Our 20 year old daughter is in the hospital right now. I think her tattoos are cool, and was happy that she was going for pierced nipples instead of the typical Miami breast implants that seem to be some right of passage. She had them pierced 8 months ago. She falls right into the median time slot for potential deep tissue infection.
At A Glance Author worried Mom Contact tutucrazy@aol.com When It just happened Artist professional Studio professional Location Miami,Florida After 7 1/2 months she was shocked to feel a tender lump that continued to grow and grow. Especially since she had been so meticulous with her cleansing ritual. Couldn't imagine that it was from her piercing. Wasn't it healed already?
She has been in the hospital for four days already. The surgery went well but yesterday the bacteria was not responding any longer to the powerful antibiotic IV. The medication specialist working her case had more success today but we are still cautious. When she is released from the hospital she will be paying eighty dollars per pill for medication that she will take twice a day.
Thousands of dollars later she will no longer have her sexy pierced nipples but we are hoping that she will be cured of the infection. Right now she has a gaping wound in her breast that she can't look at. If she is one of the lucky ones it won't come back and go through the procedure all over again. There is a strong potential for just that to happen.
The most frightening thing though is what I already mentioned, a resistant bacterial strain. That her whole life that is yet to come could be tragically compromised by a simple piercing is boggling to the mind! That there is also a potential for losing an even larger part of damaged breast tissue. That she would then need repair surgery, well she will need that already. But to think that she may need an implant for her little breast just to look the way that it already did... she's pretty devastated. She's also a big baby with pain and says that she has to warn doctors and nurses when they are cleaning and re bandaging that it may not hurt that much but she screams anyway. They do thank her for her honesty! Mostly it does hurt that much.
I can say that for the most part, she just wants the pain to go away. Before she was forced to go the route of hospital stay and surgery two different doctors aspirated the infection with hollow needles. They got ,and I quote, "nasty, green, virulent pus". More than a Mom wants to hear. My daughter said, after the experience, that for hours it felt as though she had been stabbed.
We never dreamed that it would reach the serious note that it now has. I can't believe that I kept telling her to use very hot compresses, that it would help it go away. I feel silly now. It was a very deep, dangerously large abscess. She kept hoping that it would go away and was embarrassed by it. It throbbed and hurt and swelled and she most certainly didn't feel sexy at all. It took her a while to call me about it. Her first thought was that she had cancer and of course that to talk about it would make it so. As I have read now some piercing infections do in fact mimic breast cancer. Right now that's too scarey for me to contemplate.
So many of her friends, both sexes, have had piercings with no problems whatsoever. It makes it look easy and safe. There are the obvious precautions one can take; using a professional and following post procedure instructions of course.
However, there are going to be those few that have more than a bit of discomfort later. People that it won't matter how clean they keep the area, who does it, where they have it done, the professional's credentials, how many of their friends have used him or her. Life has risks, many of us are born risk takers... I just really didn't quite understand the risks associated with this and wish that I had not been quite so willing to encourage my daughter to follow her artistic spirit with her body.
We should always be careful with what we choose to do to ourselves with more than just a passing regard to the outcome. Right? There are things that we can do just for a lark and then others that I think we could spend just a bit more time working out the calculations. I don't know. I've always kind of been a jump in to it type myself. I'm also learning from this experience.
I really did find myself going with the adage of every one else is doing it and they are fine! Everyone isn't just fine and a mere modicum of research dispelled that myth very quickly. I guess that's really what I'm saying. Just do a tiny bit of research and then decide what your own comfort level is.
Just be careful people. Keep our girl in your positive thoughts please.
a loving Mom