What is normal?
The first few days and weeks:
You may feel a little extra tired after a piercing. Getting a good meal, getting hydrated, and taking a nap are all very helpful here! Your body just did big work.
Some bleeding, scabbing, and localized bruising are common for the first few days.
Between 7-14 days, drainage in small amounts, such as a whitish-yellow fluid (not pus) will form a crust on the jewelry when it dries. This will continue through the majority of your healing. Your aftercare routine is mostly to remove these crusties.
Red, tender, achy, itchy, crusty, drainage, swelling, soreness, and occasional piercing bumps are all possible side effects while you are healing, and are not unusual in moderation. If you are experiencing any of these side effects for a duration exceeding a week at a time, or any of them seem extreme for any amount of time, please come by for an evaluation.
For more information, check out the before you’re pierced section of the website.
Later in healing, and after:
Your piercing will feel healed far before it is truly finished. A healed piercing has fully matured scar tissue throughout the entire piercing channel. Keep up on daily cleanings for the full recommended healing time to prevent backsliding in your healing.
Even after fully healing, body oils and skin cells can accumulate into a normal but smelly white secretion that should be cleaned regularly. Tissues may tighten around jewelry, limiting movement.
Don’t hang charms, chains, or wear heavy/large jewelry in your piercing until it is fully healed. It can cause excess scar tissue build up, migration, and rejection in your piercing. If you would like to wear heavy or large jewelry after your piercing is fully healed, ensure the gauge is thick enough to support the weight in a healthy way.
Swelling management for all piercings:
Ice is a wonderful way to help your piercing heal its best! An ice compress used for 10 minutes on and 50 minutes off can help with initial swelling for the first 1-2 weeks. Please always use clean hands when making and using ice.
Soak Q-tips, cotton balls, and/or cotton cosmetic pads in water, shake em out a little bit, and store them in a plastic bag in the freezer. Snap a few off to ice your piercing, then dispose of them.
Be gentle! Don’t distort your jewelry or put too much pressure on the fresh piercing.
To get the benefits of icing your piercing without ever touching it, ice the area around your jewelry. This can be helpful if your piercing is grumpy, tender, or has a bump.
Ice as often as you’d like, always keeping at least 50 min between each icing sessions.
If you are medically able, an over the counter NSAID medicine (Advil/ibuprofin) taken according to package directions helps alleviate swelling and discomfort.
Avoid putting pressure on your piercing site for the first half of your healing period, at least. If you can avoid it for the full healing period, even better! This includes sleeping on it and wearing constrictive clothing/headbands.
Stay hydrated, get good rest, and eat a nutritious diet to keep your body at it’s maximum healing potential.
Piercing Bumps
Piercing bumps are:
Commonly misidentified as keloids.
The most common troubleshooting issue we help people with.
Typically in response to your piercing getting knocked or snagged, pressure, sleeping with direct pressure on your piercing, cleaning too aggressively or with a harsh product, or being pierced at the wrong angle.
Varied in appearance, but typically present as a raised area looking almost like a pimple that is off white or pinkish in color.
Generally to the side of a piercing, or around the whole site itself.
Are most common on cartilage piercings, but can occur to any piercing.
Sometimes there is no memory of what could have caused the aggravation. When a piercing site is damaged, the body floods the area with fluid and soft tissues to try and protect the delicate healing skin in and around your piercing.
Bumps are frustrating because it seems like they come up overnight, and can take weeks or months to go away entirely. The earlier the problem gets dealt with, the easier it is to solve. Bumps will grow and shrink as they heal, but the general trajectory should always be that they are tending to get smaller over time.
If the bump persists, it continues to get bigger, or you are concerned at all, please come by for an evaluation. We will be happy to give you more personalized aftercare!
What to do:
The best route of aftercare for a piercing bump is generally to touch your piercing site as little as possible. Concentrate on using warm water flushes daily to clean your piercing, and avoid touching your piercing with anything, including Q-tips. This is balanced with making sure that you still remove crusties around your piercing, as the crusties can act like sandpaper around this delicate area. Give it time, patience, and some loving care.
If you need to see the back of your piercing to ensure that it’s clean, take a picture in the mirror with your phone, or ask a friend to take a picture for you so you can see.
If you are experiencing a bump on a cartilage piercing, a piercing pillow can be very helpful to alleviate pressure while you are sleeping. We would recommend one that has a removable cover on it so that you can wash it regularly.
What Not to Do:
Avoid any further injuries to the area. Don’t scrub at it, or distort the area (like bending your ear around, or pulling up on your navel) to try and see the other side. Don’t pick at the bump, or any of the surrounding crusties. You can easily pull off healing tissues that are still attached, causing further damage. If a stubborn crusty wants to stay, and you’ve tried rinsing it off, leave it for the next day.
Don’t use any of the “miracle cure” cleaners on the market for piercing bumps. We’ve heard about tea tree oil, crushed aspirin paste, piercing bump oils, isopropyl alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and so many more, and have never found any of them to be safe or effective enough to recommend them to our clients. Many of these products can easily cause harm to your piercing, or even leave you with chemical burns.
The more a piercing bump is touched and aggravated, the longer it takes to heal.