Keloids can develop from any scar, including a piercing wound, and become darker over time. Talk to a healthcare provider about prevention and treatments to help reduce the appearance of scar tissue.
Sometimes, this type of scar may appear after a piercing. A keloid forms due to an overgrowth of fibrous tissue. In response to injury, cells in the skin — called fibroblasts — produce excessive collagen, which leads to the development of a keloid. Keloids can take 3–12 months to develop after the original injury.
You cannot get rid of a keloid on your own and it won't go away like other piercing bumps, even if you remove the jewellery. There are different treatments medical professionals may perform for keloid scarring. Keloids aren't common, a piercing bump is often mistaken as a keloid!
If the piercing is removed, the lump will almost always disappear. They can be sore, itchy and bleed easily. While it is possible that you have a keloid, they are incredibly rare.
After the wound heals, apply silicone gel sheets or silicone gel. You can buy both of these products without a prescription. They can help prevent a keloid. To get the best results, you apply a new sheet or gel to the area every day.
Summary. Piercing bumps and keloids are scars that can develop in response to a skin injury. Piercing bumps may blend with your natural skin tone, shrink, or even disappear in time without any treatment at all. Keloids can develop from any scar, including a piercing wound, and become darker over time.
A pustule, or piercing blister, looks like a pimple on or next to the piercing. It is a type of localized infection. It is usually safe to treat these infections at home with warm compresses and frequent cleansing. Sometimes, the blisters go away and return.
If a keloid develops around your ear piercing after the piercing has healed, contact a healthcare provider. They may recommend that you take your earring out right away and wear a pressure earring. Or they may recommend that you keep your earring in until they're able to conduct a physical examination of your ear.
Do keloids go away? Unlike a hypertrophic scar, a keloid doesn't fade with time. To reduce the appearance of a keloid, you need to treat it. When it comes to treatment, no one treatment works best for all keloids.
Why does my piercing bump keep coming back? If your piercing bump keeps playing peek-a-boo with you, it may be due to infections or scarring. Be sure to use quality jewelry and keep your piercing clean even if there isn't a current bump.
You can get keloid scars on any part of the body, but they're most common on the chest, shoulders, chin, neck, lower legs and ears. A keloid scar usually grows for months or years and becomes bigger than the original wound. While it's growing, it may feel itchy or painful. This usually stops once it's finished growing.
Hypertrophic scars are contained within the site of injury and may regress over time, while keloids spread beyond the borders of the initial injury and do not regress. On histological examination, hypertrophic scars tend to have collagen in a wavy, regular pattern, whereas keloids have no distinct pattern of collagen.
Apply a warm compress
Trapped fluid under the skin can cause a bump, but heat and pressure will help gradually drain it. A simple warm water compress can be made by soaking a clean washcloth in hot water, applying it to the piercing, and holding it there with gentle pressure for a few minutes.
Your piercing might be infected if: the area around it is swollen, painful, hot, very red or dark (depending on your skin colour) there's blood or pus coming out of it – pus can be white, green or yellow. you feel hot or shivery or generally unwell.
An infection
That little bump could be a pustule, which looks like a little pimple or blister — and just like with a pimple or blister, you shouldn't try to pop it. Pustules are a sign of an infection, and they can be filled with blood and even pus.
Warm saline soaks and the application of tea tree oil usually help with hypertrophic scarring, or “piercing bumps”.
The best thing you can do for your piercing is a saline soak 2-4 times a day, completely submerging your piercing in the solution for 7-10 minutes. There are many packaged sterile saline solutions available, including Wound Wash and Blairex.
Keloids rarely go away on their own, but they don't generally need to be treated unless they're causing discomfort or are affecting how you feel about your appearance. If they're surgically removed, they often grow back.
Conclusion: Keloids never completely disappear to leave skin with normal texture, however they can resolve (flatten and soften) so they no longer burden patients in approximately one third of cases. Scars resolving spontaneously do so early in the disease. Those that don't may resolve after many years of treatment.
Keloids and hypertrophic scars are caused by cutaneous injury and irritation, including trauma, insect bite, burn, surgery, vaccination, skin piercing, acne, folliculitis, chicken pox, and herpes zoster infection.