Over the weekend, it swelled up really bad, and it was throbbing. I could tell that if I unscrewed the balls, it was going to swell up past the bar. Monday 6-15, I went back to that piercer. He stated that he agreed that it was swollen and offered to change it to a longer barbell. He changed it from 3/8 to 7/16. Instant relief, however, unscrewing the old barbell, shoving another needle through it and then following with a longer barbell and then wrenching again on my swollen ear to screw the ball on, OMG, talk about pain. Then all was well, he said that it would help it to drain also?? whatever, it did not drain that day. The next day while cleaning it, i turned it and instantly a light fluid started coming out of entrance and exit of it, I have been being real careful with it, cleaning with saline soultion and qtips - being very careful not to knock or sleep on it. This photo is from the 15th. That tragus you see, was also not a fun piercing. it also swelled up and was very infected, it was pierced with a ring originally and that caused it to get infected, i removed the ring and put a barbell in, poof, no more irritation, and it healed perfectly, one year later of course. I have a rook and a conch on the other ear, and had absolutly NO issues with either. According to the internet it will take at least 8-16 weeks to a full year for rook, conch, tragus and snug to heal. This one is worrying me. The day that I got it, one of the girls at work advised me that I need to be really careful when piercing the cartiladge so that i don't end up with "cauliflower ear" then i got real scared and started internet diagnosing because i refuse to remove my piercings.