Your right it should be a straight bar at the start, I like to use a Labret (1.6 in thickness no less, or larger with barbell) personally because when the ear is folded back its flush against the skin, the hoops can cause irritation from constant movement and its a lot easier to catch, the lump is usually a hypertrophic scarring which is common with cartilage piercings usually due to excess stress, after healing if the lump has not reduced naturally you will want to buy a plain vitimin E oil and apply this 2-3 times a day until the lump has gone, often these are also called "friction lumps" too

as for jewellery change, its possibly better to change it as the constant stress from the rings can increase healing time by quite a bit, but it might be fine, just be aware that if you change it you will need a bar with some space still to compensate for any more swelling that can occour after changing

obviously there are a few different types of lumps which a reputable piercer should be able to identify and advise but from experience its usually hypertrophic. There are two types of jewellery you should pierce with 316L Surgical steel or Titanium

I agree that using a circular barbell isn't ideal to piercing a conch initially and I also prefer using straight barbell, preferably flat back barbell as initial jewelry for conch. Surgical steel is a blanket term for poor quality jewelries, you should really look at either implant grade stainless steel ASTM F-138 (unless you have severe Nickel allergy) or implant grade Titanium ASTM F-136. I suggest you to go to a reputable piercer who will let you know the material of the jewelries s/he is using, what size/gauge that is appropriate for a fresh conch piercing, and good aftercare advice (sterile saline solution only for cleaning, don't put any kind of oil in an open wound).

The appearance of the bump could be due to a variety of reasons (i.e. bad jewelries, bad piercing angle, sleep on the piercing, wrong aftercare products and aftercare routine, etc.)

One easy thing to check the quality of any shop's jewelries is you can check the threading of your jewelry (internally threaded vs externally threaded jewelries) Always go for internally threaded, even though not all internally threaded is implant grade material, you can always be sure that all externally threaded ones are bad news. Again, an in-person consultation with a reputable piercer will lead you to the right direction.

Edited by Teeheemiller - October/15/2014 at 10:52am