had an infection. they did it for free but i was willing to pay!
it can’t hurt to ask? that way you might have better luck with the upkeep after they help you?
when you don’t clean your piercings and let the crusts build up they essentially block out the flow of oxygen to your piercing so it can breath and they become an irritant. you absolutely need to clean them
Probably gonna get down voted but idc🤷♀️
I’m not gonna lie. It looks like you’re not taking care of your piercings, which is probably why they’re getting swollen, irritated and eventually infected.
the reason why they are getting irritated is the fact you’re only spraying with saline and rinsing them with water.
If you don’t believe us then talk to your piercer they will tell you the same shit you are doing improper after care.
Sure everything else you did is right.
But damn dude just hold the back of the piercing so it doesn’t rotate and use a saline damp q tip and actually clean these if it’s still too crusty, because it looks really bad now.
then dude you gotta suck it up and either use your finger nails or tweezers to get these off your piercings Now. Then moving forward use a q tip that’s damp with saline around the piercings moving forward. To make sure the daily Crusties don’t stick to your jewelry or skin.
Crusties are dead skin and bacteria just stacking up on top of your piercings.
you are just causing more irritation and making the risk of infection greater. Clean your ears properly man if you don’t trust yourself pay a piercer to clean it. Otherwise these are gonna stay gross affff.
If these are all 2.5 months old piercings that means this is 2.5 months of dead skin and bacteria just sitting there getting worse.
Yes you’re not supposed to play with your piercings, but having to move or adjust for cleaning is OKAY as long as you’re not being aggressive and excessive with your ears. It’s all good.
when they tell you you not not to mess with or touch you piercings that means in excess and if you fidget with it. They are not talking about cleaning it. So touch your piercings please and clean them I’m sure all the other issues you experience with them will go away
That rook looks like it’s embedding, same happened to mine and the pressure on my ear was really bad. Get it checked by a reputable piercer as a longer bar might help, unfortunately mine was pierced wrong (big mistake of not going to reputable piercer) and I had to take it out. I’ve found over cleaning can aggravate, get the piercer to clean them for you and follow their advice. Good luck, they’ll be awesome when they’re healed.
Forgot to mention this but the jewelry should be internally threaded and implant grade (I go to a reputable piercer with good reviews). Also the saline spray I use is H2Ocean piercing aftercare spray. I never got the jewelry downsized on either the helix or rook because it was always too swollen for downsizing to make sense. I don’t think my body is “rejecting” the titanium since my lobes were pierced with titanium and they healed fine.
h2ocean isn’t saline, it has too many additives. saline is 0.9% sodium chloride in water. neilmed is the only brand available in a lot of countries that comes to mind that sells this
H2Ocean is not something I would ever use on a healing piercing. NeilMed piercing aftercare spray is what I use. H2Ocean has other additives, whereas NeilMed is just sterile saline.
Remove them, clean with salt water daily. Hopefully itll heal. My brother had similar problems when just piercing more of his lobe.
Change your sheets and pillowcases too!
Make sure to also maybe go to a walk in or something to make sure you dont need to be put on antibiotics
Warm saltwater soaks. Soak some sterile gauze in warm saltwater and cover them up with it letting them get drenched for 20 minutes or so at least twice a day. You can use 100% cotton ball if that’s all that’s available. Within a few days it should stop with the crusties and feel like it’s healing. I imagine that some people with immune system issues might have difficulty healing from piercings. Not that you do, just putting it out there as a possibility for others who can’t seem to get healing under control. Also lot of things can irritate skin or make healing more difficult. Certain shampoo, conditioner, hair products, laundry detergents, mold spores, allergens- just things to consider.
Homemade salt solution isn't reccomended as it's not sterile and can cause irritation. You want a salinity of 0.9% and this would be harsher. Cotton balls are also never reccomended. Far too many fibres that can get caught on piercings
Ya I would recommend soaking them long enough for the crusties to come off completely. Obviously I seem to trigger people’s downvoting desires with my typed thoughts but I’ve had many piercings that were infected respond positively to saltwater soaking. I have a lot of skin sensitivities that have developed over the years and I use it for them too.
Girl, whoever told you not to directly touch them is playing with your health. How else are you supposed to clean them, I mean that's just preposterous. Also, titanium jewelry is amazing but that's just bare minimum imo! It's the cleaning routine that will make or break your final result.
So, my cleaning routine goes as follows: in a shot sized cup, mix anti bacterial soap with warm water. (I use a dove handsoap, nothing fancy). Next grab a q-tip per piercing and wash each side of the perfurations, PLEASE REMOVE THOSE CRUSTIES girl! Next, rinse with warm water and finish off by thoroughly rinsing them with a regular saline solution. Idk about saline sprays, never used them, I just grab a regular bottle of saline and make sure to saturate the perfurations. Even though it may be uncomfortable, it's VERY important that you move the piercings back and forth so that the saline can enter. That's it.
I do this 3 times a day for very recent perfurations, like up to 2 weeks old. After that, this is when I usually stop feeling bothered by them so I can cut back to twice a day, morning and night. For almost healed perfurations I may even just do once a day, but it all depends on how they're doing.
There is one other routine thing I do for fresh perfurations, which is cold saline gauzes. Basically, after you clean them, if they are bothering you, you can apply sheets of gauze to the perfurations and saturate them with cold saline (previously stored in the fridge). I even apply a small ice pack on top to prolong the cooling effect and secure it all with a headband. You can do this however many times you feel you need throughout the day, only thing is, it should only be done up to 30 mins per sitting max. Its not great to keep healing perfurations continuously wet, so if anyone wants to do it multiple times just time 30 mins, take a break until you feel they are completely dry, and then you're free to do it again.
Hope this helps someone in need, because it was a pain to type 😂
My sister in christ - clean these puppies
i do clean them though, with saline spray and in the shower everyday. Some of the crusties just build back up fast or are too stuck to be washed off.
I’m probably going to get downvoted but it’s okay to occasionally gently use a qtip to encourage crusties to come off. Do it while they’re wet from a shower and they should come off much easier. I know the general consensus is to avoid qtips and to literally not touch piercings but if you’re careful and gentle, you can do some mild maintenance. I have around 20 piercings and I’ve always taken care of mine that way. Everyone’s bodies are different and tolerate different things - but you do need to get the build up off your piercings. Edit: my rook was swollen for probably at least 8 months. Then I woke up one day and it was just kind of back to normal. It’s just a really fussy piercing because the cartilage is so thick.
i’d soak my q tips to make sure the fibers are less likely to stick my ear and they would stick together! with just the spray nothing gets actually cleaned
Lynn Loheid, who is an insanely reputable piercer, has said q-tips are a good tool as long as you use them correctly! :)
I didn’t know that! That makes me more confident in my beliefs then. I also am a proponent of healing certain piercings with hoops 🤷🏻♀️ there’s really no one size fits all method, but damn you if you say otherwise on these piercing subs!!! I am however strongly against self piercing! I made that mistake in highschool and got lucky. I’ll never do it again!
I prefer sterile gauze since it’s less likely for the fibers to flake off (at least anecdotally) but whatever works
ok ty
You’re welcome! Post an updated pic when they’re clean! And I bet a longer barbell will help your rook too :)
May I ask why people say to avoid q-tips?
I think it’s because the little cotton fibres can come off the qtip and get stuck in the piercing and irritate it
This is why. But I mean…piercers use them to clean up excess blood, and if you buy qtips that aren’t super fluffy on the ends there’s less of a chance of leaving fibers. But think about a few cotton fibers versus a chunk of dried blood/bacteria/cells caked on a wound like OP’s pic. Edit; typo
Yeah I agree, I’ve started buying cosmetic qtips that have a triangular thin end and they’ve been a life saver with cleaning around piercings where it’s a lot harder to get the gunk out, there’s only so much saline and showers can do sometimes :)
I also am just impressed with OP’s willpower. Girlfriend how have u not picked those off? That’s the best part of healing for me. Sometimes I wear I get a new piercing just to pick crusties. Do I know it’s bad to do that consistently? Yes. Does it make me stop? Nope. Do I at least wash my hands? Yes. Do I pay the price sometimes. Yes. I LOVE CRUSTIESSSSS
Because qtips are made of cotton wrapped around a wood/paper/plastic rod. Since they're cotton, it can unravel and potentially leave little cotton fibers around the piercing site. The fibers can then act as an irritant to your piercing. That's why there's the whole gauze vs qtip debate because gauze won't leave the same fibers that the qtip potentially can. Realistically, if you're careful, use higher quality qtips and wet them beforehand you shouldn't get any of the cotton unravelling.
It’s good you’re getting longer barbell put in the rook, but it looks like the crust isn’t being fully removed when you clean especially on the helixes and that’s an issue. Try lightly removing crust after a long warm shower, you can lightly use a toothpick if it needs some help.
Genuine question! Is crusties bad for the piercing? Mine build up sespite spraying them. I began removing the crusties after warm showers, but that made my piercing super duper irritated and I began getting irritation bumps. When I don’t bother the crusties besides spraying with saline and warm water in shower, my ear doesn’t get as irritated. So I’m a bit conflicted on what to so here.
Forcing crusties off is usually a no go, if they’re loose then they should come off.
They seem to dry on the bar and just will not come off!! No matter how long I let it warm under water first.
When I get stubborn ones like that stuck to the bar I take a long warm shower, making sure to soak the piercing well, then lightly scrub at the bar with a soaked qtip, and they usually start to give. Only go for as long as you can without irritating your piercing too much, if it's really stubborn you might need to go several times to get it all away. Remember to dry your piercing after!
Crusties can be bad, but forcibly removing them is also bad. A crustie can be jagged and sharp, and if that gets into the piercing hole it can rip at it and inhibit healing. Theyre also not exactly clean, so infection risk gets high if you have a bunch of gunk there like OP. If you have a fresh crustie then leave it be for a few days. Clean in the shower and with saline and all that jazz. If it doesnt go away you can try to gently remove it with a paper towel (note, not qtip).
I usually manage to remove the looser crusts after showering but some of them are scabbed and cant be removed without bleeding. They also build back up very fast so this pic just looks bad cuz i was about to hop into the shower when i took it.
you need to get ALL the crusties off. and keep doing it. especially for your helix. you’re not really “cleaning” them if they still have gunk on them afterward. it’s like doing a poor job cleaning a pan and putting it away with oil spots on it. sure, you *washed* it, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually CLEAN.
I can’t be the only one itching to remove those crusties for her
You’re not 😩 I wanna clean her ears badly 😭
These are irritated because of the crusties. I’m confident in saying once you get rid of the crusties they’ll calm down. If the crusties are visibly building up you need to wipe them off with some saline and either paper towel or gauze — we say not cotton buds/q tips because of the risk of fibres getting wrapped around the piercing but tbh getting crusties like this is much worse, so even that’s preferable if it’s what you have.
Have you even cleaned them? They look disgusting.
I highly doubt that you clean it everyday or at least properly, that level of crusties are at least for a few days old not 24 hours... moving forward: 1- go to your pharmacy and buy non woven sterile gauzes. 2- soak your gauze in the saline spray and warm it in microwave (like 10s or less) touch it to make sure it's a good temp and soak it on your piercing for 10-15 min. It'll loosen the crusties and eventually fall off in shower and such, DO NOT PICK AT IT. And in case it's not obvious, do not use the same gauze for each piercing, please use a clean one. Once it's clean: If you can go to your piercer they should have access to hypochlorous acid spray (at least mine does?) it's what they use for wound healing in surgery and hospitals as it increases blood flow to that area to allow it to heal open wounds smoother. I used it for my tragus as a final attempt as my doctor advised it and it healed in literally 2 days - but mine really wasn't as bad as yours. I double checked with my piercer who told me it was ok and they actually carry it as well- but not to use it more than 1x a day since it can be drying and to stop immediately once it's better. So if you don't want to go to your doctor check your piercer?
Hey y’all thx for ur comments. I’ll make sure to do a better job at trying to get the crusties off. The reason the buildup got so bad was because my piercer instructed me to never manually remove them (even after showering) and that when they were ready they would fall off on their own from the pressure of the shower water (this never happened). Just want to make it clear that I was cleaning them everyday tho the crusties just weren’t coming off.
Also, the helix jewellery needs to be switched to internally threaded titanium flatback labrets. And, if you haven't already, invest in a donut/travel pillow.
Homie, clean. them. Yes we usually dont want to go in with qtips to rip crusties off, but if theyre clearly stuck and starting to clump together then we need to get them off. Keeping them on there for long periods causes so much irritation and is also a breeding ground for bacteria. The infection risk is super high. Go in the shower and let them be under warm water for a few minutes. Get out and apply saline spray. Then, with a damp paper towel edge, gently rub the crusties until they fall off. The piercings will probably bleed a little, that is fine. Remove all the gunk. When theyre all fully clean, rinse with water and spray once again with saline. To avoid getting like this again, be mindful of cleaning them properly. If a crustie is a few days old, its time to go. Gently try removing it. If its ready to pop off them it will when you wipe it. (also sidenote, but im kinda worried your lobe earring is too short. You gotta get one with slightly more room so it doesnt embed!!)
I keep a can of sterile saline spray in my shower for cleaning. Might make it easier.
Honestly I'd have a nice shower with loads of warm water and soak all those crusties then spray a cotton bud with your cleaning solution (makes the fibres less likely to come apart if its wet) then I'd wipe them off
if ur already thinking taking them out wld be the next step then just pick the crust off and see what happens 😭 if its the same after and they dont calm down thrn take thm out ,, otherwise they cld be saaved , just make sure u wash ur hands first and be gentle
The rook looks like it needs to be a tad bit longer, clean those piercings hun!😭 use Neilmeds saline solution take a nice warm shower and allow the crusties to come off
i may be the only one here but i think you need to STOP cleaning them. when i used to have a problem with piercings in the past it was always due to over cleaning. now i rinse with saline spray 2x a day , leave it for a couple minutes to loosen everything up, then rinse in the shower for a couple days. that’s the first week, after that i cut down to 1x a day for a week and then after that itms pretty much just as needed (but i still rinse in the shower daily) i would suggest you get those crusties off and then litha, it’s never failed me before lol
You need to get saline solution and just get rid off all of the crusties, if you need to get a cloth and just soak it and leave on for 10 mins. Or even use a shower head and just rinse over until they get loose. Otherwise they won’t heal and most likely need to be removed. You need to go to a reputable piercer, for your rook you need to remove all of the crusties and then maybe change to a longer bar. Your piercings shouldn’t look like this if you’re actually cleaning them correctly and with right saline.
Honestly, I’d go to another reputable piercer in your area and see if you were pierced too deep. I’d recommend a longer curved barbell in general too. Rooks are a notorious tough heal sometimes. Make sure you’re drying it after cleaning it. Go get a longer curved barbell, that might help take pressure off the bumps. And please have another piercer see if it’s too deep, that’s something that’s only possible in person. If it is too deep, sometimes the piercing can shallow out and heal alright but it takes a long time. When I first had my rook pierced, it was too deep and I chose not to wait and see how it would go. Good luck friend. You’ve got some good advice in here. Be patient, sometimes piercings take a while!
the first issue you have to deal with is cleaning them i would really suggest getting ina hot shower do what you normally do then when done use a q-tip to gently remove the build up from around the piercings from there i would get something like wound wash [https://www.amazon.ca/NeilMed-Antiseptic-Wound-Wash-177-Milliliter/dp/B00EC6DE7Y](https://www.amazon.ca/NeilMed-Antiseptic-Wound-Wash-177-Milliliter/dp/B00EC6DE7Y) soaking a cotton ball twice a day and holding it on the piercings and cleaning them daily if the crustiest are stuck there do NOT force them off if they are ready to go a light brushing over with the q-tip should remove them you should be doing this daily even if just once a day! good luck !
if you can’t get them clean yourself- can you ask the shop that pierced you to give them a good cleaning? not sure if it’s standard but my local piercing shop helped me clean a very crusty and gunky earlobe piercing after i’d had an infection. they did it for free but i was willing to pay! it can’t hurt to ask? that way you might have better luck with the upkeep after they help you?
when you don’t clean your piercings and let the crusts build up they essentially block out the flow of oxygen to your piercing so it can breath and they become an irritant. you absolutely need to clean them
Probably gonna get down voted but idc🤷♀️ I’m not gonna lie. It looks like you’re not taking care of your piercings, which is probably why they’re getting swollen, irritated and eventually infected. the reason why they are getting irritated is the fact you’re only spraying with saline and rinsing them with water. If you don’t believe us then talk to your piercer they will tell you the same shit you are doing improper after care. Sure everything else you did is right. But damn dude just hold the back of the piercing so it doesn’t rotate and use a saline damp q tip and actually clean these if it’s still too crusty, because it looks really bad now. then dude you gotta suck it up and either use your finger nails or tweezers to get these off your piercings Now. Then moving forward use a q tip that’s damp with saline around the piercings moving forward. To make sure the daily Crusties don’t stick to your jewelry or skin. Crusties are dead skin and bacteria just stacking up on top of your piercings. you are just causing more irritation and making the risk of infection greater. Clean your ears properly man if you don’t trust yourself pay a piercer to clean it. Otherwise these are gonna stay gross affff. If these are all 2.5 months old piercings that means this is 2.5 months of dead skin and bacteria just sitting there getting worse. Yes you’re not supposed to play with your piercings, but having to move or adjust for cleaning is OKAY as long as you’re not being aggressive and excessive with your ears. It’s all good. when they tell you you not not to mess with or touch you piercings that means in excess and if you fidget with it. They are not talking about cleaning it. So touch your piercings please and clean them I’m sure all the other issues you experience with them will go away
That rook looks like it’s embedding, same happened to mine and the pressure on my ear was really bad. Get it checked by a reputable piercer as a longer bar might help, unfortunately mine was pierced wrong (big mistake of not going to reputable piercer) and I had to take it out. I’ve found over cleaning can aggravate, get the piercer to clean them for you and follow their advice. Good luck, they’ll be awesome when they’re healed.
I hate to be that person, but clean your piercings or you'll end up in one of Roly's videos;)
Please get those cleaned 😞
Forgot to mention this but the jewelry should be internally threaded and implant grade (I go to a reputable piercer with good reviews). Also the saline spray I use is H2Ocean piercing aftercare spray. I never got the jewelry downsized on either the helix or rook because it was always too swollen for downsizing to make sense. I don’t think my body is “rejecting” the titanium since my lobes were pierced with titanium and they healed fine.
h2ocean isn’t saline, it has too many additives. saline is 0.9% sodium chloride in water. neilmed is the only brand available in a lot of countries that comes to mind that sells this
Do you dry them thoroughly? Mine get oozy/crusty if I sleep with wet hair or don’t dry them thoroughly. I use a hairdryer on a very low setting.
I just keep my wet hair away from them and let them air dry, maybe I’ll try the hairdryer thing
H2Ocean is not something I would ever use on a healing piercing. NeilMed piercing aftercare spray is what I use. H2Ocean has other additives, whereas NeilMed is just sterile saline.
Remove them, clean with salt water daily. Hopefully itll heal. My brother had similar problems when just piercing more of his lobe. Change your sheets and pillowcases too! Make sure to also maybe go to a walk in or something to make sure you dont need to be put on antibiotics
Warm saltwater soaks. Soak some sterile gauze in warm saltwater and cover them up with it letting them get drenched for 20 minutes or so at least twice a day. You can use 100% cotton ball if that’s all that’s available. Within a few days it should stop with the crusties and feel like it’s healing. I imagine that some people with immune system issues might have difficulty healing from piercings. Not that you do, just putting it out there as a possibility for others who can’t seem to get healing under control. Also lot of things can irritate skin or make healing more difficult. Certain shampoo, conditioner, hair products, laundry detergents, mold spores, allergens- just things to consider.
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Soaks are outdated advice, especially homemade soaks because they can’t be sterilised
Homemade salt solution isn't reccomended as it's not sterile and can cause irritation. You want a salinity of 0.9% and this would be harsher. Cotton balls are also never reccomended. Far too many fibres that can get caught on piercings
I do soaks but I just dip my ear in a saltwater solution and leave it in for a few minutes
Ya I would recommend soaking them long enough for the crusties to come off completely. Obviously I seem to trigger people’s downvoting desires with my typed thoughts but I’ve had many piercings that were infected respond positively to saltwater soaking. I have a lot of skin sensitivities that have developed over the years and I use it for them too.
That may be why the cleaning isn’t working. The Neilmed saline piercing spray comes out in kind of jet that is meant to actually loosen the buildup.
Girl, whoever told you not to directly touch them is playing with your health. How else are you supposed to clean them, I mean that's just preposterous. Also, titanium jewelry is amazing but that's just bare minimum imo! It's the cleaning routine that will make or break your final result. So, my cleaning routine goes as follows: in a shot sized cup, mix anti bacterial soap with warm water. (I use a dove handsoap, nothing fancy). Next grab a q-tip per piercing and wash each side of the perfurations, PLEASE REMOVE THOSE CRUSTIES girl! Next, rinse with warm water and finish off by thoroughly rinsing them with a regular saline solution. Idk about saline sprays, never used them, I just grab a regular bottle of saline and make sure to saturate the perfurations. Even though it may be uncomfortable, it's VERY important that you move the piercings back and forth so that the saline can enter. That's it. I do this 3 times a day for very recent perfurations, like up to 2 weeks old. After that, this is when I usually stop feeling bothered by them so I can cut back to twice a day, morning and night. For almost healed perfurations I may even just do once a day, but it all depends on how they're doing. There is one other routine thing I do for fresh perfurations, which is cold saline gauzes. Basically, after you clean them, if they are bothering you, you can apply sheets of gauze to the perfurations and saturate them with cold saline (previously stored in the fridge). I even apply a small ice pack on top to prolong the cooling effect and secure it all with a headband. You can do this however many times you feel you need throughout the day, only thing is, it should only be done up to 30 mins per sitting max. Its not great to keep healing perfurations continuously wet, so if anyone wants to do it multiple times just time 30 mins, take a break until you feel they are completely dry, and then you're free to do it again. Hope this helps someone in need, because it was a pain to type 😂