How to identify an ear piercing infection?

I may have an infection in my cartilage ear piercing?

• I had my ear cartilage pierced in August 2011. It seemed to go well, and it never really hurt, although it never really finish healing. There's always been a little pus going out every few days, and my ear never quite went back to it original pink, remaining a little bit redder than the other one. In the ast few days, there's been a little more pus than normal, though no pain. I was cleaning it today when I found a red bump in the back of my ear. I've had it before, but it usually went away. This time, I accidentally popped it when cleaning it. A lot of blood came out, and my ear got even redder and swell a bit. It still doesn't hurt at all. I'm surprised it's still giving me trouble even though I followed my piercer's instructions to the letter, and although I don't clean it as often as I did at first, I do still clean it regularly. I'm not sure it's infected, because there is no pain. Even more intriguing is, I'm on antibiotics because of a molar infection. If I'm having antibiotics, there shouldn't be any infection, right? The pills should have taken care of it. Any thoughts?

• Answer:

  You may be allergic to the jewelry, your body may be rejecting the piercing which isn't unheard of even if you've had it for a while. If you're still having problems with it go to a piercer at a tattoo shop & have them look at it, they'll be able to tell you what is going on because they're used to seeing stuff like that.