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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/VirusFlashy6997 on 2025-08-16 13:39:49+00:00.

I do normally consider myself to be a sensible 40 something year old woman who’s had plenty of piercings in the past and knows how to care and look after them properly… well so I thought.

I had my latest one done March just gone and anyone who has had a cartridge piercing knows that they can be a bugger to heal. Well mine was healing quite well up until really, so I decided to start giving it a clean with the solution you get only to find I had none left. I know Detol diluted down can be used to treat minor wounds so following instructions I decided this would be ok, yes it was working fine up until a couple of days ago.

I woke up approximately 2:00am with my ear in quite a lot of pain so in my half asleep state I stumbled to my bathroom opened the bottle of Detol poured it onto a cotton pad put it behind my ear went back to sleep. When I woke up I was in the worst pain you could think of took the cotton pad off and the skin from behind my ear came away with it. Rushed to A&E where the doctors told me the raw Detol had caused chemical burns which had eaten through the top 3 layers of my skin on the back of my ear.

TL;DR After running out of piercing after care, half asleep I used raw Detol on my ear which caused chemical burns and eating through the top 3 layers of skin on the back of my ear.