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Belly Button
okay so I got my belly button pierced a week ago tomorrow and I no longer do Epsom salt soaks (tilting the glass on your stomach) because I heard Epsom salt was bad . I sometimes pull the ring but it doesn’t hurt but is that bad? I don’t want to get infected at all . I heard it sucks . I use dial to clean but it is scented and its the bar . My belly ring doesn’t bother me at all I’m just curious. I can take as much advise as possible please help.
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12 Replies
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When I got my belly pierced they told me to just clean with soap and water. They also gave me a saline cleanser. It can be purchased at a drug store. It's found near the peroxide and alcohol. I've had mine since May and have not had any problems. I do move the ring up and down whenever I cleanse with soap and water or the saline.
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Congrats on your new piercing! Here’s some notes on aftercare that may help you. You should NOT use Epsom salt to soak. You SHOULD use non-iodized, sea salt to make natural saline. The proper concentration to match the salinity in your body’s cells is 1/8 of a teaspoon to one cup of warm water, preferably distilled water gently heated although tap water boiled and cooled then gently heated to body temp works too. When you soak in this manner you are promoting the exhange of fluids across the cell barrier in your body’s cells. This helps prevent infection. In addition, using warm water increases blood flow to the area which speeds healing time. You can do saline soaks throughout your piercing’s healing and it will only do it good. You can also do the soaks if a healed piercing becomes aggravated for any reason.
You should NEVER use triple antibiotic ointments like neosporin on a piercing because this can actually cause infection. The ointments say on the label they are not to be used for puncture wounds because in the deep, dark inside of a puncture wound-which is what a piercing is-the ointment creates a moist environment which actually promotes the growth of bacteria.
In addition, one of the biggest factors in properly healing a piercing is jewelr quality. Initial jewelry in a standard navel piercing should be an internally threaded, curved barbell, not a ring. You know if your jewelry is internally threaded if the post with the threads is actually coming out of the ball and screws into a hole in the end of the post. Externally threaded jewelry is threaded on the post and screws into the ball. These are inappropriate for a healing piercing because they require you to drag the threads through the healing fistula. For the same reason if you were pierced with a ring and told to turn it, you should never turn a ring in a healing piercing as it will tear the developing fistula. In addition, the big concern with jewelry is that the metal must be implant grade or many people will have reactions to the metal that can look similar to an infection but are not. This means surgical grade stainless steel or titanium. The two biggest known companies that manufacture such jewelry are anatometal and industrial strength. You can find jewelry from both of them on bodyartforms.com.
Based on what you’ve said, and if you find that these aftercare instructions differ from what you were told, you may be able to find a piercer who is more knowledgable in proper aftercare to look after you until its healed. Generally a good rule of thumb is to call up a piercer you are considering going to on the phone and ask whether they use internally threaded jewelry in new piercings. If they say yes, odds are good they keep up their studying of best aftercare practices! If they say no or don’t even know what internally threaded jewelry is, that piercer is sadly the sort who does not bother to keep up their study of the advances in the industry on piercing technique and aftercare. Another good question to ask is whether they use clamps for most piercings. A good modern piercer does not use clamps because the clamps cause trauma to the tissue that slows healing and because they have developed their free hand technique and don’t need them to get a good straight piercing.
Good luck! Feel free to message me with any questions. I have just a tiny bit of experience with this stuff lol. 🙂
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To be perfectly honest, any advice given by your piercer should be followed, and if you have questions, ask them about it.
Piercing's are like tattoos- everyone has a different way to treat them, heal them, deal with them. The vast multitudes of contradicting information that I received when researching the care of my first tattoo was insane. It was similar for my cartilage piercings, too.
"Should's" and "should not's" all depend on your body's chemistry, the way your piercer does the actual piercing, the metals used (and your body's reaction to them) and a million other factors. I've heard saline was great, epsom salts will heal my piercings, use sprays and Emu oil and all this other stuff. And, you know what? None of it worked for my cartilage piercings. Not even time. I'm going to try again some day, but only after my hair grows long enough to pull back, to I know for sure it's being kept away from them. And I'm only doing it one at a time next time.
The "science" behind piercings and tattoos is very much like the "science" behind being healthy. It will be different depending on who you talk to- sometimes very radically different.
So, that's my advice- talk to your piercer.
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I politely disagree. There are some basic standards that all piercers should follow. Autoclave use is the first and most important. Internally threaded jewelry is one, metal quality is another, minimal use of clamps is another as well, and any qualified piercer should also know about proper saline soaks and how to mix them. There are also some very basic safety thresholds of medical knowledge in piercers that you can look for as a client as well- for example if a piercer tells you to put neosporin/antibiotic ointments on a piercing, that would be a piercer to definitely think twice about as they literally aren't reading the instructions on the tube that say not to use it on puncture wounds. It's common medical knowledge that piercers should be expected to adhere to.
I agree that there is variety in preferences from piercer to piercer even at the forefront of the body mod industry, but in terms of best standards and practices for piercers in general there are some bases of knowledge that clients can and should use when evaluating who to choose because they are basic thresholds for the industry. If you read journals and periodicals out there written by and for industry artists, those standards are commonly discussed. I wholeheartedly agree with the "ask your piercer advice," but only where the piercer is competent. And I just try to provide some advice on what those minimum standards are so that people know what questions to ask to determine whether a piercer is competent and whether the service they received was safely provided. In sum, yes there is variety, but not on an infinite scale. I don't personally tell people to just ask their piercer if I don't know anything about the piercer. Maybe he doesn't even have an autoclave, doesn't even wear sterile gloves or keep a sterile field for piercing. If I don't know that, I won't just say ask the piercer, I try to talk about what the basic industry thresholds for a clean, safe piercer are. If they meet those standards, then the person can know they are totally safe in following that person's medical advice.
No offense intended. I speak from a place of over a decade of involvement in and study of the body mod industry as a whole and I try to vigorously defend the position of those who fight for the base standards of the industry. There are a lot of people piercing who dangerously do not follow the most basic of common medical and industry knowledge because there is basically no standard regulation or licensing for body mod artists- the community still has to define those for itself right now. Sorry, this touches on a passion for me.
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I'm really sorry, I'm not trying to be argumentative it's just something I believe in really strongly. I apologize if I offended!
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Poledanceromance- I dont think your advice requires an apology. I think you offered well supported knowledge to this issue that the poster asked for. I had to be extremely careful for the first 9 months with my belly button piercing. Neosporin made my infection worse, I didnt know any better at the time. I wish someone would have gave me your advice 7 years ago.
What cured my infection and healed my belly button was an entire summer of going to the beach and swimming in the salt water pools. -
Poledanceromance, I don't find you confrontational 😉 I love the idea of standardizing much of the tattoo and piercing industry!
Unfortunately in the current world, I've had about a million different pieces of advice about both my piercings and my tattoos. The cartilage piercings in my ears I had for 5 years, and tried just about EVERYTHING, and they still constantly tried to reject. I was told "Some people just can't do it," or "Have you tried _____?" endlessly. I refuse to accept that "I just can't take it." As I said, I'm hoping to try again one day.
I suppose I assumed that, if the piercer is putting jewellery in someone else's body, they would be competent… but I suppose the scary truth is that they aren't necessarily so.
Strange how alike the piercing and pole world are!
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With all of my piercings I always cleaned with a mild, fragrance free castille soap. I did a saline soak once or twice a day, for 5 to ten minutes by inverting a cup over the area. This creates a vacuum. If it felt dry or like it might get infected I used Emu oil on it. Remember it’s going to be sore, a little red and it bleed a tiny bit. Never ever, ever rotate a new piercing.
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@Poledanceromance. I briefly study to be a piercer, but the first time I saw a PA done, I was over it. 😉
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Studied even. 🙂
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I had to get my belly button pierced twice (infected after many years of having it and created scar tissue). Pierced by different people and both times I was told to use a sea salt soak (1/4 tsp of sea salt in 8-12 oz of hot water) then rinse. Wash twice daily with mild non-scented castile soap — nothing with triclosan — making sure to get all angles of the piercing.
I can't remember the exact timing of my second piercing but it must've been around the same time I started pole dancing. Dance with the area covered and avoid any move where you may have contact between pole and belly. Clean the piercing after working out.
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I’ve had my belly button pierced 3 times. I had my 1st one in for like 4-5 years with no problem and all of a sudden it got infected. I took an antibiotic, cleaned it with soap/water but it ended up having to be taken out. The 2nd one was done very shallow by another piercer, it got red and eventually rejected. The 3rd was done by yet another piercer. It was not easy for her due to scar tissue that developed. It too rejected 8 months later. I’ve tried titanium and surgical steel. My cartilage piercings in my ears are surgical steel and I have no problems with them. I’d love to have a navel piercing again if I could keep it from rejecting. Interesting about not turning the piercing cause they all had me turn it with cleaning,they did tell me never to use bacitracin ointment, and I used a sea salt spray to it while the piercing was “angry” each time.
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