Bookmark our DIY infected earlobe treatment ideas if you love cheap earrings.
I got my ears pierced for my 10th birthday. And even though my mom made sure I followed the handy guide the plastic ear-piercing-gun wielding (probably) 16 year old gave me, I had two lovely cases of infected earlobes. It was unpleasant. Side note, maybe don’t get yours (or your children’s) ears pierced by one of those gun things. I’ve heard enough horror stories to believe they’re not good. Professional piercers are really good at it! They’re professional!
Anyway, 10 year old me with two infected earlobes had to then deal with the reality of cleaning out said infection while waiting for my lobes heal so I could finally change my earrings. To start, iIf your ears (or anywhere else) are infected it’s not a bad idea to go and see a doctor. They can prescribe antibiotics to clear your infection so you don’t make things worse. This isn’t Oregon Trail, we have medicine now.
If you have some mild crustiness (sorry), redness, and discomfort, you can deal with that at home. But swelling, lots of pus, really any kind of odd ear discharge should be dealt with by a doctor.
Infected earlobe treatment no’s
When I was a bebe and dealing with my infected ears, I had a daily regimen of cleaning my ear holes with rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol on a cotton bud. I also twirled around my earrings every day so they wouldn’t, i don’t know, get stuck? It wasn’t the most fun because it stung each and every time I did it, but hey, eventually the infection cleared and I was able to change my earrings at last.
This is no longer the recommended treatment for infected earlobes. Twirling around the earrings can cause further trauma to what is literally an open wound. Plus, it’s like the gateway to ear lobe infection! Touching dirty hands to open ear hole wound? Bad idea.
The rubbing alcohol isn’t recommended either because it can dry out your skin and basically just make it take longer to heal.
DIY infected earlobe treatment
There is now the saline approach. This is usually advice given for body piercings but hey, you can hold a shot glass of salt water up to your ear just as well as you could belly button.
You can buy sterile saline and use that to clean the infection from your earlobes, but you can also make simple saline with salt and water!
- Start by washing your hands (you’ll be doing this a lot).
- Mix together one cup of water to 1/2 teaspoon salt to get as close to 0.9% salt as possible.
- Boil this mixture in a pot (lid on) for a full fifteen minutes and set aside to cool.
Once cooled you can use for cleaning your infected piercing. Before you mess with your piercing, wash your hands again. You can clean your piercing by soaking sterile gauze in the saline, or soaking the piercing in a small cup. I wasn’t kidding about the shot glass! Just make sure it’s clean (like pour boiling water into it first) before using this for your ear.
Make your saline fresh as often as you can because you don’t want the solution to just reinfect your ear.
Rinse your earlobes two to three times a day until the piercing has healed and the infection has cleared. Then be free to change your earrings with abandon and enjoy your no longer infected earlobes.
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