Earstretching.net

So I got my ears pierced in the spring sometime, about a week after that i woke up one morning and the crappy earrings they used were half healed over and i had to push them out, the next day i bought a 14g U taper to get something in there that wouldn't heal over, worked fine, i had some swelling on my right ear that i thought might have been an infection, but i wasn't sure, i just made sure i took even more care to clean and care for it and it went down after about a week, it returned maybe every other week and went away, the whole time i had a steady amount of what i believed to be the smelly dead tissue continuously coming out, after about a month of this my ears seemed fine and i went ahead and stretched to 10g with stainless steel tapers cleaned with alcohol wipes and had absolutely no problem at all, i didn't even feel it, even later in the day my plugs went right in with ease and i haven't done anything but buy new jewelry and continue caring for them since.

The problem i'm having is the smelly dead tissue continues to build up (slight amounts on my left ear, mostly on the right) and occasionally (about 2 to 4 days in a row out of every 2 weeks that pass) my right ear will swell up, sometimes noticeably large, and will occasionally feel warmer than usual to the touch like an infection would. I feel as though the most plausible answer (and i really am unsure of this) is that i've had a slight infection that just occasionally gets worse and the smelly white goo is just the dead bacteria or left over puss that's getting out, but i took really good care of it and i'm wondering if my ears are just taking a long time to adjust and are getting irritated, but then that doesn't make too much sense as its now been like 8-9 months since i went to 10g, i've used multiple different jewelery pieces made of multiple different materials, and that seems like a ridiculous amount of time to get adjusted to having a piercing. Also i doubt its the jewelery carrying bacteria as i switch them about once a month and they defiantly get cleaned well in between, plus my main jewelry is metal screw on tunnels and not acrylic/plastic or whatever. It might help to know that they tend to heal over slightly when the piercing is out for 6+ hours (occasionally plugs fall out during sleep), i don't know if that's normal for a 10g (?)

To testament to my care taking - the first couple weeks i cleaned and used after piercing solution constantly throughout the day and for the first two months i used the solution, antibacterial soap, and salt water baths to clean all my jewelery and let them soak, took a shower, throughly clean my ears with the solution and antibacterial soap, and would let them air out before i put my jewelery back in and even occasionally used some mild ointment before i let them air out, also i used salt water baths regularly. I continued to use salt baths and multiple times a week did the whole shower routine up until about 3 months ago, i stopped using salt baths, and now only about once a week i take the jewelery out, clean them and my ears with antibacterial soap, get all the gooey, smelling dead tissue off, shower, let it all dry and put it back in.

So i'm trying to end the smelly goo and swelling, and finally feel good about them so maybe i can stretch again soon.

Thanks in advance for any ideas you've got.

I am clearly no expert, but the stinky white stuff you describe sounds like pretty normal sebum to me. I used to take out my jewlery and wash my ears with a mild soap (w no perfume) every time I showered, and if I forgot I could get some white sebum and funky smell, ecpecially if I had been working out and sweating a lot. I guess you shoud wash your ears more than once a week, and I guess you would get rid of the redness too.

I wash my ears and plugs every day (evening and night) and I have never had a problem with smell.

I think you need to clean your ears and plugs more often, cos yeah, otherwise they will stink.

It sounds like you're overcleaning them. Skip the ear piercing solution, the soap, and the ointment, and just do the sea salt soaks (but make sure they're not too salty). Also, you skipped a couple sizes in the beginning, skipped 12G, and didn't wait long enough after your initial piercing to start stretching. I'd recommend downsizing and waiting longer between sizes/longer to begin stretching.