Be healthy as you style yourself. Don’t forget that technically having your skin pierced means getting stabbed a bit and having a piece of plastic of steel on you. You need to make sure that that doesn’t hurt anymore and take care of it in case it gets infected. Don’t do the same mistake as me. I’ve had my ears pierced before I was even 8 years old and it STILL hurts when I put something on them.
Here is how you handle piercing aftercare.
For the fresh piercing
Pro-tip; don’t put alcohol on it. Alcohol dries the wound and if that happens, it’s going to crack and then bleed. I find myself doing this all the time and it wasn’t until I learned about this that I stopped and my own piercings have become less irritated.
DON’T touch the piercing, unless you have washed your hands thoroughly with soap. It’s best if none of the germs on your fingers touch that since it’s technically a wound. We really don’t want to risk an infection, especially something so close to your ears. From experience, those infections are the worst because it affects your hearing and your jaw.
Tips:
- Don’t turn the ring around if it’s dry. Only when it’s wet. If you turn it while it’s dry you’ll risk it getting cracked and bleed again.
- If your piercing is more on the cartilage area, know that they take longer time to heal and will require more caring than the normal piercings.
- Know that if the piercings are on the earlobes then it will take about two or three months of healing. Cartilage piercing could take up to ten months. Watch out for anything that could hurt them and delay the healing process.
- Don’t sleep with earrings on. Jostling them around will hurt the pierced are and will make way for swelling.
Swelling and secreting fluid
Most of the time this won’t mean it’s infected. This just means that your skin is irritated and it will be gone before you know it. As long as it actually doesn’t hurt your entire ear, you’re fine because 9 times out of ten, stuff like this happens. Your piercer can tell you about it themselves and they should be the first one you go to if you have concerns. Not the doctor or your friend or anything you see online. Rely on the person who helped pierce your ears.
The worst thing that happens is that the earrings get removed. Fret not. On another note, next time you wash that area, make sure you’re using oil-based soap instead so it doesn’t dry up and cause some cracking.