nguyen.morgan•1mo agoProlific Poster

Cheap piercing needle snapped inside my ear lobe last night

I was doing a second lobe piercing on myself around 11pm, using one of those $5 kits from Amazon with the hollow needles. About halfway through the push, the needle just broke right at the hub. The tip stayed stuck in my ear. I had to dig it out with tweezers and a flashlight, lots of blood. Sterilized everything after but now it's swollen and red. Anyone else have a needle fail like this on them? What did you do?

3 comments

3 Comments

sagecooper1mo ago

Oh man, that's rough. I once had a sewing needle snap trying to pierce my own cartilage (because I'm a genius, obviously) and had to fish the piece out with a pair of tweezers I'd just cleaned with rubbing alcohol. My ear looked like a crime scene for a week. I mean, I guess the upside is you got it out before it got infected, which is more than I can say for my $5 piercing kit that left me with a bump I had to soak for months.

smith.nancy1mo ago

My friend Jenna tried the same thing with a sewing needle back in 2015 and it got stuck in her earlobe so bad she had to walk into the urgent care with a needle hanging out of her ear. The doctor was not amused, and @corap21 is totally right about rubbing alcohol too because she ended up with a low grade infection anyway. She still has a tiny scar there and refuses to even look at a piercing gun now.

corap211mo ago

Make sure to check your cleaning method too. Rubbing alcohol is actually not the best for sterilizing things, it just disinfects the surface. Boiling the tool for a few minutes or using a proper autoclave would be safer next time.