How To Take Care Of Your New Piercing
Piercings are a great way to embellish your ears and make you look and feel great! However, if you get a new piercing you need to take good care of it or else it will do the opposite. Without the proper care, ear piercings with result in infections, keloids, or it can just completely mess up your ear and you might have to take it out entirely, closing up your piercing forever. You didn’t go through all that pain just to let it close up! There are certain things that you can do to take care of your ear piercing that will prevent you from having to go through any pain, and I am here to help you with that. Here are some tips to take care of your new piercing!
1. Wash with a saline solution
When it comes to cleaning your new piercing, do not use rubbing alcohol or ointment. Rubbing alcohol dries out your piercing, which will not allow it to properly clean, while an ointment or jelly will suffocate the piercing, not allowing it to breathe. For your piercing to properly heal it needs to be able to breathe while getting a little bit of moisture. A saline solution is a perfect thing to use, as it will disinfect the piercing while retaining moisture. You can also use antibacterial soap or oil based soaps as they will have the same result for your new piercing.
2. Don’t move it if it is dry
You shouldn’t be touching your earring at any time unless you are cleaning it until it is fully healed. This can cause irritation and can rip the skin around your ear, which will delay the healing process. However, if you feel as though you need to move it, you can do so while you are washing the piercing with your saline solution or soap, but I recommend that you try to touch it as little as possible until it is fully healed.
3. Try not to sleep on it
When your piercing bumps into things or gets moved around when it is dry, it can become irritated. Because of this, I recommend that you try to sleep on your back or your other side to keep from bumping into it in the middle of the night. Sleeping on your pierced ear can cause it to move around when it is dry or the pressure from your head will hurt it.
4. Wash your hands
Always be sure to wash your hands with antibacterial soap before you touch your piercing for any reason. Your hands touch many things throughout the day, making them very dirty. If your dirty hands touch your piercing, it can likely cause irritation or may lead to an infection. Washing your hands with antibacterial soap will rid your hands of these irritants so you can touch your piercing without the worry of causing an infection.
5. Don’t go swimming
Going swimming with your new piercing will cause effects much like if you used rubbing alcohol to clean your ear. You shouldn’t be soaking your piercing with anything other than a saline solution, and the chlorine in a swimming pool can dry out your piercing, or the bacteria in the swimming pool can cause an infection. Water from the lake or the ocean can also cause an infection (just because it’s salt water doesn’t mean its clean).
6. Be patient
Healing a new piercing takes time, but if you are patient and take good care of your piercing, you will be able to look cool and hip with your piercing before you know it and won’t have to prolong the healing process because it became infected!
