Please excuse the directness of this reply, but if you can't even tell if there are major nerves in your eyebrow that could be damaged by home piercing, you SHOULD NOT BE PIERCING YOUR EYEBROW YOURSELF. In short, the answer to your question is possibly. However, as I am not a qualified body piercer or medical professional, I cannot speak more specifically to the actual piercing topic.

If you wish to become a qualified piercer, please take the time to get proper medical and piercing training. There is one formal piercing school in the US, located in California (http://www.bodyplay.com). Many people serve as apprentices to experienced piercers for one to two years to get their training.

There is some great scare tactic advice on the net, and some far more practical advice too. It can be hard to separate the two practically.

Technically things listed on a scare tactic list are probabilities, although some are a very low risk and some may be much higher. Your greatest risks with any piercing are infections, starting with bacterial (from improper sterile technique or an exposure soon afterwards), scarring or after effect from your body rejecting the piercing, then more serious infections (blood borne stuff, usually from improper piercing techniques again), then you actually get to the rarest of chances that an infection would be so bad as to enter the body or brain.

Usually something un-aesthetic happens, most often from a rejection where the body just won't heal the piercing, or the piercer lines the jewelry up badly somehow. Your greatest danger is from an improperly trained piercer, someone who is not trained in preventing disease transmission or using proper sterile piercing techniques. Boiling something is NOT the same as running it through an autoclave (the medical cooker that is what you really need to sterilize equipment).

Bruises are like Polaroid photos... they often take a little while to develop. Don't panic, eyebrows often bruise. The piercing was a major punch through the tissues and being on the surface of the face, the internal bleeding is showing. Yellow isn't necessarily bad, often a slightly older bruise will have this color. If the brow is shrinking and does not have fresh tenderness or oozing, chances are the brow is ok.

If you put a cold pack on your eyebrow (hold it gently so you don't push on the new jewelry) it may help to shrink the swollen tissues. Don't put makeup over the bruise, as it is way too close to the open wound. Many body piercings show signs of bruising for the first week or two, with intensity depending on the individual. If the piercing doesn't show any signs of infection, hang in there and the bruise should fade. If you have increasing redness or tenderness, go see your piercer or medical professional.

I got my nose pierced with a piercing gun, because I’d never heard this was a bad idea. I can't undo what's been done. Do you have any advice?

If nothing bad seems to be happening to the piercing and it is comfortable feeling to you, you may not have to do anything. The main worry is that the stud is too tight to the nose. The nose is composed primarily of cartilage and the lower ear, which piercing devices were invented for, is primarily soft tissue. The blunt stud of the gun causes a lot of trauma for many people, making for a very "angry" new piercing.

If the piercing is very reddened and the jewelry is too tight to the nose, try and visit a proper body piercing studio and have them switch the stud to a ring, which will make healing much easier.

I got my nose pierced about six months ago and it has not yet healed.  I have days, some times weeks, when it feels fine and then out the blue it flares up.  What can I do to get it to heal completely?  Like right now my allergies have started acting up, and it has become sore and a little swollen. What suggestions do you have for a infected nose piercing?

Noses, like many cartilage piercings, can be notoriously long in healing. That type of tissue just does not get the good blood supply that softer tissues do. Piercings heal from the surface back towards the center of the piercing, growing a tunnel of new skin inside the hole to form a permanent piercing. If the surface is healed, the center of the piercing can still be an open wound, and this is often why piercings will go days or weeks and then react badly.

See if you can ease your care routine. Only use antibiotic ointments if you have an actual infection. Clean the piercing once in the morning and once at night with hot water and a very mild, natural soap. If the piercing seems to react to soap, try using just hot salt water. Allergy and skin medications can dry mucous membranes and irritate healing piercings so watch for a correlation between taking medications and flare ups. Try a bit of lotion around the piercing if the surface skin is really dried out.

The reactions you describe are common to the healing process of a lot of body piercings. Try not to sleep on your piercing too much. In the summer, take extra care of your healing piercing. Watch out as piercings that aren’t completely healed can be irritated by sweat, sunscreen, sunburn and chemicals in pools and hot tubs.

I am just wondering if you would be able to give me advice on home piercings. I'm interested in piercing my nose and I am just curious if you could inform me on the proper way to do it at home.

If you have no training in body piercing, doing your nose at home by yourself is not a good idea. What if it comes out crooked? Do you know all about proper sterile technique so that it doesn't get infected? Can you keep your hand steady while pushing a thick needle through the tough cartilage of the nose?

Just make a simple appointment with a professional. You will get a quick and beautiful piercing much more easily that way.

I was thinking about getting my center lower lip pierced. I recently had to take my eyebrow ring out because it was growing out. Could the same thing happen to the lip piercing if I were to get it?

Eyebrows have a strong tendency to grow out as they are really surface piercings. They don't have a good piece of protruding tissue to go through and there is a lot of pressure that pushes the jewelry towards the surface of the body.

Lip piercings are reported as growing out (rejecting) as much as giving people trouble with rubbing the gums and dental problems. That doesn't mean that a lip piercing can't reject, but the instance seems to be lower. Be careful with your placement and jewelry choice and you should have no problem healing a lip piercing.

My daughter got an eyebrow piercing and does not like it, it is about 1.5 weeks old. Can she just take it out? We’ve heard if she takes it out now it will become infected. Is that true, and what care will it need so it won’t?

If her piercing isn't infected now, there is no special reason it should become infected if she takes out the jewelry. If she is unhappy, she should remove the jewelry sooner than later as the longer it is in place, the greater the chance that visible marks will form where the piercing was made.

Following the same advice for healing a piercing will work for just healing the site of the piercing. Touch the wound as little as possible, change her pillow case more often for the next few weeks, get rest, eat healthy, all that stuff. Avoid harsh soaps and heavily perfumed or colored lotions/creams. Some people react badly to antibiotic products so use only if recommended by a piercer or doctor.