So, both of my younger cousins (one is 13, one is 15) got their navels pierced at the local terrible illegal place awhile back.

They complain that the piercings are crooked and get infected all the time. The older one was telling me how angry she was because it got infected when she changed the barbell a few weeks after getting it pierced. Then she was told me about how it was fine after two days of constantly pouring Bactine on it. Ugh.

What is with people and changing their jewelry too fast? Even my mom did it when she got her nostril pierced, and she also ended up getting the dreaded "nostril bump" because she didn't take care of it AT ALL. My general rule with changing jewelry is until there are no more custies, no lymph or soreness or anything, and then some. But all my friends that get their nostrils, navels, tragi, and industrials and all their little "hXc" piercings feel the need to shove something new in there as soon as it isn't sore anymore. Everyone asks me why I haven't changed my "belly ring" yet, I mean HONESTLY, it's been almost 3 months (*sarcasm*).

 Even if they get piercings done at the good place in town (by Tom, he's an amazing piercer) they choose not to go by the (brilliant) aftercare that he gives them, consisting of warm sea salt soaks, chammomile compresses if hypertrophic scarring occurrs, and if anything goes wonky or they have any questions, or their jewelry isn't fitting right, to come see him immediately. He's a super nice guy, when I got my second set of lobies, his assistant/apprentice had laid out two different diameter captives by accident. He measured the one I liked (the smaller one) in-ear, set one of the same diameter aside, and told me to come back in two weeks and he'd change it if the healing was going well, which he did because it was. But people just disregard his aftercare and I get offended because he's awesome and who wouldn't want to listen to it, lol.

Does anyone else know people like this or am I just living in a town with the stupidest pierced people in the world?

 For some reason, I constantly want to take out my jewelry.  It's not because I want to change it, but for some reason I just want to take it out.  I have no idea what drives this insane desire.  However, I'm good at ignoring it, and don't take my jewelry out during the first week after a stretch and then I only take my jewely out once a day for cleaning and oil massages.

 I can understand that they want to take the jewelry out, but I don't know why they would still do it after they were told NOT to.  That is pretty stupid, no offense to your relatives or anything.

 You'll have idiots like that no matter where you are unfortunately. I know its frustrating, but you just have to let them learn from their mistakes, and if they don't learn then obviously they deserve the infection/bump/keloid or whatever they get out of it as a result. My older sister asks me for advice now as do almost all of my friends. When I was younger I thought it was so cool how she got her tongue pierced for her 18th birthday, for Christmas I got her the very first internally threaded piece of jewelry she had ever even seen. It was a fuschia IS gemmed barbell with pink gems, she hasn't taken it out since and is amazed that it doesn't bother her mouth like the cheap shitty ones of unknown metal with acrylic balls did. I'm constantly telling people I know not to get gunned at the mall or ram that acrylic taper from hot topic through their ear, half of them don't listen but hey it's their risk...

You could try setting up little aftercare packages for them. A baggie of sea salt with the ratio of salt to water written on it in sharpie, photocopy the aftercare sheets from the piercing place you go to if they don't already have one, etc. 

I know...I try to spread the knowledge, but it doesn't seem like anyone wants to listen. The other day my friend was complaining about how her ear hurt (on IM), I asked her why and she said "Well, I stretched my ear to 12g yesterday, and it didn't feel like anything changed in my ear so I stretched to 10g today and now my ears are THROBBING and secreting all kinds of nasty fluids." I told her to downsize to 16g immediately, but she was like "nah, I'll just wait it out" So I asked if she had any sea salt left over from her navel piercing and she was like "this kid told me that sea salt isn't good for your ears when you're stretching." And since "he had like 1 inch in," he MUST be far more knowledgable than myself.

And I would do aftercare packages but I don't think they'd listen anyways, it'd make it's way to the back of whoever's closet I give them to...  My piercer, Tom, gives out aftercare sheets as well as a sheet with a list of times to change your jewelry (it says at the top "try to only change your jewelry when it is fully healed, unless you have a medical issue [like if you need an MRI] or there is an allergic reaction" but besides that, the earliest safe changing times for earlobes, septum, nostril, navel, nipples, etc.), so there's no excuse for people that go there to get pierced, but I dunno about the other place.

I suppose you're right, they'll just have to learn for themselves. 

Blowout sliedshow :)