40+ Horrific Piercing Stories That Make Us Say “Nope”

When you’re in college, you’re definitely due for some pretty silly misadventures. After all, it’s the first time you’re away from home and able to make those decisions on your own.

Letting someone near your body who has no experience and has to order the tools through Amazon seems like a calculated risk. This young lady learned that the hard way.

Lots of little girls and boys pester their parents to get piercings at an early age. Most parents cave in eventually, and it tends to be around the same age for the kids. This little girl had a traumatic experience that ended her dreams of having a piercing.

The person that does your piercing needs to be careful. One wrong move and you’re in the ER getting your ear lobe sliced open! Uh, ouch!

No matter how much experience your piercer has, there’s room for issues to arise with the equipment. This young woman just happened to be unlucky enough to have a technical malfunction during her piercing.

The big issue for us is that even after all this trauma, the piercer still charged her for the piercing. At the very least, she should have gotten some sort of discount.

It’s no secret that cartilage piercings are very popular. Typically, when you get this done, you will discuss a few things before the actual process. But, this person got what they paid for.

Not only did she have to deal with the jewelry that was chosen for her without a say, but this OP also dealt with more blood than she thought she would.

Sometimes you’re filled with so much excitement, you can’t bear to wait for your piercing appointment. When this happens, you might get a little overzealous, as this young woman did.

We’re not sure that using your name tag is a good idea, especially after hearing this story. But, then again, she probably didn’t disinfect the back. If she had, her piercings may have been okay.

There are a lot of people that have a bit of an addiction when it comes to piercings. This person knows this and freely admits they are one of them.

But, why they keep trying after they have had such a hard time with it is beyond us. If this happened to us, we would be finished trying. That had to have been painful!

It’s one thing to have side effects of a piercing in the safety of your own home, but in public, it can be very embarrassing. If you do end up doing your piercing yourself, you will have to assume this could be something that happens.

This young woman did her own piercing and ended up having an incident spring up during a test. Even more embarrassing was that she wasn’t the only one affected.

You want a new fresh do when you get a new piercing so that you can show it off. So, it’s not surprising that this person headed to the salon a few days after having their cartilage done. But, that was a mistake!

We cannot even imagine what type of pain that was when the comb ripped the back of that fresh piercing. But, it was nice that the salon didn’t charge them for the haircut.

The last thing you want to do is deal with a caked-on bloody mess in the morning, no matter where that comes from! But, when it comes to your latest ear piercing, it can be quite frustrating! This poor person had that and so much more to deal with when they got their rook pierced.

We’re not sure how something like this happens other than incompetence or an unhygienic workstation. It would seem that the person might have seen signs but didn’t put two and two together.

When a woman gets pregnant, her belly stretches to make room for the baby. If you’re someone that has a belly button piercing, you often find it uncomfortable and end up removing it.

But, when you have a bad piercing as this girl did, you might find that discomfort more painful than you could imagine. This definitely makes us reconsider getting one! How about you?

There are many people that find a piercing they like and then get multiple of the same one. It’s probably pretty frustrating when one goes well and the second leaves you with a bit of a traumatic story.

You have to be careful when you are working with sharp objects and people’s faces. This guy seemed to be having a bad day, and it transferred to causing this customer quite a bit of pain.

Dermal piercings have been getting more and more popular, so things like cheek piercings are something a lot of people are looking for. This person got hers done and seemed to have a pretty horrific experience.

The swelling was so bad that her skin began to swallow up the piercing. The fact she ended up having to have it surgically removed seems like a good reason to skip having this done.

Lots of women choose to go with a delicate nose piercing to help enhance their beauty. But, you have to be careful because you may not realize it, but your nose can get into its fair share of trouble.

This woman found that out the hard way. All she was doing was taking her glasses off, and one wrong move later, she was screaming in pain. We say no, thank you!

When you get a piercing, no matter where it is, you have to make sure to keep it clean. This is important until the piercings are completely healed. But, there are factors you may not think about, especially when you’re busy with college courses.

Your hair has oils that can be transferred easily, which happened to this girl and led to an infection. This seems like a lot of work, so we think we’ll just skip it!

You might be surprised that there’s more than one type of tongue piercings. There are those that get a web piercing, and this seems like an odd location for sure, seeing as how you don’t see that area very well.

With a tongue piercing, you have to be super cautious about what you ingest until it’s finally healed. Going to a bar and drinking tons of cocktails could eventually land you in this kind of scenario. This is why it doesn’t seem like a fun idea at all.

Many people have had piercings they let close up that they end up re-piercing later in life. This woman simply wanted her nose piercing back, and because of this, she found herself dealing with a lengthier process than she wanted.

However, it may have been because she was dealing with someone who didn’t know what they were doing. Sure — it’s gonna be hard to get through scar tissue, but it shouldn’t be that bad, right?

You have to be pretty careful when piercing people, as there are tons of veins all over the body. It’s even more important when dealing with any type of facial piercings. This piercer didn’t pay attention, and it caused a lot of problems later.

Wanting to change it up, this person probably didn’t think anything of it until there were sprays of blood. This story could definitely deter someone from getting a nose piercing.

When you get your ears pierced, one of the keys to having them look good is to ensure the holes are even. This poor girl had to deal with lopsided holes and so much more. If you’re thinking of letting your little one get pierced, you might want to reconsider.

This whole story seems to be horrible, which is why — if you’re going to get piercings — you want to really make sure you go to a good place.

Some people’s bodies reject piercings. In this case, the skin will often grow over the piercing itself. If this happens and you’re trying to keep that piercing, you may have to perform a few extra steps.

The extra steps sound disgusting, though, and we don’t think we would be up for squeezing puss and blood from the wound.

For many people, the next stage after the piercing is to begin stretching their ears out with gauges for an edgy punk-rock feel. But, there are lots of places that require you to be over 18 in order to buy gauging equipment.

So, we can see why this person thought using multiple earrings might help, but it just wound up giving them an infection — which doesn’t sound fun at all.

Many people have problems sleeping, so to make the room the darkest it can be, they use an eye mask. But, when you have freshly pierced ears, this might lead to some issues. Just ask this person.

They accidentally caught their earrings on the mask, and this led to infection. Having never fully healed ears sounds terrible and could be a reason to just skip the idea altogether.

When you get your ears pierced, you shouldn’t have to do extra surgery at home. The fact that this person’s dad ended up having to pull the studs forward so there would be proper healing is just one of many issues we have with this piercing job.

No one should have to have a corrective procedure for something so simple. This seems like too much and even though it’s not something that happens all the time, do you want to take the chance?

There are some things that you do every day that you just don’t think. This includes putting on your clothes, which we had no idea could be so dangerous. Just think about yanking on your nose piercing every time you put on or take off a shirt.

It would be even worse if, like this girl, you continually did it. We think after a few times, we would just give up on either the piercing or just go for button-up shirts to be on the safe side.

The first thing we think is the most important thing about choosing a piercer is to make sure you choose one with experience. After all, you’re allowing this person to put holes in your body. At the very least, they should have working knowledge, especially if you’re doing a specialty piercing.

Because if you don’t, you will end up with a story like this person. It definitely doesn’t sound like a pleasant or productive experience.

The idea of a needle going into your skin can be quite frightening for some. But, even though it might be scary, they still want to get one done. However, if you’re scared, one symptom might be nausea.

This person didn’t even get to the point where the needle met flesh before they had to run to the bathroom. If it’s that bad, maybe we would rather spend that money some other way!

Piercings and tattoos can be a pretty cool addition to your style. But, when you choose piercings, you also have to think about external forces that could leave you in a lot of pain.

This girl was just hanging out by the pool, and in a blink of an eye, she was writhing in pain. No one wants to have to think about things all the time, right?!

There are tons of things that can contribute to a horror story when it comes to piercing. And despite the fact that this OP did everything they were supposed to do, they still ended up with an infection to the point that their face swelled up!

If we went through all this trouble of trying new metals and keeping the area extra clean — and still wound up dealing with pus and peeling — we would feel the same as this young woman does!

Sometimes the anticipation and act of piercing can send a person’s system into a flight or fight mode. This can mean a boost of adrenaline, and sometimes when you come out of that, you find yourself a little woozy!

This person handled the pain just fine, but when they stood up, their adrenaline dropped — and so did they. There’s no way that belly button piercing was worth all that hassle.

It’s bad enough when one piercing goes wrong, but it has to be a pretty painful process when you’re dealing with four. Not only have you wasted money, but you have to deal with pain too.

One of this OP’s hip dermal piercings became infected, which couldn’t have been fun. We’re just glad that they were able to get the piercing out!

When you’re getting out of your car, you’re worried about making sure you get to where you’re going and getting there safely. The last thing we think about is whether our earrings are in the way.

But apparently, we should think about it a little more because there’s a chance that they could get caught in the door. Ripping an earring out like that is something no person should ever have to experience.

Many parents choose to get their infant’s ears pierced at just a few months old. But if the child doesn’t like wearing earrings, then those holes may close up.

If we were this little girl and our grandma surprisingly attacked our ear lobes, we might never forgive our grandma (we would at least be mad for a while!) — especially since it led to a bit of an infection!

There are some places that don’t allow any type of facial piercing to be present when working. That’s why many people who have nose piercings end up removing them when on the clock.

This guy must have had a long day to forget which side his piercing was originally on. Also, that had to have been pretty painful, especially because he pierced himself. On the bright side, now he has a few different options!

During an intimate moment, the last thing you want is for your recently pierced ear to begin draining. That’s not necessarily the best way to get you in the mood. This person went and got their cartilage pierced, and it ended up ruining their evening.

The thing is, though, this person knew how their ear looked and should have guessed that something like this could happen. We know we would have!

In many piercing parlors, they will mark the location with a black ink dot to show you where they’re planning to pierce you. This also allows them to have a visual to make sure the holes or holes are placed properly.

Unfortunately for this person, someone got a little vigorous with that dot. No one wants to have to deal with a mark on their face they didn’t want.

Dogs can get overly excited when they see someone they love. This, in turn, could bring about some serious, tragic events when it comes to piercings. So, you have to be careful.

Having your dog rip out your belly button ring couldn’t have felt good at all. Yet another reason to decide against investing in one!

The culprit of your pain doesn’t even have to be something extraordinary. Apparently, it can be something like a juicy hamburger that ends up ruining your piercing. This poor girl must have been in a lot of pain when this happened.

The fact that she was brave enough to go back and get it done again — the day after, mind you — says something about her determination.

There are just some people that cannot find a metal that won’t end in tragedy when it comes to piercings. This has to be tough, but continually trying will only leave you more disappointed than before.

The result of your body rejecting the metal is not fun, so why would anyone even try?! We’re seriously reconsidering every piercing we’ve ever thought of getting!