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The Smoking Gun " Piercing Guns " - The thoughts of our senior body piercer

Why Professional Body Piercers hate them!

Piercing guns have been the rage for many years prior to the advent of the modern body piercing movement, even then they were looked upon with an amount of disgust by the medical profession. One of the early versions of a professional "physician grade" autoclave safe piercing gun is depicted below. At the least this gun was operated by hand pressure and was used by a physician to insert metal studs into ear lobes. This procedure was done in the doctors office under the careful eye of a medical professional using sterile techniques and materials. This unit was obtained from a retiring physician who felt we would enjoy having it in our collection. It's actual era, we are still attempting to determine.

The modern piercing gun has made big changes in the most recent years however it's reputation is still shrouded in hate and contempt by various professionals and medical personnel alike. The evolution of plastic bodies and fancy plated studs has caused concern in the minds of dermatologists and physicians. Poor plating and the use of high quantities of nickel in the alloy metals causes nickel contact dermatitis in may people who are sensitive to nickel even the so called sensitive ear piercing studs. The modern problem with piercing guns is that of the local boutiques, untrained operators and poor pre-piercing hygiene.

Ear piercing has become a big dollar business and a nice quick cash income for many small shops that wouldn't go the expense of setting up an area for safe piercing. Poor sterilization and no training coupled with a poor attitude toward client safety means that every year hundreds of people receive ear piercings, cartilage piercings not to mention nostril and eyebrow piercings with a device that is not even clean let alone sterile. Most of these piercings provided are in direct contravention to the manufacturers instructions and direction that their product is "intended for piercing of the ear lobe only". 

These are the most currently used commercial piercing guns on the market.

These guns come in various types and styles and all function about the same, the stud is loaded into the gun and placed against the ear lobe at the desired location and with the squeeze of the trigger, spring tension drives the stud through the tissue and into the butterfly backing on the backstop. Ouch!

 Here are the problems with piercing guns and there owners.

They are often used and tossed into a drawer, this means they are not cleaned let alone disinfected. The pre-piercing handling of the client, piercing gun and related jewellery is far from safe. The operator rarely wears gloves if ever and when gloves are worn the operator handles everything in sight leading to cross contamination*.  (* This is in keeping with the thousands of ear piercings provided by these big boutiques " the ear piercing specialists " and the extensive training they provide to their employees "15 minutes") The guns are not clean or disinfected according to standards established by the Provincial Health Guidelines for Personal Service Establishments. (A quick wipe with a 70% alcohol prep pad is far from disinfection) The piercing gun shown above requires the stud to be inserted into the thrust bar and butterfly clip to also be inserted into the backstop, this is generally done, again without gloves. That's OK because the gun isn't clean anyway.  After the piercing is performed the gun is carefully cleaned (wearing the same gloves they used during the whole process) and stored safely (tossed) in the drawer next to the second gun (the other dirty one) that is ready for the next client.

Now what they pierce with these things is another story unto itself. Keeping in mind this is designed for ear lobe use only, I have seen nostrils pierced using these things and let me tell you about pain by remote control. Our Provincial and Federal Health Guidelines state that piercing guns are to be used for piercing ear lobes only however again I have seen upper ear cartilage pierced with these same devices and quite often the gun hangs up and doesn't penetrate through the ear cartilage without doing a whole lot of damage. You should be asking yourself, "why", if they know they shouldn't do it that way, why are they? Well it's simple, "MONEY" Your money in their till at the end of the day, you have your piercing and they have your money.  Now you ask why doesn't the health unit or local inspectors stop this from happening. Simple, no one complains until it's too late, quite often these shops have no license as a personal service establishment and therefore are not subject to an inspection. Think about that next time you go in for a manicure, facial or waxing. Blood borne pathogens* (*scary bugs and viruses) can be transmitted by cross contamination* (*sloppy hygiene and poor handling procedures).

So now do you want to get your child's ears pierced at the mall boutique or that hair place across the street? Hey doubt me? Watch the next time you are in the mall shopping, they pierce right there in front of the window. See how many things they touch in the process of doing a piercing. See if they even wear gloves (let alone wash thier hands  "that never happens"). If you want to get your ears pierced ask to see the business license, I bet it says something like "retail sales" and not "personal services establishment - ear piercing / body piercing".

So what's wrong with doing ear cartilage piercing with a gun? The skin on the cartilage is held in place by a connective layer to the cartilage, when the stud goes through the cartilage it tears the connective layer away from the cartilage and fluid fills the void between the skin and cartilage. This fluid crystallizes and forms what is called Cauliflower Ear* (*usually seen in boxers who fight without ear protection) this bump looks awful and is not the desired effect for ear cartilage piercing. The cartilage piercing takes and inordinate period of time to heal due to the lack of room for the skin to heal through the hole of the cartilage because the piercing isn't big enough for the tissue to enter the hole in the cartilage. Besides that the cartilage isn't suppose to be pierced that way in the first place.

Now look, I am not trying to scare anyone here, I am trying to get a point across. Professional Body Piercers work very hard to ensure everything that needs to be clean is clean and what needs to be sterilized is sterilized. Now taking a moment to realize that it takes two people in this chain of events to end up with a piercing, the gunman and the victim. How anyone could allow someone to use these devices on anything other than earlobes escapes me. However I have seen a half dozen people in my studio in the last month with pierced navels, nipples, eyebrows all done by someone using this same type of gun locally in a hair salon. Every piercing has been infected, most to the point of requiring medical intervention due to the infection level and severity. Why did they come into the studio? They were all looking for jewellery for their botched piercings. One piercing I saw was a pair of  female nipple piercings, infected to the point of a staff infection that required oral anti-biotics to fight.

Here's the big problem for Professional Body Piercers, these gun piercings all get lumped into one pot because they are piercings none the less, this damages our reputation because of the bad press caused by idiots and piercing guns. All the health guidelines in the world won't stop someone who thinks they know what they are doing from hurting someone else. These poor victims of gun piercings however should also be held accountable for the incredible lack of judgment. Why do they allow it to happen? Well they enter a business that provides a service as an add on to existing services, it's a business so they must know what they are doing right? Wrong! In British Columbia no one taking an esthetics course is licensed to perform piercing, however the piercing gun and ear piercing is covered in the training it is not a section that is covered by licensing or examination. These incidents listed above result in visits to local walk in clinics, doctors offices and hospitals and load our current health care system down due to sheer stupidity.

The Bottom Line

Why do professional piercers and medical personnel hate piercing guns?

• Piercing tissue the gun was never designed to pierce in the first place.
• Improper use is the leading cause of piercing gun injury.
• Improper aftercare instruction and aftercare follow-up.
• Non-existent cross contamination prevention during use of piercing gun.
• Use of contaminated equipment leading to secondary infections.
• Poor training or no training of persons responsible for piercing clients.
• Improper licensing of facilities using piercing guns. 
• Ear piercing guns are for piercing ear lobes only regardless of manufacturers claims to the contrary.
• Aftercare and it's application is the second most important step next to a clean properly performed piercing, this is seldom discussed with the client before the piercing when they are paying attention.
• With proper cross contamination awareness less secondary infections and piercing complications could be avoided.
• Education in equipment disinfection techniques and proper storage and handling is needed.

Businesses providing ear piercing should be required and subject to inspections like any other Personal Service Establishment providing a service on the human body in Canada. Therefore they should also be licensed and inspected just like any other PSE providing hair cutting, tanning salons, esthetics, electrolysis, tattooing, body piercing and must meet the same building requirements and conditions set out for any other PSE in the Province. With this comes the responsibility of the business owners to ensure the public is being handled by a real trained and experienced personnel who know what they are doing with a piercing gun and will do it in compliance with local, Provincial and Federal health guidelines.

Education is cheaper than ignorance!

It's your health we are talking about!