New Earrings- Now Not Wearing Them ??? Infection

She's only 10. Why does she need to wear earrings?

How about you focus on something else and let her get earrings when she wants to? Why on earth does she need to regain the confidence to wear earrings? Sorry, but of all the things that matter in a 10 year old girl's life, this isn't one of them.

I wouldn't suggest trying "to get the hole back open" I would just let her decide if/when she's ready to wear earrings again.

If the hole has already closed over in the back, then it's too late. Just let them heal, and if she wants pierced ears later in life, she can get them at that time. Wearing earrings is not a requirement in life.

FWIW, I am allergic to almost all metals, so even when I do wear earrings (which is very very rarely), I can only wear 14 carat or higher gold. IF she decides to get her ears re-pierced (again, totally unnecessary, but if she wants to) she may have to only wear very high quality (and expensive) earrings. All the more reason to wait until she's older.

This is a matter of how much she wants to wear earrings - not how much you want her to wear earrings.

She might want to wait a few months or years before she tries it again.
If the hole(s) are closed up, she'll either have to poke through (re-pierce) herself or go through getting pierced again.

Some kids are really into it while others are not.
Leave it alone and let her decide if and when she wants to try again.

Don't push it. My ears are pierced, but at age 46, they still are sensitive and I don't wear earings often.

I had pierced ear infections as a kid and I still remember them - NOT FUN.

If she likes pierced ears and wants them, then find earings that work (see other comments). BUT- If SHE does not want to deal with it at this age, then let them close. It's not about you, or confidence to wear pierced earings. They're her ears - if it hurts and she doesn't want to wear them, let it go.

My daughter had a lot of trouble at age 10 and up with earrings. It seems that any earring she used made her ear lobe swell up and hurt. She stopped wearing earrings period. After 2 attempts around age 10 and again around age 12 she gave up and stopped wearing earrings.

I never pressured her to start wearing earrings again. This was completely her choice.

At age 18, first year in college, she went with 3 friends to get her ears pierced at a local high end tattoo/piercing place. Since she did that (she is almost 20 now), she has not had issues. The ONLY earrings she wears are the quality ones (some sort of steel) from the tattoo place. This limits her choices for some fine jewelry but this is what works for her.

Your grand daughter may or may not choose to wear earrings again. It is hard to get good ones for my daughter and I can only wear high end ones as well. I have 1 pair of good sized diamond studs in 14K gold that screw on vs the back that secures by pushing and I do not have trouble unless I sleep in them more than 1 night in a row.

Good luck.

It's unusual that anyone would do a first piercing with an earring with nickel. So I'll bet she got sick of cleaning them, they got infected, and she removed them.

Why don't you ask her what she wants? Perhaps pierced ears aren't high on her priority list.

She may be allergic to nickel. That happened to my daughter. She happened to have infected ear holes one day when I took her to her pediatrician for another issue, and the nurse noticed them and told me about nickel allergies. Turns out she had the same issue.
Nickel is used in a lot of jewelry because it is cheap and highly malleable.
When we started buying her nickel-free earrings, the infections stopped.

I am very allergic to metals on my body. Even snaps on my waist band break me out.

I have found I can tolerate Surgical steel, not if the earning is right up on my ear, because I will have a reaction. But hoops are fine. Or small earrings that dangle from surgical steel will work. Maybe look around and see if you can find small hoops or small dangles that use surgical steel for the ear hook.

For starters, I recommend she get an allergen test from a specialist to see if she has base metal allergies from a doctor since she got an infection from her earrings.
If this is confirmed, get quality gold or sterling hoop earrings just large enough to go around the ear, and have her rotate them several times daily for the first two months to make sure her ears do not try to grow over them(fresh piercings are seen by the body as an irritant, and that is the bodies natural defense, or how my family physician described it to me).

She also has to keep her face, hair, and ears clean and free from sweat, dirt, and oils to prevent clogged pores there, which is...not a pleasant sensation let me tell you, especially when I had to get it drained by my Mother. I kept my hair, face, and ears very clean after that, and wiped them down with witch hazel just before going to bed.

I was six when I got mine pierced. After my Mother did them, we went to the family Physician, who not only inspected them, he explained everything on the care of the skin after a piercing(to explain, back when I had it done, many Mother's did it themselves, and it was only eleven years after I got mine pierced that we saw the first piercing shoppe in our local mall appear...just in time for my sister to have it done there).

If the hole is closed, you will have to wait and re-pierce them so you don't get an internal double hole(this happened to my Mother).

I have base metal allergies, and actually had to resort to making my own hooks (I got a wire bender designed to make earring wires, and made lock-back hooks so they'd not come out at night or get lost from falling out), and bought anodized Niobium(soft enough to bend, rigid enough for jewelry, and comes in many colours, or base plain which looks silver) so that everyone that gives me cute beaded earrings can actually see me wear them(some don't realise I have allergies because I make my own earring wires for long dangling earrings), as I just transfer the beads to the new wires and hooks I make.

I cannot use surgical stainless or hypoallergenic earrings, as the alloy metals give me a reaction(this means either a kids plastic watch, or no watch as well). I cannot use plated earrings either, as the plating wears off--fast. Even my glasses frames are titanium as my allergies are so severe.

Luck to you Grandmama!

why does she need to?
let her get re-pierced when she herself wants to wear that kind of earring again. there are plenty of pretty ear-cuffs if she wants something in the meantime.
khairete
S.

My daughter had her second holes put in last summer (2013) and was 10. The studs were not long enough and her ear actually grew around the earring because she didn't turn them enough. It was horrible for her (and me) trying to get it out. She wanted them redone, so we went a couple of months later to a different store with longer studs.

She also cannot wear fake jewelry, unfortunately. Lia Sophia is okay with her though as it doesn't irritate her skin. She dances and the ones she has to wear for that bother the heck out of her. So she puts them on only for short periods of time and cleans her ears before and after application. She also coats the studs in clear nail polish...it has helped her a lot.

Did she wear them full time from the place she got them done? They usually are allergy free. If she slept in them it might have irritated them and then that caused the infection instead of it being the metal.

She might be allergic to some metals too. I found a whole section at Walmart that the whole earring is plastic. The back too. They didn't bother anyone's ears when we used them in the toddlers ears. They bend a tiny bit inside the hole so they don't poke so much at night and they are non-metal so there is no allergy.

I can only wear lightweight sterling silver earrings without any problems. Other metals irritate my skin, as does anything heavy enough to tug.

If your granddaughter's hole(s) have closed partly or completely because she didn't wear the earrings long enough before the infection happened, she may need to wait for complete healing and then get them re-pierced. Don't force an earring through a partially closed hole, as it can cause tearing which can lead to scar tissue.

If she doesn't want to wear earrings at all at this point, for any reason, just let it go. She should make that decision for herself.

It could be an infection (lots of kids don't take care of their ears and sometimes they go to places that aren't completely competent about sterility) but it could also be a reaction to one of the metals in the earring stud or wire. A lot of people have a sensitivity to nickel, for example - I used to (got rid of it) but I had several rounds of thinking I had an infection but then I got re-pierced from the doctor and it happened again.

Switch to surgical steel posts. I don't think you can get the hole back open - I think it has to heal up completely and then be re-pierced. If she needs confidence, she may be afraid of a repeat of the irritation but maybe she just isn't ready for pierced ears. Let her heal up and give it a rest, and then try again but with surgical steel. Any reputable earring piercer/jewelry will have those.

Gold,silver or surgical or stainless steel might work. Lia Sophia earrings have nickel in them so if she is allergic to nickel,you want to stay away from that brand. I had bought a pair and called the company to find out. If she wants to get her ears pierced again,have one of her parents take her to a tattoo,piercing place. The piercing gun/earrings used in stores really just forces it way through the ear,not piercing it.

My dd had ears pierced and initially had problem with all of that. We used the earrings she got them pierced with (14k gold with a point on the end) and coated them with triple antibiotic ointment like Neosporin or store brand. The ointment helps them slide right in and it clears up and prevents infections. That was the best trick we ever learned. If her ears ever start flaring up again, that ointment never fails.

Is she now wearing "cheap" earrings/earrings made of nickel? She may have a metal allergy. I can only wear gold or gold plated earrings. I CAN wear sterling silver but only for a very short amount of time, otherwise my ears start getting red & itchy. If I wear 'cheap' nickel earrings (most earrings you find in any store) they get really bad infected so try wearing the earrings she got pierced with first & let the holes get opened again & then experiment with different metals. If she only has issues with nickel, then avoid nickel, same with silver or gold, make sure you check the earrings for type of metal before buying. Also, some people have issues with stainless steel too so check for that as well. Good luck!

My daughter's took a year to finally heal. She's allergic to most of the earrings out there. Even hypoallergic ones. Surgical steel worked the best, but it still took awhile. Just be careful and watch for allergic reactions. It must be hard as grandma, because it was hard enough as mom to watch for it. The earrings we found were at Target. They are kid ones in pink boxes. Stumbled upon them by accident when I forgot small earrings to go under clip-ons for a dance competition.