Ear owie

[Imogen]

Ok, this may be slightly gross, so don't read if you get grossed out:


So, I have my ears pierced. i have a hole in the lobe and both traguses pierced. I used to have two holes in my lobes, but I let the top one close because i never really wore earrings.

Ever since I can remember, my left ear would get infected when I wore earrings. only my left one. And the infections wouldn't last long (like a day or two). I thought I was allergic to earrings. When I got my tragus pierced, the left side kept getting infected, even though it should have been totally healed, and only while I was in Italy.

Well, NOW I just had a huge pimple on that ear (first time that's ever happened) and I just popped it because it was excruciatingly painful. And gross pus came out of the hole that's closed AND the pimple! And my tragus is all swollen, like it's infected again.

I don't sleep on my left side, so I don't know what's going on, but why would only one ear get infected/get pimples/have an allergic reaction to earrings, etc?

[Eirene]

I can never resist the medical questions. Obviously without seeing anything, I don't know enough to make an actual diagnosis, but I have some thoughts.

Different areas of skin on the body will actually have their own unique microfloral (or bacterial/fungal) colonizations. That's one reason why, for example, people might tend to get athlete's foot on their feet instead of other moist, dark areas. There are a number of other infections that for whatever reasons, tend to crop up in the same areas of the body over and over. It seems like skin is skin, but to bacteria, comparing, say, face skin to leg skin is like comparing Earth to Mars, in terms of distance and in terms of differing environments.

I'm guessing that your left ear, for whatever reason, just has a semi-permanent low-level colonization of some particular bacteria, and when you wear an earring in that ear, it might push those bacteria into the piercing (or possibly even create microscopic breaks in the skin), which could allow the bacteria to flourish especially well for a short period of time, leading to irritation and pus as a result of the new infection.

I have the same problem with earrings, although I usually get it on both sides, and I've found that washing my ears thoroughly before putting in earrings and also applying benzoyl peroxide (which has antibacterial properties) before and after earrings can help a lot. Hopefully that's enough to solve the problem at least temporarily, but if the swelling and pus doesn't go away soon, don't hesitate to have it seen!

[Fredjikrang]

I have a question somewhat related to this. Would silver jewelry help to minimize this problem maybe? I know that silver has antibacterial properties, but I'm not at all sure if that would actually make a difference with something like jewelry.

[NerdGirl]

I don't know if silver would make a difference for the infection issue, but my problem with earrings is that I just react to the metal and silver is actually the one metal that doesn't ever seem to bother me. I even react to gold sometimes, but never silver. But I don't know if an earring post is a large enough surface to have any effect on the bacteria, or if that's even the right form of silver. I can't remember if it's silver itself or a silver compound that has anti-bacterial properties (and we did just talk about this a week ago in school when we were learning about burns, so you'd think I would remember). But it's an interesting thought.