Member Advice on Body Piercing

Most of us have some kind of piercing done at some point of time in our life. I am no exception, though I tried to be one until my wedding. We have a tradition that married women should wear earrings (to show their married status). Just two days before the wedding I was dragged by my sister to a jewelery shop and the jeweler pierced my ears.( I had closed my eyes and waited for the pain to strike me numb. But nothing happened. I opened my eyes with the giggling of my sister who was laughing at me. It was amazing; the piercing gun did it in a nanosecond and without any pain! But my joy was to live for a day only. My wedding night turned in to a horror show when I tried to remove the earrings. My ears had swollen the size of lemons and the pain was unbearable. To this day my husband teases me about my whining and crying. And I have returned to my old practice, of not wearing anything in ears, because my ears hurt each time I put anything in them.

There's a lot of debate as to whether or not the piercing gun is safe. Many piercers who use needle methods think that the gun should be banned. But many people had their ears pierced using the gun and never had a single problem with them. Why a lot of people support banning the needle is because of the issue of sterilization of the piercing gun. Piercing guns are often made of plastic which cannot be properly sterilized in an autoclave. Gun's pieces are rubbed with alcohol, but there are, gaps and clefts which can't be reached. So it's cleaning is never hundred percent.

The piercer simply wipes the gun with a surface disinfectant like alcohol between clients which is not sufficient as the gun could have possibly been exposed to blood borne pathogens The gun uses a brutal force to drive a sharp piercing through the earlobe. The painless piercing through the gun is definitely a plus point, but there's a lot more undetected damage done. The gun should be used on the earlobe alone, but many a times the piercer will pierce the cartilage as well. Some will even pierce nostrils with the guns.

Cartilage piercings are prone to having more problems. Cartilage piercing can result in granuloma (A granuloma is a small area of inflammation in the body due to tissue injury, such as from an infection) or Hypertrophic scarring which is heavy scarring that appears around a piercing or other wound. Unsterilised guns can cause keloids. Keloids can be considered to be "scars that don't know when to stop. It is a tough heaped-up scar that rises quite abruptly above the rest of the skin. Unlike scars, keloids do not subside over time.

None of the treatments is consistently effective, including topical or intra lesional corticosteroids, pressure earrings, laser surgery, and surgical excision. Keloid can recur after surgery and recurrent keloids are larger than the original keloid. Most people get piercings done this way out of ignorance, and assuming that it must be safe if it's widely practiced.

Often these piercing are done by unlicensed people, sometimes teenagers who have no proper training.You may have to pay more to professional piercers, but they're licensed and know the exact locations. In the long run, you'll save yourself far more time and energy.