Grettings all.
So, I've been stretching very slowly for about year and a few months now (I was actually just chilling with a 2mm plug and then kind of picked it up again around March this year). I'm currently on 6mm's.
The problem is as follows. When I transitioned from 5 to 6mm, my ear became really itchy a few days after the stretch. Small red patches also appeared and pus (or another yellow, slightly sticky liquid came out) came out from then if I scratched them. At the start I wasn't really bothered since I thought that maybe my ear was slightly infected and so I cleaned it very thoroughly. However, this didn't help and to make it worse, those red patches became quite dry once they took hold (disgusting, isn't it?!?) and so I kept applying Jojoba oil as needed (I tried doing it at least once a day and let it sit all the way through the morning when I would wash it off in the shower). My ear seemed to be getting better but it was still a bit itchy (even though I resisted) and at one point, it seemed like this god awful thing had passed but unfortunately it hadn't. Even though I kept this regime up (I also done at least one sea salt soak a day), the ear turned bad again and I started scratching it and ended up getting it the worst its been. Now everything around the stretch was red and leaking the yellow liquid. Even so, I avoided scratching and kept applying Jojoba and cleaning daily. This is about 2 weeks after the initial problem arose. At this point, I'm really annoyed and worried but since I had used Acrylic taper, I was guessing that it was its fault so I ordered a metal concave taper which came (BTW, this was the first time I had tried a concave taper and they're so much better that I'm not going back to traditional tapers ever again) a few days after. Once it arrived, I went ahead and thoroughly cleaned my ear and it didn't have a huge impact straightaway but slowly, it began getting better. About a week later, it was nearly cleaned up (I was applying Jojoba and cleaning daily) when once again, it became bad but this time it was very minor and I avoided scratching it. Well, just now I decided to downsize to a 5mm since it's one of my last cards. So, what should I do now? I know I must wait but maybe there's something extra I can do.
A few side notes/questions:
1) My "thorough" cleaning regime is quite simple. I boil a cup of water and add sea salt (I used to add just enough for it to cover the entire cup bottom but now I'm gonna do 1/4 teaspoon per cup due to people saying this is better) and at the same time, I take out my plug, grab my taper and the o-ring and throw it in a pot which is filled with enough water to submerge everything. Then I boil this bad boy for about 5 minutes (until its definitely boiling) and then without letting anything touch the plug, taper and o-ring, I stick them back into my ear (I use a taper when doing this because I find that it makes the plug go in without any problems). Throughout this process, I wash my hands regularly with satin soap that I got specifically for piercings/tattoos. So as you can see, I'm very careful.
2) Is there any better way to sterilize metal at home than boiling it? I've been using this method for years and I can't seem to find anything more solid (apart from an autoclave obviously).
Can't think of anything else for now so I'll leave it.
Thanks in advance