Emu Oil? Rook Piercing Follow Up

So check this out...many of you read my nightmare piercing story about the rook I had done over a year ago. I hadn't done a follow up, but the stupidity continued.

My sister-in-law finally got fed up and took hers out. My sister battled with her helixes, and finally switched to a smaller gauge, which helped. They finally healed. My best friend's helixes also continued to give her trouble until she switched her jewelry as well.

Me? My rook would not heal. No matter what I did, it continued to look red and irritated. If I didn't clean it every day with saline, it would get infected again. If I didn't like it so much, I would have taken it out, but I'm stubborn that way.

After fighting with this piercing for over a year and a half, I decided to try moving to a smaller gauge, like my sister did. I went to a body jewelry place with the intention of buying the jewelry there and taking it to my regular piercing guy to have him change it.

While I was at the body jewelry place, the sales lady suggested I talk to their piercer. After the trouble with my rook, I don't trust anyone but my usual guy. However, I figured it couldn't hurt since she wasn't going to do any piercings on me. When I met her, I was happy to see she looked like my piercer guy, like she'd been hit in the face with a shotgun blast of pellets. She had more piercings than I could count, and that was only the area I could see. That's a very good sign.

She took one look at my rook and said "It's crooked." What? Not that I was surprised, mind you. It just pissed me off. Sure enough, my rook piercing is not straight, so the hoop is constantly rubbing on the edges, which is why it is always irritated and won't heal.

I asked her what she would recommend, even though I knew the answer would be to take it out, let it heal, and get it pierced again. Still, I needed to hear her say it. She surprised me by saying that I had one other option before starting over...Emu oil. What? Emu oil? As in, the bird? Yep, that emu. Apparently, I'm behind the times. It's the latest and greatest first aid thing. It has natural antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties.

I tried not to laugh. I figured they stored it next to the snake oil (wink, wink). Still, she had a point, it was cheaper and less of a pain than taking it out and starting over, so I bought it. She said to use it twice a day for at least three weeks, but that I would be able to see a difference in a few days if it was going to work.

I have to say, I'm shocked. It's actually working. I don't know if the piercing will totally heal and stop getting irritated if I quit using it, but I'll see when the bottle runs out. The redness, discharge, and irritation are gone. Emu oil? Who knew?

Here is the website for the emu oil she sold me. I paid about $16.00 for the 1 ounce bottle at the store, but it's much cheaper online (of course), running $7.95 for the one ounce bottle. When I looked it up, they were also offering free shipping. On the website, they claim that it can be used for dry skin, sun burns, inflammation, scars, burns, and muscles and joints. I don't know about all that, but I can definitely say it has helped with my piercing. I've also started to see some emu oil products in drug stores, and the pharmacy sections of other stores, but I don't know how effective those products are.