Healing closed nipple piercing

I got my nipples pierced about 10 years ago now. I had a hard time getting them to heal, constantly having crusties and doing salt soaks. Eventually one side healed but my left one never really did. About 6 months ago I took them both out, partly out of frustration that I would continually have like pus/blood pimple looking things on the entrances of the piercing on my left nipple.

After removing my them I noticed that I could squeeze them and get white gunk to come out of the holes of where the piercings entered, I assumed this was normal as it seemed like the same buildup of skin/bacteria/etc that develops when I don’t have my earrings in for a few weeks. I’ve continued to just clean them like I normally would any piercing and haven’t had any concern.

Anyways my left nipple I’ve always seemed to get discharge coming out the center of the nipple too, I assumed the piercing connected to a duct or something and that’s why lymph or whatever it was would come out of there too. This happened when it had the piercing in & after I took it out. A couple days ago I noticed what looked like new skin forming over the center part of my nipple, this morning that area felt tender and when I looked it looked like there was pus behind the new skin. I decided to squeeze it (I know bad) and it popped and blood came out & a little bit of hard pus (similar to the buildup that forms in other healed piercings without jewelry). I’m concerned that the piercing is trying to heal, but is trapping in skin cells that are shedding from inner healed parts, I’m not sure if this really makes sense.

When I had the piercing in I would regularly get really sharp pains when I shifted the jewelry around and then pus would come out, almost like parts of the piercing hole were healed but not all parts.

Looking for any advice or similar experiences