Symptoms and Care of Cartilage Piercing Infection

Symptoms:

• You may experience severe pain, redness and swelling in and around the piercing site.
• Often, very often, a white fluid drains out of piercing. This must not be mistaken with pus, because it is lymphatic fluid that acts like a cleanser for dirt and bacteria.
• After a few days, yellowish crust forms, indicating that the piercing has started healing. However, it cannot be with every piercing.
• If proper care is not taken while piercing, it can lead to infections or if you do not take proper aftercare instructions, infections may develop.
• Infections are characterized with pus formation, bleeding, throbbing pain and bumps on piercing. Sometimes, piercing may produce foul smell.

Care:
A professional piercer must advise a person about proper piercing care. He must execute some precautionary steps while piercing. He must use sterilized instruments and wear clean gloves while piercing. Apart from these, a person who gets his ear pierced must follow the following steps to avoid cartilage infection.

• Do not touch cartilage piercing with the naked hands. Dirty hands is the access point for bacteria to enter the piercing.
• Use a disinfectant soap to wash the hands properly.
• Never play with piercing jewelry. Fingering the piercing jewelry with dirty hands cause infection.
• While putting on clothes, take proper care of piercing.
• Use an antiseptic lotion to clean the piercing twice a day, till it heals completely. You can soak jewelry in alcohol solution for disinfecting it.
• Never apply hydrogen peroxide, tea tree oil or alcohol directly on piercing.
• Don’t change the jewelry frequently in the initial months.
• Always keep your hair clean and do not keep the public telephone receiver on the ear directly.