I reluctantly took out my industrial piercing today. I had it for exactly one year and eight months. The keloids just keep getting bigger, and the rear hole in particular keeps getting gross.
It was an exciting day when I had it done, and I was pretty excited about it. What bums me out about losing it is that it symbolized my emotional and physical triumphs that happened by the fall of 2005, a remarkable time for me overall.
Now all I can do is let it heal. Once the holes have closed and healed, I'll probably bust out the tea tree oil to reduce the size of the bumps. That's the funny thing about it, that I know that works because I started to get one in the first month that reacted very strongly and simply peeled off. Later I read up and found that if the piercing is not otherwise mostly dry, all the oil does is attract bacteria. Now I know.
It'll be weird to sleep on my left ear tonight.