how badly is this infected?

[musicboxwaltz]

ive had it sincei was 18, and now im 26.
its just now getting super super painful, no bubbles yet forming.
like when i bend over or move the barbell, it HURTS. i mean hot damn, really hurts bad.

i took it out to clean it, is it the pink/different material barbell ive been using?
[ive also been using that for over a couple months now]

Comments

[4o5pastmidnight]

It definitely looks really irritated... and not in the usual way I've seen with piercings. I'd definitely put high quality jewelry in it in for the time being and would probably see a doctor to be on the safe side. Someone else on here could probably tell you if it looks infected or not, but it definitely doesn't look healthy.

[4o5pastmidnight]

Nah, I'm not talking about the red ring. What I'm assuming to be the top hole looks suspiciously like what happened when I had a mole removed and the wound got infected, and I've never seen anything that looks like that labelled as just an irritation.

High quality would be something like an Anatometal barbell. Something internally threaded and with high quality stainless steel or titanium used. Some of the overstock ones are priced REALLY well for what they are (Anatometal brand and with gems), so I'd order one.

Allergies can develop at any time, but it may have just been that you tugged on it too hard or something. I don't know. The picture quality isn't great, but from what I can see and from the fact that you say there's no bubble type thing on the entry leads me to believe this isn't just your average irritation. I could be wrong, but it doesn't look like the type of irritation one typically sees.

Also, I'd post to bodymods because you'll get better answers there, including some from professionals, but you'll want to add when you post

[readysteadystop]

Most people are not actually allergic to jewelry, but have skin irritation caused by poor quality jewelry that has a high nickel content (which can cause skin irritation and is NOT an actual allergic reaction).

In the future, please refrain from dishing out advice on this community, since the community profile specifies that this community is not for that and direct people straight to bodymods (though it's a good idea to include the last paragraph as you did, for anyone who might be new there).

[readysteadystop]

This post is not appropriate for this community, as per the community profile. Please post to bodymods. If your piercing is truly infected, it does not matter how infected it is; infection is infection and you need to be seen by a medical practitioner (aka a doctor) immediately.

[hazakaza]

It looks irritated as all get-out, and it does look like there's a bit of hypertrophic scarring, whatever you think about "bubble formations." Go take a look at the bodymods community and look at the posts under the tag for hypertrophic scarring. The advice there will help.

edit: hi RSS, I just saw what you wrote above, sorry about not reading that before commenting.