HELP! Ears may have rejected new jewelry??

[tatecooper]

I recently went up to a size 8 (small, I know) and to do this, I bought Acrylic Spirals. I put them in and almost the next day my ears were all swollen and puss was coming out and it was bleeding. Out of 4 ear stretching sizes I've been through, that has NEVER happened. Do you think my ears rejected/reacted to the Acrylic? I'd love some advice.

[PS. I took them out and I'm going to wait a week and put 10's back in and wait a little longer.]

Thanks!

[ms.doomsday]

your ears naturally release discharge to help the healing process.. acrylic usually causes build up of this and can cause a lot of irritation and actual reverse the healing process.. i stretched with spiral wood plugs to avoid this.. try something more porous..

[Hybrid]

Actually I perfer to stretch with something like glass or steel to keep from harboring bacteria. It sounds like you might have stretched to soon.

[cyanotype]

Yeah, definitely don't stretch with wood.

Stretching with spirals creates a higher risk of blowouts and tearing, you may have torn your lobe, especially if you have been sleeping in them. It's also quite common to react to acrylic, so there could be numerous things happening here. In the future, I would stick to titanium or glass plugs with rounded ends.

[kohlrollen]

Acrylics are bad for leaving them in, I'd only use them to stretch with if your putting plugs in right away. The material doesn't breathe well enough for your ears to heal.

[StrickyCub]

If they're stretching the right way, there should be no open wounds and stretching with acrylic should not be a problem.

However some people can be allergic to it, you could have torn it in your sleep by accidentally tugging on it, or perhaps you just weren't quite ready to stretch. Though I'm willing to bet it's the middle one ^^

My favourite pair of jewellery is actually a pair of 10g white acrylic spirals. Too bad I can't wear them anymore, although I guess I could always buy another pair for 2g

There seems to be a lot of stigma behind acrylic, but seriously there is nothing wrong with it as long as you're not destroying your ears by going up 3 sizes in one week, and as long as it's a GOOD QUALITY coated acrylic (it should be shiny) and not something cheap from china.

People seem to forget that the quality of the item your purchasing, even if it's steel or titanium, will have an affect since cheaper item= cheaper build materials and quality.

~Strick