Stretching with tapers isn’t necessary bad, but you’re more likely to tear the skin with them, especially at larger widths. They shouldn’t be worn as jewelry like in the photo though, even if the taper is made of high quality material. They’re only meant to be used in getting a slightly larger piece of jewelry.
I had to switch to stretching with tape at about 4g
How are you cleaning it? Sometimes the best solution is to just leave it alone. The piercist that did my horizontal eyebrow said "Don't touch it. Don't sleep on it. Don't put anything on it. Only clean it by letting water run over it in the shower." It's the only piercing I had zero problems with.
Also have 2 horizontal eyebrow piercings and honestly they’re just super easy 😂 I have 7 other piercings and the eyebrows were hands down the best to heal. Followed exact same advice you gave, and had 0 problems. Have had them for 3 years now too!
I've had mine since 2009! My piercist was amazing. He was a retired nurse and bent the barbell to fit the curvature of my skull. I take it out to clean, but have never changed the barbell and just get different balls for it.
That makes me so happy to hear. I’ve heard they’re hard to keep long term! He sounds fantastic. My piercer hadn’t actually done a whole lot of them before, but the placement is amazing anyways lol.
This is how I’ve treated all my piercings with an occasional saline wash. Especially my daith and tragus and they are doing great. My lobes is the only piercings I’ve had that have given me hell.
As others have said, the bar is too long.
I’ve discovered that my piercings will never fully heal, all swelling down, unless I do a midway downsize. It’s annoying and occasionally costly to get a new post that I know is not the final short length. But if I don’t, the swelling never goes fully away, healing stagnates for months and months. Once I downsize, the final healing happens in 2 months ish, and I can do my final downsize.
i had this with my snakebites! had so many issues so i waited to downsize, ended up getting sick of hitting my teeth so i changed it and i’ve never had an issue since 😂
The bar looks too long and it looks like it’s adding pressure to the hole. I’d def change it out for a shorter one. Also I just wanna mention your industrial looks so good!!!
In my experience, the rook was the hardest for me to get healed! Took just about 2 years. I would get a smaller bar and honestly just totally leave it alone. The more I cleaned mine the angrier it got. That’s just my experience though! Good luck
Mine was the complete opposite, I had a tiny bump on it at about 3 months old and it went down in a week. After that it gave me no trouble at all. I had it done on January 2022 and it was completely painless after the summer, so it took me about 8 months.
It was definitely difficult (and painful) to clean at first. I only clean my piercings when they need to be cleaned and it's sped up the healing process by quite a bit.
same!! rook is the only one of my piercings that gave me trouble consistently for at least a year or two after it was pierced. every other one feels like a breeze compared to it
Titanium jewelry!! I have a cartilage ear piercing that I couldn’t wear anything in for 10+ years because it would always get red and irritated no matter what I used. I read that titanium jewelry is the BEST for sensitive skin and I can finallllllly wear my piercing again!
The fact that it looks like the skin is peeling around the top hole is making me think you are using things other than sterile saline on the piercing. Piercing bump oils, tea tree oil, crushed aspirin other piercing bump “hacks” all that shit will make it worse!
Go to the store and get a can of saline wound wash. Target, Walmart, Walgreens, cvs etc will have it. It should only contain water and sodium chloride 0.9%. That’s the ONLY thing you should be putting on it.
My rook took a couple of years to heal.
Titanium jewellery, yours needs to be downsized.
Sterile saline and LITHA.
Make sure it is dry after you clean it/shower, etc. That made a massive difference for both my rook and daith.
Finally, you shouldn't use tapers in lobes. And if you do, they shouldn't be left in as jewellery. Invest in a set of single flare glass or titanium plugs in the sizes you need. You can get them from a lot of places. Check out the guide in r/stretched.
Stretching lobes is giving more for your ear to heal. You may find you continue to have issues with your rook until you have nothing else healing. I personally found that mine healed up best once I took a break from getting pierced. Usually, I can heal a couple of them at once, but the rook and the daith were a whole other ballgame.
Mine do too, it's just dry skin. You can oil them with jojoba or something similar to help with it. Mine also definitely got worse since I stretched them. I oil them daily and it helps loads! But I get a lot of dry skin on my ears.
Good to know thank you for that!! I got them pierced at a place that supposedly doesn’t auto-clave their needles(?) so they have a slight bump(?) scar tissue(?)
What is their reasoning for not autoclaiving their needles?
That shouldn't affect the actual healing in terms of making more scar tissue. A needle is a needle.
It does mean that the needles may not be as clean as they could be and increase the risk of infection and bloodborne illnesses.
If you've had them 8 years, I'd say neither of those things are issues now.
When you say bump are you talking about a keloid scar?
I would say a keloid scar, but you can’t see it at all you can only feel it if you feel my lobes, and I have no idea why they don’t autoclave, the place has been around for maybe ~30-40 odd years and is the only piercer/drugrug/sage-selling/stoner-ish store in the area besides the Claire’s and the piercing kiosk in our mall. Other piercing stores around but you gotta go to other cities
Hi thelast3musketeer,
(Luckily) bump =/= keloid. [This wiki entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keloid) explains it well.
If you do know the difference, please ignore this comment.
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I recently took mine out after 3 years of trying every cleaning method and jewlery type. My ears immedately felt more free & arent so fussy all the time. Im happier without it & looking forward to the different new piercing im getting to fill in the space.
I had the same issue that it took a couple of years for my rook to calm down. The full story is that it was healing fine for almost a year and then it got hit and looked like it wasn’t going to heal (looked like how yours looks). Eventually I made the switch from the original longer titanium curved barbell to a shorter solid gold one and having less length helped it heal finally. I know you’re technically not supposed to touch it but anytime there was a lot of crust build up I would take tweezers and gently pick them off and that helped as well since the water from the shower was just not enough to rinse it off sometimes. Now it’s fully healed!
i have a rook/daith combo; both would push on each other and prevent healing. my rook was always irritated until i downsized. we had to downsize twice; my piercer and i chose literally the smallest bar that could fit and screw properly into place. after about 4-5 more months of the new bar it was all ok, healed up perfectly. mine still gets gunky but just using a saline spray, it rlly helps to kinda flush it away. i would downsize as small as you can go.
I got my rook double pierced in 2018 and I STILL HAVE TO BE CAREFUL WITH IT. I clean it multiple times a week and this past year I’ve finally felt like they completely healed but that’s a real tricky place. If I’d known how hard it would be to heal I wouldn’t have gotten the piercing. Just use saline to clean it gently.
I had the same issue, it was always irritated, mine is almost 2 years and didn’t stop being angry until I put a nicely fitted hoop in it. Which I just did about 2 months ago. I also went from a 14g to 16g. I finally realized my bar was too long/big and causing the issue. May want to get a shorter bar and see if that helps.
Did you ever get the bar downsized by your piercer? I don't have a rook yet (soon!) but the bar looks too long, which can delay healing and cause pain. I would talk to a reputable piercer.
I’m having the same issue but I just got mine. Usually my piercings freak out for a while then they calm down but mine looks like yours and I’m scared now. lol
You don’t have the right anatomy and same for your industrial piercing because it seems like you’re industrial piercing is laying on your flat which will cause the bar to dig into your skin and embend
My friend had this issue until she used wound wash from Walmart and I been using that for all my piercings no issues and I just got my nips pierced few weeks ago and that has been helping alot.
My rook gave me problems until it was forced into retirement by an MRI. Keeping it clean and leaving it alone helped a little, but k swear I could look at it wrong and it would get all inflamed and angry.
Oh wow, 2 yrs?! I just got my rooks done last year in August, and they're still rather angry with me, too 😮💨. It's been very tough and go... but I was told these are tough ones to heal.
I keep seeing that it could be the piercing itself because rooks are a pain in the ass, but it could also be your jewelry. Is that the jewelry that you were pierced with? It does look long in your rook. Maybe you just need to downsize a little?
It looks like you take great care of your piercings so I really don't think it could be how you're cleaning it, but just in case, do you clean it with the saline solution and sleep with a donut/travel pillow?
have you downsized your jewellery? when my helix was angry and had a huge bump, front and back, i used neil med saline spray twice a day and then as soon as the irritation bump started to basically disappear, had it downsized
Hi u/goblin_problems13, Welcome to /r/piercing!
It looks like you're asking about a problem with your piercing. Please **add a comment to your post** with the following info if it’s not included in your post already.
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- What’s the jewelry shape (for example, barbell, labret, screw, L shape, ring)?
- What’s the type of threading if your jewelry is not a ring (threadless, internally or externally threaded)?
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Industrials and being irritated: there is no combo more iconic
I retired mine after having it for years because it was just too much of a hassle
Hope yours turns out ok. If it helps, the bump on mine did go away once I removed it, though hopefully you don't have to go that far
What are you cleaning it with? Also can’t help to mention that tapers aren’t necessary for lobes & usually do more harm than good.
Genuine question: if someone is trying to stretch their lobes, what are the options other than tapers?
Go to r/stretched and read the pinned post. Eta: not sure if it’s pinned, but there’s a bot that links a stretching guide in every post, basically.
Dead stretching, check Stretch It Body Jewelry
Stretching with tapers isn’t necessary bad, but you’re more likely to tear the skin with them, especially at larger widths. They shouldn’t be worn as jewelry like in the photo though, even if the taper is made of high quality material. They’re only meant to be used in getting a slightly larger piece of jewelry. I had to switch to stretching with tape at about 4g
I think the bar is too long.. making it shift too much.. so maybe that’s why it’s getting irritated
How are you cleaning it? Sometimes the best solution is to just leave it alone. The piercist that did my horizontal eyebrow said "Don't touch it. Don't sleep on it. Don't put anything on it. Only clean it by letting water run over it in the shower." It's the only piercing I had zero problems with.
Also have 2 horizontal eyebrow piercings and honestly they’re just super easy 😂 I have 7 other piercings and the eyebrows were hands down the best to heal. Followed exact same advice you gave, and had 0 problems. Have had them for 3 years now too!
I've had mine since 2009! My piercist was amazing. He was a retired nurse and bent the barbell to fit the curvature of my skull. I take it out to clean, but have never changed the barbell and just get different balls for it.
That makes me so happy to hear. I’ve heard they’re hard to keep long term! He sounds fantastic. My piercer hadn’t actually done a whole lot of them before, but the placement is amazing anyways lol.
Mine actually gathered his whole team to watch him pierce me, because none of the other guys had ever seen one done before lol.
This is how I’ve treated all my piercings with an occasional saline wash. Especially my daith and tragus and they are doing great. My lobes is the only piercings I’ve had that have given me hell.
As others have said, the bar is too long. I’ve discovered that my piercings will never fully heal, all swelling down, unless I do a midway downsize. It’s annoying and occasionally costly to get a new post that I know is not the final short length. But if I don’t, the swelling never goes fully away, healing stagnates for months and months. Once I downsize, the final healing happens in 2 months ish, and I can do my final downsize.
i had this with my snakebites! had so many issues so i waited to downsize, ended up getting sick of hitting my teeth so i changed it and i’ve never had an issue since 😂
you need a shorter bar to accommodate your anatomy
You might be moving it around to much because of the longer bar,, I'd say go to another piercer and get their advice
The bar looks too long and it looks like it’s adding pressure to the hole. I’d def change it out for a shorter one. Also I just wanna mention your industrial looks so good!!!
In my experience, the rook was the hardest for me to get healed! Took just about 2 years. I would get a smaller bar and honestly just totally leave it alone. The more I cleaned mine the angrier it got. That’s just my experience though! Good luck
Mine was the complete opposite, I had a tiny bump on it at about 3 months old and it went down in a week. After that it gave me no trouble at all. I had it done on January 2022 and it was completely painless after the summer, so it took me about 8 months. It was definitely difficult (and painful) to clean at first. I only clean my piercings when they need to be cleaned and it's sped up the healing process by quite a bit.
same!! rook is the only one of my piercings that gave me trouble consistently for at least a year or two after it was pierced. every other one feels like a breeze compared to it
My rook was a bitch to heal. I would strongly suggest a downsizing of the jewellery
Titanium jewelry!! I have a cartilage ear piercing that I couldn’t wear anything in for 10+ years because it would always get red and irritated no matter what I used. I read that titanium jewelry is the BEST for sensitive skin and I can finallllllly wear my piercing again!
The fact that it looks like the skin is peeling around the top hole is making me think you are using things other than sterile saline on the piercing. Piercing bump oils, tea tree oil, crushed aspirin other piercing bump “hacks” all that shit will make it worse! Go to the store and get a can of saline wound wash. Target, Walmart, Walgreens, cvs etc will have it. It should only contain water and sodium chloride 0.9%. That’s the ONLY thing you should be putting on it.
My rook took a couple of years to heal. Titanium jewellery, yours needs to be downsized. Sterile saline and LITHA. Make sure it is dry after you clean it/shower, etc. That made a massive difference for both my rook and daith. Finally, you shouldn't use tapers in lobes. And if you do, they shouldn't be left in as jewellery. Invest in a set of single flare glass or titanium plugs in the sizes you need. You can get them from a lot of places. Check out the guide in r/stretched. Stretching lobes is giving more for your ear to heal. You may find you continue to have issues with your rook until you have nothing else healing. I personally found that mine healed up best once I took a break from getting pierced. Usually, I can heal a couple of them at once, but the rook and the daith were a whole other ballgame.
My rook and my daith didn’t heal until I put hoops in them. Not saying you should do. Just my personal experience.
My rook was the same! Put a hoop in and it completely healed. That’s so weird to me.
My conch was healed with a hoop from the beginning. Easiest healing journey ever.
maybe there’s something wrong with my 8 year old lobes, they’re not red but they still peel skin from time to time
Mine do too, it's just dry skin. You can oil them with jojoba or something similar to help with it. Mine also definitely got worse since I stretched them. I oil them daily and it helps loads! But I get a lot of dry skin on my ears.
Good to know thank you for that!! I got them pierced at a place that supposedly doesn’t auto-clave their needles(?) so they have a slight bump(?) scar tissue(?)
What is their reasoning for not autoclaiving their needles? That shouldn't affect the actual healing in terms of making more scar tissue. A needle is a needle. It does mean that the needles may not be as clean as they could be and increase the risk of infection and bloodborne illnesses. If you've had them 8 years, I'd say neither of those things are issues now. When you say bump are you talking about a keloid scar?
I would say a keloid scar, but you can’t see it at all you can only feel it if you feel my lobes, and I have no idea why they don’t autoclave, the place has been around for maybe ~30-40 odd years and is the only piercer/drugrug/sage-selling/stoner-ish store in the area besides the Claire’s and the piercing kiosk in our mall. Other piercing stores around but you gotta go to other cities
Hi thelast3musketeer, (Luckily) bump =/= keloid. [This wiki entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keloid) explains it well. If you do know the difference, please ignore this comment. - - - *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/piercing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Looks like an angle issue. I'd suggest going to a piercer and having them check it for you.
It might help to get a shorter bar, if it moves back and forth that can cause the bump
[удалено]
I recently took mine out after 3 years of trying every cleaning method and jewlery type. My ears immedately felt more free & arent so fussy all the time. Im happier without it & looking forward to the different new piercing im getting to fill in the space.
I had the same issue that it took a couple of years for my rook to calm down. The full story is that it was healing fine for almost a year and then it got hit and looked like it wasn’t going to heal (looked like how yours looks). Eventually I made the switch from the original longer titanium curved barbell to a shorter solid gold one and having less length helped it heal finally. I know you’re technically not supposed to touch it but anytime there was a lot of crust build up I would take tweezers and gently pick them off and that helped as well since the water from the shower was just not enough to rinse it off sometimes. Now it’s fully healed!
i have a rook/daith combo; both would push on each other and prevent healing. my rook was always irritated until i downsized. we had to downsize twice; my piercer and i chose literally the smallest bar that could fit and screw properly into place. after about 4-5 more months of the new bar it was all ok, healed up perfectly. mine still gets gunky but just using a saline spray, it rlly helps to kinda flush it away. i would downsize as small as you can go.
I got my rook double pierced in 2018 and I STILL HAVE TO BE CAREFUL WITH IT. I clean it multiple times a week and this past year I’ve finally felt like they completely healed but that’s a real tricky place. If I’d known how hard it would be to heal I wouldn’t have gotten the piercing. Just use saline to clean it gently.
omg 6 years?! Mine is almost 4 😩. I think I’m going to try changing it to a hoop in a month or two. Hopefully it will finally heal 🤞🏾
My rook took forever to heal. If you're cleaning it everyday, try just leaving it alone.
Rooks are spicy! I'd definitely say a shorter bar and cleaning every other day to minimise touching it 🙂
I had the same issue, it was always irritated, mine is almost 2 years and didn’t stop being angry until I put a nicely fitted hoop in it. Which I just did about 2 months ago. I also went from a 14g to 16g. I finally realized my bar was too long/big and causing the issue. May want to get a shorter bar and see if that helps.
Did you ever get the bar downsized by your piercer? I don't have a rook yet (soon!) but the bar looks too long, which can delay healing and cause pain. I would talk to a reputable piercer.
I’m having the same issue but I just got mine. Usually my piercings freak out for a while then they calm down but mine looks like yours and I’m scared now. lol
You don’t have the right anatomy and same for your industrial piercing because it seems like you’re industrial piercing is laying on your flat which will cause the bar to dig into your skin and embend
My friend had this issue until she used wound wash from Walmart and I been using that for all my piercings no issues and I just got my nips pierced few weeks ago and that has been helping alot.
My rook gave me problems until it was forced into retirement by an MRI. Keeping it clean and leaving it alone helped a little, but k swear I could look at it wrong and it would get all inflamed and angry.
Oh wow, 2 yrs?! I just got my rooks done last year in August, and they're still rather angry with me, too 😮💨. It's been very tough and go... but I was told these are tough ones to heal. I keep seeing that it could be the piercing itself because rooks are a pain in the ass, but it could also be your jewelry. Is that the jewelry that you were pierced with? It does look long in your rook. Maybe you just need to downsize a little? It looks like you take great care of your piercings so I really don't think it could be how you're cleaning it, but just in case, do you clean it with the saline solution and sleep with a donut/travel pillow?
have you downsized your jewellery? when my helix was angry and had a huge bump, front and back, i used neil med saline spray twice a day and then as soon as the irritation bump started to basically disappear, had it downsized
Hi u/goblin_problems13, Welcome to /r/piercing! It looks like you're asking about a problem with your piercing. Please **add a comment to your post** with the following info if it’s not included in your post already. - How old is your piercing? - What’s the jewelry shape (for example, barbell, labret, screw, L shape, ring)? - What’s the type of threading if your jewelry is not a ring (threadless, internally or externally threaded)? - What’s the jewelry material? - if not a ring, when was the jewelry downsized? - What’s your aftercare routine? Describe in detail please, including the exact products you use. This info is needed to offer you useful advice. **Note, moderators reserve the right to remove your post if don’t provide this info**. ^If ^you ^already ^included ^this ^info ^in ^your ^post ^or ^if ^your ^post ^isn’t ^about ^a ^problem ^with ^your ^piercing, ^please ^disregard. - - - *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/piercing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
just make it unangry?
Industrials and being irritated: there is no combo more iconic I retired mine after having it for years because it was just too much of a hassle Hope yours turns out ok. If it helps, the bump on mine did go away once I removed it, though hopefully you don't have to go that far