Is my cartilage piercing infected?

I think my cartilage piercing is infected. How to cure it?

• So I have very sensitive ears, and discovered I can only wear titanium earrings in my lobe. Well I decided to pierce my cartilage and used a titanium earring. It's been 13 weeks yesterday (12/31/10) that I've pierced my cartilage and it has been doing great ever since. Never gave me any problems. Yesterday I bought a new cartilage earring, it was titanium and I changed my piercing. Well about 3 hours after I changed it, it would hurt really bad when someone touched it. I cleaned everything very good before changing the piercing. After awhile it started hurting without anyone ever touching it, so I changed it back to the earring I used to pierce it. It only hurts a little bit when touched now, but it still hurts. It's not red or anything, but I think it might be slightly infected. I don't want to take out my piercing, so I want to know what I could do to cure it. Also I want to know why I can't change my piercing. The lady told me to wait 6 weeks at the lest, but it would be better to wait 12 weeks, I waited 13 weeks and plus it NEVER gave me any trouble. Thanks in advance (:

• Answer:

  Maybe that earring you bout wasn't really titanium. That would be my first guess.