But here’s the bad part: I couldn’t touch my ear too heavily at all. I’d go to lie down, put my head on my boyfriend’s shoulder, comb my hair…and it would be excruciating. This inconvenience will probably go away for most people in a few weeks, but for me, it was months.

A few weeks after I got my piercing I got a little lazy and cut back on the aftercare… I also had a party to go to and wanted to change the earring. Dear god, never change the earring before you’re meant to!! There was this ridiculous flow of blood from somewhere, the earring got hole somewhere in the hole and wasn’t coming out the back, it was one of the worst experiences of my life. So don’t do it!

That kinda put me back at square one in terms of pain and healing times. A few weeks after this, I also noticed this gross lump right next to the piercing on the back of my ear. It would alternate from being hard to being squishy and I had this overwhelming urge to annihilate it. A friend told me it was just a pus bubble, but it was skin coloured and painful… it eventually went away after I tried everything from aftercare to hydrocortisone cream, but it must’ve taken over a month to resolve. I recently did some research and think it was a granuloma, which is actually a pretty common consequence of piercing cartilage, it’s like a protective response.

I guess the bottom line here is that if anything goes wrong, go talk to the piecer and sort it out, don’t just put up with it.

Almost 4 months later, I’m now able to change the earring whenever I like and I’m pain free unless I accidentally whack my ear on something ^_^ I’ve found that eBay is incredible for buying helix jewellery – fancy jewellery is hard to find in stores because it’s so specific.

So that’s my experience and all I can say is to follow the instructions your piercer gives you! Comment if you’ve had a similar experience, I’d love to hear about it!