problem with pierced ear

my girlfriend has had this problem with her piercing for a while, but she does not want to remove it. she was told by a tattoo artist to use "tea tree oil?" and it would make the bumps go away. she was also told if she removes the barbell that the bumps would heal but not reduce in size?

does anyone have any knowledge on this subject, i cant find "tea tree oil" in the stores, where could i get this stuff?

if anyone knows the name of this problem it would be helpfull also.
thanks

Usually when the bumps occur it means the cartilidge has split too much.

Usually this happens if the 'piercer dude' isnt very experienced and doesnt go into the cartilidge with a 'fine' needle- or just doesnt care where he pokes.

I think you can find tree oil in heath food stores such as GNC?

tea tree oil can be found online, just google it..

and maybe at whole foods or trader joe's if you live near one.


i'd say it's possible that your girl's having an allergic reaction to the barbell...what material is it made of?

if its surgical stainless steel then i'm going to say that getreal's prolly right about the cartilage

yeh ill have to see if i can find it at GNC and if not then i will order some off the net.

We are not sure what type of metal the barbell is made from, i think it is surgical steel

i am sure you have a sally's beauty supply store nearby, they are everywhere! i know they carry it BUT be sure it is pure tea tree oil.

that stuff is really the shit, it heals cuts so quickly. also, my son had bad excema/cracked knuckles for over a month, nothing the doc prescribed worked. i put a bit of tea tree on it, and it was LITERALLY healed in hours. fucking magic.

I have the same piercings.

Those look a lot like keloid lumps, but its kind of hard to tell - it does look too healed to be an abcess or infection of some sort. It does not look like the piercing was very well placed from this picture. There seems to be way more stress than there should be on the tissue surrounding the piercings.

I don't know about tea tree oil helping. That sounds like a crap excuse for bad work to me. It looks like a poorly performed piercing (and I have had a lot of work done, and know a couple people that have been doing this for a living for a long time, one of them really, really, likes doing industrials and orbitals.).

industrials need to be placed pretty well, or they will put a lot of stress on your cartilage. The angle and placement on this one does not look very good.

Yep, now that you mention the name keloid lumps are the name she was told, thanks for that.

As for the tea tree oil goes, darthmom seems to think the stuff can do wonders for skin problems and we did manage to find little bottles of the stuff at sallys beauty supplies just like darthmom recomended.

fizzacyst, you seem to think that tea tree oil is a excuse for bad work but the person/artist who examend my girlfriends ear is not affiliated with the person who performed the piercing, so i dont think its an excuse (per say).

as for as the placment, quallity, or the "goodness" of the piercing... i dont know cuz i have ZERO piercings on my body. my girlfriend however has had other similar bumps/problems with ear/belly rings. maybe her body always attempts to reject the ear rings? maybe it was poorly performed... i dunno.

well we hope the tea tree oil makes the lups go away if not we will see a doctor before removing the ring .
the strang thing is that these bumps did not start to form/grow untill after about a year of having the industrial. my G/F thinks that sleeping on that side of her face may be causing the stress thats responsible for the lumps. maybe thats just a sorry excuse? not sure, but anyway..

Thank all of you very much
there isnt a problem that you fellow bluelighters cant help solve

heh. sorry. i tend to regard a lot of advice like that as hippy nonsense (the tee tree oil). I suppose it won't hurt to try.

This link has some info i think you will find useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keloids

http://www.bmezine.com probably has some more info.

A lot of people don't develop them for a while, as they are not the result of an immediate scarring. However, if a piercing is placed poorly and there is a lot of stress on the holes, it can cause this kind of development. sleeping on that side probably doesn't help (though it did not cause me problems).

The belly button thing may be a similar issue.. the ring or barbell getting flicked around a lot or being under too much pressure.

Tea Tree Oil/Grapefruit Seed Extract:

Tea tree oil, like grapefruit seed extract, can be an effective natural alternative, but many piercees find it to be too strong and very drying, even when diluted. Apply a small amount to the area, rotating the jewelry to bring some oil into the piercing. Do not rinse. Apply no more than twice daily; less if you are sensitive.

found that on a google search for ya IAMTHOUGHTS
oh and read this, looks like good news for your girlfriend:

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache...ids&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=firefox-a

fizz, why is it that something natural is considered hippy non sense? why is it only considered effective by your types once it has been synthesized in a lab?? us druggies of all people should appreciate the magic in nature :D

(not to mention the cures and meds that have been found in nature to begin with)

I have no prob with natural remedies. In fact, I find the ones that work very fascinating. It just bothers me when people have medical problem and people say things like "oh, try this <homeopathic remedy>" or "oh, yeah, just put some blah blah oil on it" with no scientific basis to back it up. A lot of people assume correlation = causation, and this is just not the way things work (ex: applying some plant matter to a wound, it heals, someone assumes plant matter healed wound. maybe, maybe not.) That was not intended as a slight against you, but supplements and rememdies like that are not regulated by the FDA because they are not tested and proved medications, and there is a reason for that in a lot of cases.

I did say it probably wouldn't hurt. I just don't think its going to fix major keloid scarring like that.

I know a fair number of medical professionals and professional piercers and they would not recommend that (and I have had a slight keloid before and talked to a dermatologist about it). (though to be fair, a lot of the med people frowned on the whole piercing thing in general)

You can remove them with aspirin, too, or anything else that will dissolve tissue.. its just that you may end up with a scar if you're not careful.

In the link you provided, it sounds like that person had an infection or abcess under some damaged tissue. I've seen this a few times in bad cartilage piercings (or in areas that accumulate bacteria and oils, like hair folicles around the eyebrow). hydrogen peroxide is not a good idea to use either, as it damages healing tissue.

just offering my opinion based on having loads of piercing work done, and medical advice given to me. thats all.

From a trained piercers point of view...

These lumps do not appear to be keloids. They look like hypertrophic scarring to me. She may want to remove the barbell she's been wearing and switch to captive bead rings until her piercing is fully healed. Make sure she keeps this ear completely out of the way when she uses any hair products because they can further irritate this piercing. Try doing a saline soak 2x a day and the lumps should go down.



Saline Soak - 1 cup of hot water (as hot as you can stand it) + 1/8 tsp sea salt. It should be no saltier than your tears. Apply this solution to a cotton ball and let it sit on both sides of the piercing for 10 minutes. I like to stick the cup on my ear and lay down.

Let us know what her ear looks like in 1 week.

hey thanks for another idea. she has been useing the tea tree oil for a few days 2x a day so far. i dont now if it could hurt to do that and the saline both?
it would be harder to tell wich one is actually working though..

KourtneyKitty do you suggest that tea tree oil should be disscontinued?

^ I would say that she should use the saline solution until the scarring is halfway down, then she can add the tea tree oil to her regime. She should start to see results VERY quickly with the saline.


Also, please remember that she should NOT touch the jewelry at all unless she is cleaning it. How often is she cleaning the piercing with soap, and what type of soap is she using?

looks like a blowout

with the sea salt, make sure you get the kosher salt, the non iodized one.

I hope since this is on the same subject its ok not to make a new thread.

I got a new cartilidge piercing yesterday. This new one is a little bigger guaged and more on the outside of my ear than my last one.

Is it OK to put tea tree oil on it? Will it make it heal faster or anything?

I usually just use soap & water, anibiotic ointment and alcohol.

^

Is it OK to put tea tree oil on it? Will it make it heal faster or anything?

Doesnt someone know? PLEASE???

I bought some tea tree oil but I dont what the experince is for ear piercings.

Ha Ha~

LOL~

How stupid can I be???????????????/

The whole post said to use Tea Tree Oil........DUH!

But why does it smelll so strong?

Are the lumps build up of fluid? If so, soaks in sea salt water will help draw out the fluids and reduce the lumps.

I have no lumps.

I just got it yesterday and was using this thread instead of posting a new one..............