Have one of these common piercing issues? What can you do...

…if you’ve got an enormous swelling under your piercing - It’s not an irritation bump and it’s certainly not a keloid. It’s a giant lump in your skin and it shouldn’t be there. What to do? This is a situation that requires medical attention. You cannot simply remove the jewelry and let it heal. That can allow a possible infection to remain in the body with no way to drain. If this happens, see your doctor ASAP.

…if you’ve got an extra hole in your piercing - If you can see the jewelry through your skin, your piercing is sadly rejecting. You should take it out. The longer you let it go, the worse the scarring will be when it fully rejects.

…if you’ve got an irritation bump - You need to find out the cause of the bump. Is the angle of your piercing wrong? Was it done with inappropriate jewelry? Did it get snagged on something? If you can figure out the problem and correct it, you should be able to get rid of the bump. If the piercing wasn’t done correctly, you can take it out and get it re-done and minimize the potential scarring by catching it early. You can change the jewelry to something more appropriate or simply baby a piercing that got caught on something.

…if your piercing is bleeding. A lot. And won’t stop. - This is a very rare occurrence but if it should happen to happen, it requires medical attention. Like the “Stop reading this article and go get seen immediately” kind of medical attention. Don’t worry, we’ll still be here when you get home!

…if there’s a weird red ring of tissue around your stretched lobe - That’s a blowout. Simply put, the fistula has turned inside out. This can happen due to stretching too fast, stretching with inappropriate tools, or sleeping with your plugs in. You need to remove your jewelry and let it heal on its own. You MAY be able to replace the jewelry with smaller diameter glass single-flare plugs as things start to heal but the fistula needs to rest and heal up. You will probably lose some size while your ear heals, but you can always re-stretch when everything is healthy again.

…if you just got pierced and you’ve got a black eye - This is totally normal. Piercing causes bleeding, especially in the eye area. Piercings like eyebrow and bridge piercings are especially likely to leave you with a shiner for a week or two, but it will go away on its own.

**Reminder: this is not medical advice and that you should always seek out the advice of a piercing or medical professional if you have concerns about your piercings.