A few times a month, I have a patient, usually a young child, who presents with an earring that not only can not be removed, but is embedded within the earlobe (or ear) itself. There are two common scenarios that lead to this unfortunate situation: infection and fiddling. Infection is fairly straightforward. For whatever reason, the piercing gets infected and the earlobe skin starts to swell around and eventually even enveloping the earring itself. To prevent an embedded earring, immediate…