Sue, I was just waiting for you to comment! :) Yeah my cartilege stud, I had to take out because it bled when I was inspecting it. (Wierd thing is, I didn't do anything to make it bleed) I removed it, and since the stud was fake it started to tarnish and turned my ear black. After cleaning it my mom gave me a real stud and so far it's doing better. I was just feeling around my tragus, and it's still pretty swollen. And my co-worker got her tragus' pierced awhile back and told me not to change it for along time since it's about the longest to heal. Sooo I'm stuck with this barbell for awhile. Thankss ;)