Why Does My Earring Hole Hurt? | Tini Lux

Why Does My Earring Hole Hurt?

By Jacqueline Burke
Ear piercings are supposed to fun way to show off your personal style. Your ears are obviously adjacent to your face, so they are one of the most impactful jewelry styles to wear.  At their best, earrings frame your face and pull your outfit together, at their worst, earrings cause painful reactions that make you want to rip your earlobes off.
      
 
  
If you are an earring wearer and have noticed that your piercing is causing you pain but you can't figure out why, we're here to help you diagnose the problem.

There are basically three reasons why your earring hole might be causing you pain. Keep reading to delve into each potential reason:

   

1. New Piercing

new piercing is a piercing you have received within the last year. Although the common belief is that it takes 6-8 weeks for an ear lobe piercing to heal, in reality it can take much longer. Additionally, every time you change out your earrings during the first few months, it can delay your healing time. 

   

A new piercing will obviously be painful initially due to the fact that it is an open flesh wound. You are introducing trauma to the site by sticking a needle through your ear lobe, so that will cause pain. For the first few weeks or months, you may have swelling and redness around your earring hole simply from the initial trauma of the piercing.

  
After the initial swelling and pain has gone down, your piercings may look like they are healed from the outside. The problem is, inside your ear piercing site, the skin is much thinner and more delicate. It can easily be damaged and is most likely not fully healed yet. Every time your earring moves or is changed, that delicate skin can be damaged again causing the pain to come back.
    

Additionally, if you haven't worn earrings in a while and try to force in a pair of earrings, there can be damage to the tissue surrounding the ear piercing. This can cause some redness, scabbing, and pain.  It's best to use some Vaseline, Aquaphor, or similar lubrication to help ease the earring into the ear piercing hole.

   
This pain can typically be treated by properly caring for your ear piercings and being patient while your ear piercings heal.
   

2. Metal Allergy

Metal allergies are contact allergies that develop over time when the body is in contact with an offending substance.

 

Often people think they just have sensitive ears, when in fact they have an allergy to the metals in their earrings.

  

The symptoms of an allergy to earrings include swelling, redness, tenderness, itching and bleeding. These symptoms occur while the earrings are being worn, and they go away when the earrings are taken out. 

  

Depending on the level of allergy, the symptoms can occur within a few minutes of wearing earrings or worsen over a few hours.

  
In general, if the pain in the piercing hole is not worsening over time while wearing earrings, the cause is probably not an allergy. If it does worsen over the course of time (minutes, hours) and goes away when you remove your earrings, then you most likely have a metal allergy.
    

This pain can be avoided by choosing earrings made with pure, non-reactive metals like titanium.

 
    

3. Infection

   Infections can usually be distinguished from normal healing symptoms or metal allergies if they are accompanied by fever, chills, or an upset stomach. Those symptoms are unique to an infection. Other infection symptoms include extreme redness, red streaks, fluid discharge, pus, tenderness, pain, and tears or lacerations. The only way to be sure is to see a doctor. If your piercing is indeed infected then the doctor should prescribe you antibiotics. 
  
Now that you have some more information about why your ear piercing hurts, you should be able to develop a solution.  If you have questions, reach out to us at info@tinilux.com and we will be happy to help.
  

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9 comments

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Olivia Medved 12/5/2022

Hi my piercings in my cartilage hurt so bad when I use any earrings even 14K gold. I would love to wear earrings in these two holes.

Laurie 12/5/2022

Hy am Lauri it’s now 10 months since I got my piercing the left side it’s okay Buh the right side it’s a trauma there is this red bump behind my new piecing itchy, burning,so painful and whenever wearing my pin it hurt most am so worried pls some advice

Amy 12/5/2022

My left ear really doesn’t hurt me at all. But my right ear hurts like heck. It hurts when I touch it clean it and I can just sit and can feel the pain. When I was younger I was allergic to earrings. When I am 37 so I am trying it again. Plus I even bought plastic earrings and they hurt why is that.

Calah 11/11/2020

Ok so I got my 2 piercing for the first time my left one has hurt the whole time and it has been a year and there’s now a bump behind my earring backing and it hurts so much I can’t pull it out I haven’t been able to at all because of them pain my right one has zero pain do you mind helping me figure this out

Kendra 10/6/2020

I’m 30 years old. I’ve had my ears pierced for over 15 years. I don’t always wear earrings and it seems like when I try to wear some; I end up basically re piercing my ears each time. Is there a way to prevent this??

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