How to Take Care of Your New Ear Piercing

Getting your ears pierced is almost a right of passage for any young child, especially girls. One thing I couldn't wait to do was buy as many dangling earrings as possible to use after my ear's had healed and the earrings in them could be removed. But there is a lot more to ear piercings then just getting those earrings in, it takes work to make sure the piercings heal properly and stay healthy. With this article I will explain the right way to take care of your ears and the consequences of infections from not taking care of the piercings properly.

The ears are the easiest of piercings, they don't require big needles and lots of bleeding afterward like some piercings do. The studs are usually placed inside a piercing gun and are quickly shot through the bottom of the ear lobes. You can also have your ears pierced by a medical professional using a needle. My mother had this done to her by one of her friends when she was a nurse. While that method is a little outdated, it does still happen in some cases.

I first had my ears pierced when I was 7 years old. My sister and I had to beg our parents for a long time to get the piercings, and as soon as we got them we did not take care of them properly. Somewhere in my 7 year old mind I was under the impression you got the piercing and that was it. That's not how it goes though, and because of my lack of caring my earrings became embedded in my ear and the skin actually started closing around the earring. The same problem also happened with my sister and we ended up having the earrings removed in an Emergency Room. After this experience my parents forbid us to get our ears pierced again until we realized how important it was to take care of the new piercing. The next time I had my ears pierced was when I was 10, then a second set was added when I was 12 and finally I had my cartilage pierced when I was 17. I've been making it a priority to clean my ear's since, this ensures that I won't have any infections where my piercings are, especially the cartilage area.