u/figtree1999

8 weeks / pierced with needle / implant grade titanium / saline solution 2x a day

Hello, do you think my lobe piercing is already infected and embedding? Asked for help from my piercer and she's unresponsive. Should I go to another piercer or should I go to the doctor?

Sorry in advance for the long post. For full context, I had my lobes pierced for the first time in 2023. It surprisingly was healing well even though I did everything that any reputable piercer tells you not to. I got it pierced at a mall booth with a piercing gun, earrings were butterfly back, and was using saline solution that I repackaged myself (would buy the big bags at a pharmacy and put it in small spray bottles). No issues, no complications, pure luck I guess. After 6 months, I don't know why but I got the urge to take out my earrings and clean them every night. So I was taking it out and putting it back every single day. I got tired of this routine and one night just took them out and went to sleep. Woke up the next morning and the holes were closed. After a few weeks, I noticed there was a very small bump on each ear. Pretty sure because of the trauma from the nightly routine.

Fast forward to this year, my friend and I went to a popup market and there was a piercer there. I've always wanted to get my lobes pierced again but knew that I had to get the bumps checked first and I also wanted to do everything right this time. My friend kept telling me to just do it since this piercer is popular, has a lot of followers on social media, and has pierced known influencers before. So I said ok fuck it let's do it.

June 7 - Got them pierced. Needle, implant grade titanium flat backs, and saline solution that this piercer sells (repackaged in a spray bottle). She pierced it slightly below/beside my previous piercing.

June 28 - Left lobe started bleeding out of nowhere. I didn't snag it, didn't sleep on it, didn't touch it. I was just working at my desk when all of a sudden I felt the back of my ear was wet. Photo was taken after bleeding had stopped and the blood was dried. Also noticed that the very small bump from the closed piercing was swollen.

July 31 - I noticed that the skin around my left piercing was red.

August 2 - My dad was giving me a head massage and accidentally snagged my left piercing. It started bleeding in the front but not the back. No photo of this because I panicked a bit.

August 3 - Felt my the back of my ear was wet again. Looked at it and saw discharge coming out. Soaked it in warm water, sprayed saline solution, and cleaned it up right away. Noticed that I had bumps in the front now.

August 4 - No more discharge but noticed that the left lobe is swollen and feels a bit hot. No pain though. Took a picture and scared that this is embedding.

Could this be because the piercer pierced it too close to the old ones? I don't know what to do. Both bumps in the left and right lobes from the old piercing have been swollen for weeks now. But only the left lobe is having these issues and the bump there is bigger than the right. The right lobe looks perfectly fine in the front.