I got my cartilage pierced Jan. 5th, which was 5 days ago. I got it done professionally with a hollow needle and I have been cleaning it by soaking it in saline solution for 5-10 minutes twice a day, sometimes 3 times. The first 4 days, it was healing fine and I had no problems with it. The swelling went down the second day and was completely gone the following 2 days. The redness also disappeared the 2nd day and is only red whenever I have to clean my ear because it’s still sore. It was healing fine until last night and this morning. My ear started to get really sore and turn red. In an effort to alleviate myself of the pain, I soaked my ear in saline solution for 10 minutes but it made it swell up just a little bit more. My ear has been swollen and red the whole day, although the pain has disappeared. In the first 4 days, the stud that I have in my ear kept pushing down cause I think I was accidentally sleeping on it. Since the bar of the stud is long to accommodate for the swelling (which I didn’t have till today), I always had to push the bar back so that the stud was flat on my ear and the only times that I did this was whenever I cleaned my ear. I did this the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th day and have had no complications until last night. When I was cleaning it, I kept touching the bar and making the piercing sore since it’s only been 5 days and I also failed to soak it in the saline solution because it hurt so I only soaked one side. I’ve also been sick the past few days and today is the first day that I’ve felt that my cold is actually going away. I was wondering if the swelling and the redness is normal, if I have an infection, if my piercing is irritated because of how I cleaned it last night, if me being sick the past few days affected it, or if this is just normal. Sorry for the really long question and thank you for the answers!