Spring Break
Pick your piercings: The good, the bad and the festering
Issue date: 11/1/07
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Several years ago, a friend asked me to pierce her ears. I complied but suggested she buy gold studs in case she was allergic to nickel.
Allison decided instead to use the nickel studs, telling me she had worn nickel alloys in jewelry for years. I pierced her ears with a sterile safety pin and a leather belt backing, and in went the two dollar studs.
As it turns out, Allison was allergic to nickel - she lied to me so she wouldn't have to pay for more expensive earrings. A week later her piercings festered, and her earlobes turned a red-orange color.
My friends and I begged her to remove the earrings, but she said the infection would pass with the help of some hydrogen peroxide. The next day her ears had completely encapsulated the earrings and her tongue had turned black.
Her earlobes resembled puss-oozing marbles, and she was taken to the hospital to have the earrings surgically cut out of her engorged lobes.
The plating on Allison's earrings had worn off the metal and entered her bloodstream. This manifested itself in a black coloring of the blood vessels in her tongue.
As Allison's story shows, it is important that before you get a piercing you make sure you are not allergic to your earring. For your first piercing, it is usually best to use gold. A nickel allergy can cause irritation, swelling, redness and pain.
If your piercings are extremely irritating and you show any of these symptoms in an extreme fashion, you should see a physician or piercing specialist. You could be allergic to the metal or have gotten sepsis, an infection of the blood.
This is not to say that all piercings go wrong. Some people have a higher tendency than others to develop scar tissue.
You may notice thick bumps of scar tissue, or keloids, have grown around your piercings.
This is normal, as is non-serious infection right after the piercing. You have just stuck a piece of metal in your skin. This is a wound, and your body is fighting it.
Allison decided instead to use the nickel studs, telling me she had worn nickel alloys in jewelry for years. I pierced her ears with a sterile safety pin and a leather belt backing, and in went the two dollar studs.
As it turns out, Allison was allergic to nickel - she lied to me so she wouldn't have to pay for more expensive earrings. A week later her piercings festered, and her earlobes turned a red-orange color.
My friends and I begged her to remove the earrings, but she said the infection would pass with the help of some hydrogen peroxide. The next day her ears had completely encapsulated the earrings and her tongue had turned black.
Her earlobes resembled puss-oozing marbles, and she was taken to the hospital to have the earrings surgically cut out of her engorged lobes.
The plating on Allison's earrings had worn off the metal and entered her bloodstream. This manifested itself in a black coloring of the blood vessels in her tongue.
As Allison's story shows, it is important that before you get a piercing you make sure you are not allergic to your earring. For your first piercing, it is usually best to use gold. A nickel allergy can cause irritation, swelling, redness and pain.
If your piercings are extremely irritating and you show any of these symptoms in an extreme fashion, you should see a physician or piercing specialist. You could be allergic to the metal or have gotten sepsis, an infection of the blood.
This is not to say that all piercings go wrong. Some people have a higher tendency than others to develop scar tissue.
You may notice thick bumps of scar tissue, or keloids, have grown around your piercings.
This is normal, as is non-serious infection right after the piercing. You have just stuck a piece of metal in your skin. This is a wound, and your body is fighting it.
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