If you're struggling with healing your Helix, the reason might be below!
If you're struggling with your Helix healing, the reason might be below!
First, you should know that a cartilage piercing can take up to a year to heal; this is normal, your body works at its own pace.
One of the most common reasons for a healing "bug" is when a ring is put in from the start or too early. No ring on a cartilage piercing before 6 to 8 months of healing, and if you want to know why, it's in this other blog article.
You played by the rules and wore a straight bar in your Helix for 6 months, but you're still struggling?
It might be due to the jewelry material! To avoid any risk of allergic reaction, you need to use good quality titanium or gold.
An allergic reaction isn't necessarily an ear that triples in size; it can just be redness, irritation, lymph, itching...etc. Avoid steel, which is not surgical, and also avoid Teflon and poor quality 'gold' plating sold in jewelry stores.
If there's a very thin layer of gold on the jewelry, the material underneath is often quite poor and full of nickel.
If it's not the jewelry itself or its material, then you need to look elsewhere:
Perhaps it's due to how the piercing was done, with a gun (something you absolutely shouldn't do) or with a needle? It could be related to the angle of the piercing; if you slept on it too soon, maybe the channel was deviated?
Are you regularly using hair dyes that come into contact with the piercing? Have you hit it? Do you regularly wear headphones, motorcycle helmets, or riding helmets?
In short, you understand that if there's a healing issue, it's important to understand its origin, otherwise it will never heal :(
Don't hesitate to visit a competent piercer to understand the problem and solve it if you're out of ideas!
A good professional will ask the right questions and suggest care to help you. However, it's rarely a good idea to follow advice from strangers online about putting cat pee on your piercing on a full moon night for it to heal...
PS: a healing bug ≠ an infection! Disinfecting a non-infected piercing is not useful and can even cause the problem because alcohol-based disinfectants will only inflame the area. Saline solution is sufficient in the vast majority of cases.
If you have a question or a problem with your piercing, you can come to the shop without an appointment even if we didn't do it. We are open Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 12 pm and from 2 pm to 7 pm.
