My earlobe piercing got infected after using cheap amazon jewelry

I got my lobes pierced at a shop 6 months ago, they healed fine. Then last week I bought a pack of 20 fake silver hoops off Amazon for like $8 to swap styles. Put one in on Friday, by Saturday night my ear was red, hot, and leaking yellow goo. I thought it was just irritation but it got worse overnight. Now I'm doing warm salt soaks 3 times a day and put antibiotic ointment on it. Lesson learned - cheap mystery metal is not worth saving a few bucks. Has anyone else had a bad reaction to those bulk piercing packs? How long did it take to clear up?

3 comments

3 Comments

mila_perry133d ago

nah i gotta disagree here. that stuff sucks but it's more about the person than the jewelry generally. i've worn $5 mystery metal from amazon for years with zero issues, my friend got a reaction from a "medical grade" titanium stud from a legit shop. the healing time matters way more than where it came from too - 6 months is still kinda fresh for piercings, mine didn't fully settle until like a year in. sometimes your body just decides to throw a fit at random even with stuff that's totally fine normally.

elliotadams3d agoOG Member

Drop the saline soaks for a few days and just let warm water run over it in the shower, that helped me when my daith got pissed off for no reason. Also @vera_murphy is spot on about cartilage taking forever, my helix was still grumpy at 18 months even though it looked fine. Sometimes less fussing is better than over cleaning, especially if you've tried everything else.

vera_murphy3d ago

Gonna gently push back on the healing time thing though... most piercings take way longer than a year to fully settle, especially cartilage ones can be 2-3 years before they're truly done.