hi... i am new here.. scouring internet for suggestions on how to help this process along. i got my cheeks pierced 6 weeks ago and wow! what a long process! one of them was doing fine.. discharging when it needed to, the other one stopped discharging and i started to get a pocket off to the side of the piercing. hot compresses help... i do press on the pocket to get the stuff to come out. i am using vitamin e oil and saline soaks. how often and for how long should i do these soaks and hot compresses? is it ok that i press on the bump/pocket to release to fluid? is there ANYTHING else i can do? some people recommend aspirin paste and others say dont use it outside your mouth. what about grapefruit seed extract? that does seem to be helping. what about chamomile tea in the water with salt for my hot compress? some say yes, some say no. i have had the bump for over two weeks now- it is pretty big and red... about the size of my fingertip. i did get the bump to go away completely- no redness left at all and then i think i stopped babying it and it came back after only being gone for 2 days. now i cant get it to go away. the other cheek stopped discharging and now i have a very small bump in a perfect circle around the piercing site. is that normal? my piercer is very competent and has a great reputation. he says he has seen this before and is not too worried. he is also of the school of thought of not using anything other than sea salt. should i be using antibacterial soap on these twice a day? thanks for your help! i love these piercings and will not get rid of them but i also want the bump to go away so they look as good as they can.

Sounds like you are over cleaning your cheek piercings i.e drying them out.

If you could post a pic it would be great, anything acidy should be avoided as it will just irritate the site. Stick to sea salt soaks twice daily and hot compresses to draw out the fluid. Don't over do it.

that could be possible. i keep sea salt water in my truck at work and use q tips dipped in the water quite frequently to clean the piercing. how often should i use the sea salt rinse? not to soak but just to get any dried discharge off the jewelry. should i just use water to do that? my avatar is a pic of the cheek thats bad. see how the bump is not right around the piercing but more off to the side like a little pocket? thanks for the advice! here is another pic at http://groups.msn.com/shamanstarcircus/misc1.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=231

 yikes, I would see a doctor.  have it checked to see if it is an abscess.

are you kidding me??? i hate the doctor! my piercer doesnt seem to be worried at all. the pocket is totally empty after a good 30 minute hot compress... eventually becomes hard again though. grapefruit seed extract?

doctor man, that thing is huge...

shamanstar:

are you kidding me??? i hate the doctor! my piercer doesnt seem to be worried at all. the pocket is totally empty after a good 30 minute hot compress... eventually becomes hard again though. grapefruit seed extract?

if it is an abscess, all of that happy horse shit isn't going to do diddly squat in the long run.

 

see a doc.

shamanstar:

that could be possible. i keep sea salt water in my truck at work and use q tips dipped in the water quite frequently to clean the piercing. how often should i use the sea salt rinse? not to soak but just to get any dried discharge off the jewelry. should i just use water to do that? my avatar is a pic of the cheek thats bad. see how the bump is not right around the piercing but more off to the side like a little pocket? thanks for the advice! here is another pic at http://groups.msn.com/shamanstarcircus/misc1.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=231

 

That's not a healthy looking piercing. Get yourself to a physician, you shouldn't waste any time in finding professional medical assistance. Not only could your piercing end up looking less than perfect in the long-term, you could end up dealing with a serious and fast moving infection.

Even though you hate doctors, they will be able to tell you if it is an abcess and prescribe something for it or not.  Just to be on the safe side.  Unfortunately, he will probably also tell you to take out the piercing, because MDs notoriously hate piercings.  When I first started stretching as a straight-out-of-high-school-college-student when the knowledge wasn't as widely published on the net, I made a small tear on a stretch and inserted my new jewellery.  Then I went out for a hard night of clubbing.  By the next afternoon my earlobe was huge, throbbing, oozing clear liquid with blood and sore as hell.  I went to a walk-in clinic and a MD confirmed it was an infection and prescribed antibiotics for me and told me to take my jewellery out, he also made me feel really stupid.  Right after that I went home and got an old plug, took it to my piercer and had it autoclaved and he put it in for me and I started taking the medication.  A day later my ear was much better.  So as shitty as it seems to see an MD, he did actually help.

I want to point out that not all doctors are flippant with regard to mods. I regularly have appointments with several mod-friendly doctors that have worked around my piercings.

It's a possibility that the OP may lose their piercing(s), but I agree that it's much more important to get medical treatment in this situation. 

Yikes. Really, go see a dr. That does not look good at all and if it is an infection, those things can get bad very quickly.

shamanstar:

are you kidding me??? i hate the doctor! my piercer doesnt seem to be worried at all. the pocket is totally empty after a good 30 minute hot compress... eventually becomes hard again though. grapefruit seed extract?

 

 Do you really trust your piercer that much? Because it really doesn't look healthy.

Like everybody said, go see a doctor or AT LEAST a pharmacist? (I know in canada, they can help you)

Axon, I think you are quite lucky to have found mod-friendly MDs.  I have had many MDs, due to moving from city to city, and the only doctor that I have talked to about piercings that was cool and interested in them was a dentist.  Quite a few of them have disapproved of them, including my host parents when I was an exchange student in the Netherlands who were both general practitioners.

see a doctor. my friend got her cheeks pierced, they got infected, and somehow, the infection made her hallucinate and hear things.

 

she never got a pocket in her skin or anything like that. i wasn't around her much at the time, but she seemed to try and take the best care of them that she could. 

Yeah, that is from a fever...she must have waited a few days before seeking medical attention.