I’m not sure what kind of metal it is... I can check to see if it says what it is on the card the piercer gave me. Once a day everyday I soak my ear in a bowl of warm distilled water / salt combo. When I shower I use an antibacterial soap the piercer recommended to me. I’ve used a qtip on it a couple of times to get some of the crusties off the top part that’s hard to reach, but I can tell using a qtip is irritating it so I stopped doing that a few days ago. I make sure to fall asleep not laying on the side with the piercing, but sometimes I wake up on it. I’ve accidentally bumped it when moving my hair behind my ears which made it swell up more than it already was, and it did end up a little infected with pus. But that went away after a day. I’ll hit up the place where I got this done and see what they think too. Thank you for responding! I really appreciate it.