Elanor's Ears - The Conclusions

After 7 days, the gun piercing had to be removed so the experiment ended. I had already (foolishly) written loads more about the stages of healing because we planned to follow it to the end but alas now it will never reach that so I suppose I’ll do another blog one day and save it all for that!

Now that the stud has been removed, Elanor has also decided to stop cleaning and turning the stud and I’ve let her off because she’s been through enough already.

Here are the final Day 8 pictures. The needle piercing has pretty much done nothing so is still healing as you would expect. The gun piercing, although the jewellery has been changed, is still a little tender but that should be better and both should be fully healed in 10 weeks or so.

Thanks for taking this journey with us! It was shorter than I thought but I still learned loads!

Conclusions:

Gun piercing is overpriced, uses poor quality metal in its jewellery which is deliberately disguised as good quality and safe when it isn’t. The aftercare solution that is supposed to heal a piercing in 3 weeks is a chemical weapon and should absolutely NOT be put on anyone’s skin, let alone newly pierced ears LET ALONE the newly pierced ears of small children. It’s bleach. Don’t put bleach on yourself. Even on the bumhole. You heard me. Gun piercing in chain stores costs more than needle piercing in most reputable piercing establishments and you get less for your money.

I learned that I probably undercharge but I don’t intend to change that.

The studs used in gun piercings are not suitable for initial piercings, they are far too short.

Gun piercings hurt more and for longer than needle piercings.

The aftercare advice is INSANE and piercings definitely should not be cleaned any more than during normal personal hygiene (hair washing and showering etc)

Studs do not need to be turned every day, in fact they don’t need to be turned at all. In fact that causes more swelling and issues.

Manufacturers and mass producers of guns and gun-studs for piercing do not care about people, they care about money. It isn’t safe and it isn’t pleasant.

In conclusion: Gun piercings are worse than I thought and I am a lot more passionate about banning the practice than I used to be. I will be speaking to the Tattoo and Piercers Union and trying to get this brought to the attention of parliament.

If you want to get yours or your child’s ears pierced, never ever ever go to somewhere that uses a gun. It isn’t worth this:

THE STUD IS INSIDE THE EAR!!

I’d suggest booking with me instead.

Elanor's Ears Day 6

Well, today the proverbial somewhat hit the fan. In the morning, Elanor sent me this picture:

“I can’t get that to sit any further out anymore…now I’m a little worried”

She decided to see if she could cope a few more days until she was back at work and we could sort it then. But then later towards the evening, this happened…

At this point we decided it couldn’t be allowed to go on any longer. I took out the stud and replaced it with a 12mm barbell to give it the space it needed to swell properly and go back down. If you want to see how that went, copy and paste this into your browser. Technological ineptitude means I can’t embed it here. Boo.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Zi7OND4TrtA

Replaced the short gun-piercing stud with a nice long barbell. Much better already.

This is what we took out. The fluid there is a bit of alcohol by the way! Felt compelled to give it a squirt immediately, though not entirely sure why because it went straight in the bin!

measured to check, yes it was 6mm. I wouldn’t ever use a 6mm stud in a new piercing! This is VERY silly.

right to left: the 6mm gun stud that was used, the 8mm labret that should have been used and the 12mm barbell that we fitted to fix it.

So here endeth the experiment. Conclusions in the next and final post!

Elanor's Ears Day 5

This may be becoming a problem.

At this stage, there is a distinct difference between the two piercings. Elanor says “The gun piercing is really starting to hurt”

If someone came in with this gun piercing looking as it does, I would change out the jewellery and tell them to stop cleaning and turning it. But this is for SCIENCE DAMMIT!! So she’s going to persevere. Maybe that speedy healing solution will kick in soon and it’ll all be fine in a day or two…

Elanor's Ears Day 4

As you can see, the swelling has really started to look worrying. The jewellery is clearly not helping and the speedy healing solution isn’t helping.

Looks fine, feels fine. Not cleaning it extra to showering as normal is doing no harm. No signs of infection present.

Elanor's Ears Day 3

Stage 2 of Piercing Healing: Inflammation

Once a scab is formed, the area remains swollen and may feel warm for up to 3 weeks. Reason being, the spleen is sending little fellas called monocytes to the area of injury where they join together like the Megazord (it’s a power rangers reference and that’s FINE) to form macrophages. “Macrophage” means “big eater” and their job is to munch up any cells or bits of gubbins that aren’t supposed to be there, break them down and reabsorb them. During the inflammation stage, the army is building but once everyone is assembled the roadways that are the blood vessels can chill and the swelling will go down. 

With a gun: Well, since the body has already started trying to bleed and it can’t get out, it’s pretty likely to swell up and possibly bruise pretty quickly. That burning and stinging sensation Elanor felt after her gun piercing was her body trying to pump blood into the area and it not being able to escape, creating some sort of gross flesh-balloon. Additionally, the post is only 6mm long so there isn’t much room for swelling and the stud looks tight from the outset.

I expect the gun pierced ear to be more swollen than the needle piercing and worry a bit that the jewellery from the gun piercing might be too short and could start to embed.

With the needle: Using an 1.2x8mm labret means that not only is there room for blood to get out if it needs to but also, there is space for the ear lobe to swell. The titanium is inert so the body is able to crack on with healing it as if it’s not there at all. 

I don’t expect much visible swelling on the needle pierced ear because it will be accommodated for by the jewellery so shouldn’t cause any further trauma.

One issue with the gun piercing could easily be that the shorter jewellery is too tight which causes further injury which causes more swelling which causes more trauma which causes more swelling and you see where this goes? Additionally, all that turning and cleaning is going to traumatise the area and make this all the more likely.

Definitely getting quite snug and the ear is looking red as the blood vessels remain active to try and address the injury. Which is causing more injury because there isn’t enough space on the bar!

Nothing much to report, Elanor says this one isn’t painful or swollen and is fine to sleep on.

Elanor's Ears Day 2 (actually Day 2)

First, a note: it occurred to me that having done the piercings on day 2 of the blog, it gets a bit confusing because the pictures are going to be labelled as different days to the blog posts. So although this is the third blog entry, it’s the second day in the life of the piercings. That will be less confusing. Sorry about the title.

Now both piercings are done, albeit 12 hours apart, we’re waiting to see how they heal.

The first stage of healing that we expect to see is Coagulation and Hemostasis…

Stage 1 - Coagulation and Hemostasis (should be finished in about 20 mins)

After a wound, you have probably noticed, your body bleeds. This is obviously for a reason. Firstly, blood being a liquid will help flush out any bits of nasty that have got into the body. Secondly, blood carries all the ingredients your body needs to heal. To start out, it needs fibrin to build a scab so that’s what gets sent there. Unfortunately, the healing cells are bigger than your average (very small) blood cell, so the vessels need to expand so that they can fit. This means that the area heats up, expands the blood vessels and has a big ol’ bleed. Once your body has expanded the blood vessels enough to get some fibrin down there, your blood will start to thicken, that’s coagulation. I get a little excited when I see a nice bit of blood thickening, it’s a sign of good healing abilities and healthy, well-oxygenated blood. Once the coagulation has kicked in, the fibrin starts to plug the gaps and the bleeding stops. That’s Hemostasis (hemo=blood stasis=stillness)

Ok so here’s the thing. Gun piercing and needle piercing happens in different ways so the stages of healing are affected. 

Coagulation and Hemostasis in Piercing Healing

GUN: A gun piercing shoots an earring through the ear, the hole thus is the same size as the earring, there is no space around it. Your body wants to bleed (and it is better for it if it does!) but it can’t because the exit has been instantly blocked by a stud.

NEEDLE: A needle piercing inserts jewellery via a cannula so is by necessity VERY SLIGHTLY less wide in the jewellery than in the hole. That’s why most piercings will bleed a little. Which, as discussed, is good. 

A final note: I said I’d talk about turning the earrings every day. The gun piercing aftercare instructions said to rotate the studs 3x a day, I say do not rotate them at all. Why?

Well, because the gun piercing used blunt force to make a hole only the width of the jewellery, turning it is pretty important. If you don’t, the fibrous blood cells will hold the earring in place and it can embed into the ear. You won’t end up with a tiled wall around your bathroom, you’ll end up plastering your ladder to the wall.

With a needle piercing, because there is space, blood can move around the jewellery, there is no need to break the fibrin and the jewellery isn’t going to become part of the ear, it is easy for your body to understand that it is a separate entity. 

Now, does that mean I think turning ANY earring is a wise move? 

Hell no. 

Moving the stud:

1. can introduce infection unless you’re surgical-level cleaning your hands before you turn it which we all know you’re not.

2. Moves the cells sending messages to different places in the wound. That’ll confuse things.

3. Removes any scabbing that may have formed inside which will make it bleed again, or not be able to bleed again as the case may be. This is a new injury and it will restart the healing process. Bad juju.

But Elanor is doing what she’s told. Let’s see how this goes. 

Elanor's Ears Day 2. Also my suspicions about aftercare advice.

Elanor’s Ears Day 2

Today Elanor has headed into town for a gun piercing. With a budget of £25 for a piercing and aftercare, she opted for a 3mm earring made of stainless steel (£10) and the recommended aftercare solution (£15) . She has been advised the following:

• Cleanse front and back of the ear 3 times a day for 3 weeks with aftercare solution without removing the studs then rotate 2-3 times 180º left and 180º right ie. A half turn only thus avoiding hair wrapping around the post at the back of the ear

• In between cleansing, the ear should be kept dry

• Keep hairspray, soap, shampoo and other preparations away from the ear. After shampooing, the ear should be rinsed with clear water and then cleansed with aftercare solution.

• The pierced area should be cleansed with aftercare solution then kept dry especially after bathing swimming or exercise.

• Leave studs in the ears for 3 weeks

• Only wear posts for 6 months from piercing

Do not:

• Remove studs or handle your ears and/or studs unnecessarily

• Push the butterfly along the post towards the ear - the butterfly must always be positioned at the tip of the post. Feel the position each time you clean the ear - it must feel smooth. This ensures that the earring remains loose during the healing period. This is essential as tight earrings lead to inflammation

Worries I have about this advice:

• Cleaning 3 times a day will remove the cells that are sent to the ear to help it heal so I’m predicting it will be inflamed and painful and will not heal as quickly as if left alone. I’m not sure where this idea of constantly cleaning a piercing comes from actually, there is no healthcare organisation that recommends such regular cleaning of a small wound that isn’t a piercing. Why does putting a piece of jewellery in for fashion render it more in need of cleaning than an implant made of the same metal?

• What is actually IN this aftercare solution? How does it change the healing time from 12 weeks to 3? Why aren’t doctors giving this out to patients with small wounds? Standard medical guidelines for small wound healing say that the four stages of healing take 12 weeks to complete, in the absence of any complications. How has someone devised a solution that cuts that down to 3 and not mass marketed it? Suspicious face.

• How exactly is anyone supposed to not get their ears wet apart from when cleaning it with solution? Surely showering isn’t going to harm anyone?

• For that matter, how is anyone supposed to not get shampoo on their ears? I mean even if you wanted to avoid that, how would you??

• If you’ve literally just washed your hair with shampoo, obviously you’re rinsing it afterwards, that doesn’t really need saying. BUT what bothers me is why washing something with soap and water would then require cleaning it afterwards with anything else. What do they think the shampoo is going to do after it gets rinsed off?

• Why are we turning the earrings? (I do actually have a theory about this which I’ll go into tomorrow)

*The magical aftercare solution in fact contains:

Water (fine, doesn’t everything)

Sodium Hypochlorite. That’s bleach. (YES, THE SAME BLEACH YOU PUT DOWN YOUR TOILET. THE POISONOUS LIQUID THAT BURNS SKIN. THAT BLEACH. IT’S BLEACH. ACTUAL BLEACH. HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS!?!?)

Phosphoric acid. Used in medicine sometimes to help remove necrotic cells. That sounds good but if your ear is necrotic you have bigger problems. (in a few days I’ll tell you about apoptosis but not now) It might not seem like the worst thing in the world, but as well as this medical use, phosphoric acid is highly corrosive (just what I want on my child’s skin) (oh…and probably great for those rhodium plated earrings. That was sarcasm) and, best of all, can be used as a chemical weapon because it creates deadly chlorine gas when it’s mixed with….can you guess?

Bleach.

Brilliant.

Did Putin develop this aftercare solution by any chance?

Well, I guess at least it isn’t saline?

Doesn’t that look a little…snug?

Elanor says: “The gun piercing seemed to take a lot longer to get around to than the needle piercing; there was a lot of setting up to do. It hurt a lot more and left me with a burning pain that still hasn’t gone. It’s like a warmth and stinging and throbbing. It was quick to actually do but I did not enjoy the afterpain!”

Elanor's Ears Day 1. Also, some fun facts about metal.

Today we pierced Elanor’s left earlobe with a 1.2mm Braun Introcan needle and fitted via cannula a 1.2x8mm titanium labret with a plain 3mm titanium ball attachment. With me, this piercing costs £25 so for fair comparison that is the budget for her gun piercing. 

The price with me includes aftercare instructions and a small bottle of coconut and tea tree oil to be used on any dry skin that may arise around the piercing if it swells. It also includes a friendship bracelet, a Psara Piercing lanyard, a troubleshooting guide to common issues, a lifetime warranty of the piercing, a little mirror, a spare plain ball attachment for the earring and a bag of haribo! She has been instructed to use the oil as much or as little as she wants. 

I looked into pricing out of interest and was surprised to find that at the chain store Elanor plans to visit, there isn’t an option of a single ear piercing with titanium. The only alternatives are stainless steel…note, that’s not surgical steel…or rhodium plated gold.

There are important differences between stainless and surgical steel:

Firstly, surgical steel is more expensive. Although surgical steel is a type of stainless steel, not all stainless steel is surgical steel. The earrings are advertised as “medical grade stainless steel” which we can only assume is to make it SOUND like it’s surgical steel, whilst not in fact claiming that it is. Sneaky.

Surgical steel is also known as 316 (or 316L depending on the carbon content) steel, a lot of body jewellery is made of 316 steel and it is sort of fine to pierce with. It contains 16% chromium, 10% nickel and 2% molybdenum. Nickel is a very common allergen, as outlined below so Psara Piercing policy is not to use it, although perfectly legal. Instead I use titanium or bioflex because it is almost completely inert with only <0.1% of people allergic to it. It is drastically more expensive (at my wholesale supplier, titanium jewellery is roughly 2.5x the price of surgical steel jewellery. And that’s SURGICAL steel, not “medical grade stainless steel” which is even cheaper) (the cads).

What the ear piercing gun system in fact uses is not surgical steel, it is grade 304 stainless steel. In practical terms it’s much the same as surgical steel - it contains roughly 8% nickel and 18% chromium. The main difference is that it is cheaper because it is more corrosive than surgical steel, especially with repeated exposure to liquid. Which isn’t necessarily the best property for a pierce of metal that you’re then instructed to douse with fluid multiple times a day.

The next option is 9ct gold rhodium plated which I personally wouldn’t be piercing with. 

Apparently: 

“Unless you want to turn your gold jewellery silver, plating yellow gold in rhodium is not recommended. Over time, the gold will show through the rhodium plating, gold is often bleached and made white by combining it with other metals” (Website on the internet that I forgot to make a note of and so am not crediting but I’m sure that’s fine)

So why rhodium plated gold instead of silver or steel? It’s a marketing ploy I think. It doesn’t look like gold but it has the word “gold” in it so it sounds like better quality. In fact Rhodium, although itself hypoallergenic, is very brittle and often wears off over time (especially with “repeated exposure to salt or liquid” lol). This means that a fresh piercing may be left exposed to the gold beneath which contains nickel since gold isn’t strong enough on its own. With 8-10% of children and up to 19% of adults allergic to nickel, that’s one hell of a risk. Also, it’ll cost you £50 for a single earring (the piercing is “free” of course). 

Maybe I should be putting my prices up. 

“Didn’t hurt much, only for a second. I couldn’t feel it afterwards at all and it was all done in a matter of minutes. Very happy with it!” Elanor

Tomorrow she’s off to get her other ear pierced with a gun! Eek!