Ear Piercing

In our office your child will receive professional care from a registered nurse who has been trained in aseptic technique. The Blomdahl Medical Ear-Piercing System is only available to health care providers. The system uses single-use cassettes which minimize the chance of infection at the piercing site and medical-grade plastic piercing studs which eliminate the risk of nickel allergy. Using this system also eliminates the possibility of patient-to-patient cross-contamination because only the single-use part of the equipment ever comes in contact with the skin at the piercing site. Please see the video below for a visual look at the single-use cassette ear piercing process.

We offer pre-procedure numbing cream for the ear lobes. Numbing cream is applied prior to the procedure and takes 20 minutes to minimize pain during the procedure. Numbing cream will not completely eliminate pain.

We recommend ear piercing occur between 2 months and 8 months for infants and when school-aged children are 6 years old or older.

Waiting until children are 2 months old allows the ear to grow big enough to allow for accurate placing of the earring. We do not recommend ear piercing for children between 9 months and 6 years of age because the child must either be small enough to allow us to completely control their movements during the procedure or cooperative enough to sit still during the procedure.

We only pierce ear lobes and only do initial piercings. We do not do second lobe piercings, pierce ear cartilage (the upper part of the ear), noses or belly buttons.

• We charge $130 to pierce two ears. This price includes piercing, temporary piercing studs, and numbing cream.

• Full payment is due when you check in for your ear-piercing appointment.

• Since this is a cosmetic procedure, it will not be billed to your insurance company.

We recommend avoiding swimming for 2 weeks after ear piercing. Chlorine from pools and bacteria in unchlorinated waters may irritate or contaminate the wound and delay healing.

Before we start the procedure, we will ask you to sign an informed consent form that reviews the risks listed below.

• Infection: There is a risk of infection anytime the skin is broken. We reduce this risk significantly by using aseptic technique, using sterile, single-use piercing cassettes, and providing specific aftercare instructions.

• Pain: Even without numbing creaming the pain is brief and similar to vaccine injection using the Blomdahl system. Patients who are old enough to communicate verbally sometimes say that their earlobes briefly feel warm and flushed after the procedure.

• Allergy: We chose an ear-piercing system that uses medical-grade plastic in order to avoid a potential nickel allergy during the ear piercing healing process.

• Keloids: Keloids are shiny, smooth and rounded skin elevations, which can form at the piercing site in some patients after ear lobe piercing because of altered wound healing. Keloids tend to be familial, are more likely to occur in patients with darker skin pigmentation, and generally occur in persons 10 to 30 years of age.

You should remove the temporary earrings 6-8 weeks after your ear piercing.

• Replace the temporary earrings with gold or gold plated (>10 karat) earrings. There is less of a risk of an allergic reaction to gold.

• Keep the gold earrings in for at least 6-9 months to ensure the hole does not close. During the first year after your piercing avoid gold plate, gold vermeil, gold filled, sterling silver, 10k gold, stainless steel, brass and all costume jewelry as they may contain nickel as the "filler" metal. The risk of developing a nickel allergy is at its greatest during the first year after a piercing, therefore it is important to limit exposure to nickel at this time.

• We are not responsible for hole closures after piercing.

1. Clean the piercing site 1-2 times a day, using liquid soap and clean running water. Especially remember to rinse the site(s) with clean water after showering or washing the hair.

2. Dry area well with clean gauze or a cotton tipped applicator and leave open to air.

3. Unlike conventional ear piercings, there is no need to rotate the temporary plastic studs to prevent them from adhering to the skin.