Industrial piercing care - Cyst or keloid?

I haven't had it for very long, and it doesn't seem to be rejecting or deforming the shape of my ear, so I'm hoping I can salvage it.





About two weeks after having it done, two tiny bumps began to grow by the holes on the outer shell. I went back to the piercer to see if these were keloids and he told me that they were.


I went back home thinking that they were and began using an aspirin paste to help it go down some.


It didn't go down, but it began to scab some. When I went to try and clean the scab off, I accidentally pulled the entire bump off and it began to bleed, making me think it wasn't a keloid but a cyst. I'm thinking maybe a follicular cyst.





Would a keloid bleed and scab? I've never had one do that.


If it is a cyst, would I be able to go to a doctor or do something at home to help them go down?

Industrial piercing care - Cyst or keloid?
one, dont worry about an industrial rejecting or deforming your ear. it's in cartilage, not just skin.


two, i've never tried the aspirin paste, but i would recommend just doing sea salt soaks twice a day for 10 minutes at a time.


a follicular cyst is likely to form if you keep pressure on the barbell for an extended amount of time (like when sleeping), or lack of cleaning. crud just builds up and cant escape.


i had follicular cysts form about 9 months after i had my industrial because i stopped cleaning it with sea salt soaks and i began trying to sleep on it. i was so worried it was a keloid. But i noticed an increased amount of crusties forming and occasionally blood would come out when i would clean it with a soaked q-tip. I eventually decided to take my jewelry out and see what would happen when i cleaned it. i had a LOT of pus and blood come out. I kept cleaning with hot water soaked q-tips and gently pushed on the bump until nothing came out and replaced the jewelry. I did this for about 3 nights in a row until i noticed the bump go down, after a week i could not even tell the bump was ever there!


my suggestion is to keep up with sea salt soaks (i hope you're doing these at least once, if not twice a day), avoid touching or moving the barbell, dont sleep on it, and do the cleaning like i did and after a week it should go away and not come back. trust me they do come back if you slack off with taking care of your piercing (in my case after 9 months when i thought it was almost fully healed)
Reply:Sometimes piercings create little pockets of fluid like that in an attempt to clean themselves. For one reason or another they are having trouble pushing dirt out to the surface of the skin due to swelling, tightness of jewlery, pressure durring sleeping or some other random factor. They can also form like a blister if your piercing is aggravated by pressure either from the shape of your ear on the jewlery or sleeping on it too much. As a last possibility, it could be the beginning of a keloid forming. Keloids dont always start out hard, they can solidify over time like a scar.





The best way to get this thing to go away is probably to clean your piercing thoroughly and gently and try not to sleep on that ear. This should help in the case that this bump was your ear trying to clean itself. If it is a keloid then it is attempting to form a scar. The more you fiddle with it, the larger it will probably get and the longer it will take to go away completely.





If it comes back, consider taking it to another piercer (if theres another reputable shop in the area) and have them take a look. They might have seen something like it before and have a remedy.

shamrock