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Keloids
Why does it occur?
Keloids usually develop in areas of skin that have been disrupted, like getting a piercing, but have been known to rear their ugly heads after vaccinations or surgery. Some unlucky people just get them for no reason.
They look like some sort of infection. They’re actually nothing but scar tissue building up into a ball that may continue to get bigger and bigger. They’re shiny, smooth, and usually pink, purple, or brown. They look like a pimple without puss. To sum it all up they’re ugly. Yes, they do hurt if they get big enough and they’ve been known to itch like hell. They can continue to grow for weeks, months, even years, unless treated successfully.
How do I get rid of it?
Unfortunately, getting rid of keloids isn’t easy. Recurrence is common and the bigger your keloid gets, the harder it is to get rid of it. You will get the best results if your start treatment soon after the keloid appears.
There are several methods of treatment. These include: · Removal – this isn’t very reliable, as reccuring keloids may be larger than the original. Also called conventional surgery · Dressings made of silicon gel sheets · Compression – Continuos pressure applied to the skin 24/7 for a few months can have a thinning effect on the keloid, making it smaller, but not disappear · Corticosteroid (triamcinolone acetonide) injections, which you’ll get every 4-6 weeks. This treatment may make the keloid smaller and reduce irritation, but the injections hurt · Cryosurgery – involves freezing the keloid with liquid nitrogen and is repeated every 20-30 days. This is the same process used to remove warts. · Laser therapy – An expensive alternative to conventional surgery
Infections
Why does it occur?
An infection can occur for a number of reasons. The equipment may not of been efficiently sterile, or you may not be cleaning it properly or as often as you should. Even touching your piercing with dirty hands may develop into a big ball of puss. Infection can be quite painful, depending on the severity of it. Eg: Just 3 days after I got my upper ear pierced (known as a cartilage piercing) I developed a mighty painful infection that caused by ear to blow up like a big red balloon and stung like hell even when nothing was touching it. As far as I could remember I’d been cleaning it twice as a day as you’re supposed to and refraining from touching it. So it’s easy to develop an infection.
Irritations are often mistaken for infections. If your piercing is infected it’ll most probably contain puss, so if your apply pressure, a yellowish discharge should ooze out. This is the puss, which is nothing but dead skin cells and dead white blood cells.
How do I get rid of it?
Well, depending on the severity, it may take up to a few days, to a few weeks. You should keep up your cleaning routine with an antiseptic formula. If the infection gets too severe, go see a doctor. They’ll either suggest you take it out or give your antibiotics. I’ve heard stories of people’s ears blowing up like a balloon so much that their earring disappeared inside their ear and was quite painful to try and retrieve. Imagine the pain you would endure if that happened to your nipple piercing. *shudders
Rejections
Why does it occur?
Sometimes your body just doesn’t want it there! It’s a pain is the ass when it happens, but nothing can be really done to prevent it. The majority of rejections is due to lack of care by the wearer, so if your piercing gets irritated, the body sometimes tries to get rid of it by removing the jewellery. The body accepts foreign objects if they are not causing irritation, or are excessive.
Sometimes a piercing will be fine for years, but if you decide to stretch it, it may start to reject. Never try to push a piercing too much too soon. Always wait a considerable time before trying to increase its size.
What happens is the area around the piercing becomes red and swollen, and is often mistaken for an infection. The skin then pushes the jewellery towards the surface, the jewellery starts to get closer and closer to the surface of the skin, and if left there, it can eventually just fall out, which involves splitting of the skin. Permanent scarring is common.
How do I get rid of it?
You can’t. Skin is a living organism, and can have a hard time dealing with foreign objects being inserted into it.
First steps are to ensure that there is no irritation, and that the jewellery is the correct size and weight. Have a chat to a pro piercer if you think something’s gone wrong.
Sometimes the type of jewellery can increase the chance or rejection, and sometimes the material the jewellery is made of can cause a rejection. Taking out the jewellery and letting the piercing heal is often the best approach. This will then allow you to have it pierced again, just behind the scar tissue. This will make the piercing stronger.
Piercing more susceptible to rejections ·Pubic regions ·Nipples (mainly male ) ·Eyebrows ·Navels ·Bridge of the nose ·Web of the hand ·Throats ·Most flat skin piercings (arms, back, etc) ·Ampallangs and apradravya's for guys with foreskins
If you have any of the above pierced, it doesn’t mean you’ll get a rejection, just that these areas are more prone to rejections.
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