When your car needs brakes you ask a mechanic for advice.

When your plumbing breaks you ask a plumber for advice.

When you are sick you ask a medical professional for advice.

So why is it that when people have problematic body art procedures. They ask advice from there sisters friends cousins brother. They will seek and take advise from every one other than the licensed educated professional that provided the service. This has baffled me for over 20 years….maybe there is some kind of shame mechanism involved. Maybe because people are used to being judged and shamed by the bullies in the medical community. A real professional body artist will never shame or judge you even if you did not follow the instructions provided by them. Be sure you will be lectured for a few minutes especially if I am your piercer.

But of course the lecture is to educate you not shame you. It is our job to make sure that you and your piercing are safe before during and after your procedure. And then there are the clients that will run off to a MD at the first sign of what usually ends up being a perfectly normal part of the healing process. Without so much as even a phone call to the practitioners that originally provided the service. I can pretty much guarantee there is no point in med school where they cover body piercing. And there was no point in my education where I was taught to remove your appendix. So obviously I will not dispense information about removing your appendix. And a medical doctor should not dispense information about your bodyart procedure. Or your life style choices as they are always ready to do. But lets face it if you wanted to be judged you would not pay a doctor to do it. Your grandmother is more than willing to do that for free and then she will probably feed you. If however your body art procedure becomes a separate medical problem to your body let him or her address that problem not your bady art. And go on their merry lil way with the nice fat wallet that you just fed.

If you are having trouble following my point let me clarify. If you have a minor healing problem such as. Follicular cyst,hypertropic scaring,abcess,rejection in some cases even a minor infection. These things can and should be treated by your body art practitioner.

SO CONTACT THEM THEY WANT YOU TO……!!!!!!!

Now if you have developed an infection that has broken past your local defenses. And gone systemic Now your int organs and entire body are at risk. And a doctor will need to step in as it is beyond the training of your bodyart practitioner to treat your whole body

SO HERE IS WHERE SHIT GETS CRAZY

More often than not the doctor is jumping up and down saying the piercing needs to be removed. This is absolute nonsense the piercing and the jewelry have absolutely nothing to do with the infection.

The simple fact of the matter is you had a puncture wound and you added so much bacteria to the wound that you overwhelmed your body’s natural defenses. And if this happened my friend you are an asshole and don’t deserve your new piercing. Because you were to irresponsible to take care of it. And you certainly don’t get to blame your practitioner. As is usually the case you did not follow there comprehensive instructions. Or your practitioner did not follow sterile technique. Generally if an infection shows up in the first 24 hrs or so your practitioner is responsible.

But back to the point    sorry I drift from time to time……

The doctor needs to focus on your ailment not you’re piercing. Again your piercing has nothing to do with your ailment. The jewelry did not give you an infection. The jewelry will actually aid in the resolution of your ailment. As when you have an infection there is often a lot of interstitial fluid that makes the local area pretty uncomfortable and that fluid needs to come out. The jewelry being left in place will actually act as a wick so the fluid may drain. Yet the med pro in this situation will more often than not ignore the need to remove this toxic fluid. Because of their prejudice and more importantly there ignorance to the situation. As more often than not they refuse to educate them selves. And rather assume that we in the bodyart community are nothing more than uneducated self-mutilators. This is all very unfortunate as clients being put in harms way by a lack of education is totally avoidable

Both body art practitioners and doctors can be educate by each other if both are just willing to keep an open mind!

I personally offer training to med pros https://www.learntoopierce.com/medical-pro-course/ and have approached hospital management groups.

To offer the education and of course the nurses I spoke with were all about it till the powers that be shot it down.

So I guess the moral of the story is the best source for information about your body art procedure is the person that provided the service.