Comments on: How to Care for New Body Piercings

on 3/23/2006 Don't use either. The problem isn't that they trap the infection and allow it to grow, but rather that they damage the tissue along with the bacteria. This irritates the piercing and prevents it from healing, leaving it prone to future infection. This is why you might get your skin swabbed with alcohol at the doctor's office, but never a wound. It's not meant to be a wound antiseptic.

on 3/15/2006 Make sure you wash out you mouth with clean warm water. Don't use burning hot water, it will burn your flesh on the inside of your piercings. Do not use salt water to wash out your mouth, even if the person who told you to do it does piercings for a living. Salt will give your piecing a rash, it will not clean it out, but make it worse.

on 3/8/2006 Do this 2-3 times daily.

1)Lather your hands up with soap (always wash your
hands before you touch your piercing)
2)Wet a Q-tip and wipe it around your jewelery to get rid of crusties.
3)Lather up the area of your piercing and your jewelery. Be sure to rotate the jewelery while doing this.
4)Rotate the jewelery some more while you are rinsing off the soap (make sure that you rinse off all the soap).
5) When you are finished cleaning your piercing, take a Kleenex and dry off your piercing.

Wash your piercing 2-3 times a day with anti-bacterial soap (using a scented soap will cause irritation to a new piercing). Some good brands are Dial, Jergens and Life.

Sea Salt Soaks

Do this once daily.

1)Pour warm water into a small cup
2)Place 1/4 tablespoon of sea salt in the cup
3)Stir the water
4)Place the cup over your piercing (this is good for nipple and navel piercings)
5)Hold the cup over your navel for 5-10 minutes;sit back and relax

Make sure that you do not touch your piercing unless you are cleaning it. If you absolutely have to touch it, only do so if your hands are clean.

Happy piercing, and good luck taking care of your new navel piercing!

on 3/6/2006 Isopropyl alcohol should never be used as it is toxic to forming cells, and ointments limit the air supply to the piercing site and can cause granulomas.

on 1/25/2006 Use clear, unscented, liquid hand soap. A scented soap will burn. Never apply antibiotic ointment, this could cause the hole to grow over (the directions also say never apply to a puncture wound). Don't use hydrogen peroxide on a piercing if you have an infection (most people do have some small infection at first, but it quickly goes away). Peroxide traps it and causes the infection to spread or grow.

on 1/19/2006 For the first 5 days after your piercing, wash the piercing 3 times a day with Ivory soap, nothing else. Ivory is the most natural soap to your body. Make sure to move the piercing around to get it into the piercing. If you notice the moving around is irritating it, stop the rotating. Also, every 3-4 hours, spray on some H2Ocean sea salt spray. This can be purchased online or maybe your piercer carries it. This works wonders.
No baths or swimming for 6 weeks. If you must go swimming, or are obligated to take a bath, cover the area with a waterproof bandage and layer with waterproof tape to ensure no water can get in. When you take a shower, make sure you wash your piercing last! When drying it, do not use a towel, use tissue. Towels can hold bacteria, which can cause infection. Depending on how long it takes to heal (3-12 months or longer) do not change your ring/barbell. If you need it changed, go to a professional piercer and have them do it for you. They usually do it free of charge if that is where you had your piercing done. Follow these instructions, and take proper care of your new piercing, and you should be fine. Good luck!

on 12/19/2005 I suggest going to Sonic Drive-In and getting a bag of their ice. It is in the small crushed pieces already and really helps the swelling and soreness of a tongue piercing.

on 11/22/2005 Though I havent heard anyone have solid scientific proof why this is wrong, I have seen in my experience that peroxide, soaps, and other things made for cleaning piercings do more harm then help. My best advise? Stick with sea salt soaks, as salt is regularily in your body anyways. Adding any other chemicals foreign to your body will only make the piercing more upset. And for rotating your jewelery? Unless you got pierced at Claires with the cheapest available jewelry, there really should be no need to rotate. If you have quality jewelry, your skin will not heal to the metal, and all that rotating does is breaks the forming scab, therefore letting (more) bacteria into the hole. Thats mostly it, and if your piercer told you to do otherwise than what I have said, go ahead and do it. Piercer knows best, I suppose.

on 11/22/2005 On the lower inside corner of the headlight housing is a 5/16 hex head holding a washer (about 1 inch) that has teeth facing away from the hex head. To raise the beam (standing in front of the car, facing the rear), use a long screw to move the washer teeth down. Pushing the teeth on your left down lowers the beam. Pushing the right side down raises the beam. Follow all the other hints by parking on flat surface facing garage door so you can line up the beams.

on 11/22/2005 Don't ever use neosporin! I've had my belly button pierced five times and each time the lady told me to use neosporin, it grew out and eventually the ring fell out by itself. I went to get a tattoo recently and they told me that neosporin is horrible to use! It treats your piercing like an infection, which is why my piercing was always rejected!

on 11/22/2005 Using betadine works great to speed up the healing process. It also helps fight acne for your face. It's an orange-amber sort of color, it's a liquid. To use it, first soak your belly button with water, then kind of just a little on the top of the barbell. Then get some Betadine
on the bar and kind of lather it up around the area, then move the bar up and down so it gets inside, then rinse it good. I do it in the morning while I'm taking my shower.

on 11/22/2005 Metal is porous even if it doesn't appear so! To avoid rotating nasties into your piercing, try cleaning the piercing with alcohol. Be careful not to get alcohol in the wound, and wash again with water to get any excess off the jewelry before rotating.

on 11/22/2005 All anti-bacterial washes/creams will kill off germs, however, they will also kill of your new cells that are healing your piercing wound. Using a salt wash (Iodine Salt is probably best, not cooking salt-e.g. garlic or chicken salt) that is as salty as the sea (or doesn't overly sting) is a better alternative as it won't kill off the good healing skin cells. I found spraying the piercing and then rotating to get the salt water in the piercing to be best.

on 11/22/2005 I drank huge Slushies. All of the ice in your mouth makes it feel a whole lot better. I also agree with the alcohol warning, alcohol will prolong the healing time.

on 11/22/2005 Use Dial Liquid Anti-Bacterial soap to clean the area twice daily. Apply lather and use a Q-tip to remove any crusties from your jewelry. Be cautious to keep any fibers from the Q-tip away from the wound. Move the jewelry up and down within, then rinse with warm water. While rinsing, make sure to move the jewelry up and down again, to remove all soap from in and around the piercing. After two weeks use a sea salt soak. Soak the piercing for 10-15 minutes a day. This will prevent scar tissue from forming.