Today I saw a young woman who had 4 dermal piercings, two in each cheek. 

She is in the midst of hunting for a job, and after being told she couldn’t be hired at a couple places, she decided to have them removed.

In order to remove these dermal piercings, I performed a quick procedure using sterile conditions and a local anesthetic.  The whole procedure to remove the 4 dermal piercings took about 20 minutes. 

Once the dermal piercings have been in place for awhile (this patient had them in for several years), the body makes scar tissue around the anchors under the skin.  This scar tissue, called a capsule, needs to be released in order to remove the dermal jewelry.

With the use of a local anesthetic and a tiny needle to place the anesthetic, my patient felt no pain when I removed the dermal piercings.   Using a tiny blade, while grasping the post with a special instrument, the scar tissue is cut, and the dermal piercings are removed.  No new skin incision has to be made in order to remove these.

Afterwards, I applied some antibiotic ointment and a Band-Aid.  The small skin holes will close on their own.

As more and more people in Seattle get dermal piercings, I imagine I’ll be removing more of these!