tragus piercing, help?

Alrighty, so i got my tragus pierced about a month and a half ago and i love love love it. However... there's some hardish kind of skin formed a little over the ring of it. I'm not sure what it is but it kind of hurts but the piercing it self doen't hurt much any more. I've been cleaning it with a sea salt soak daily and been putting tea tree oil on it as well and it seems to help a little bit. As well... i wanted to give the jewlery a really good clean and be able to reach behind and clean the back of the peircing well. But the ball is too tight onto the hoop. The piercing closed the hoop onto the ball but i think she squeezed it too tight because i can not for the life of me get this damn ball to pop out. It's the kind of hoop with the ball, and the ball has two small dents in it so the ends of the hoop can pop into it. Anyways, yeah, i can't get this ball to pop out, any tips on how to do this, it's such a tight space to try and get fingers in.