How To Clean New Ear Lobe Piercing

Avoid Getting Hair Products In Your Piercing

Products like shampoo, conditioner, and hairspray can be irritating to a healing piercing. In order to be sure it stays clean, you might consider cleaning it immediately after you shower. This will remove any stray products from the area. Using a cotton swab dipped in your cleaning solution is typically an effective tool.

Can I Change My Earring After 1 Day

Changing your earring after 1 day of it getting pierced is a painful and dangerous ordeal. Not only are you exposing the flesh wound to dirt and bacteria but also increasing its healing period. By changing your earrings this soon, you are prone to get the piercing infected, especially if your hands are dirty.

How To Clean Ear Piercings

The most important aspect of caring for your ears is good hand hygiene. Always wash your hands thoroughly before touching your earrings. While it may be tempting to touch your new earrings , it is important to avoid playing with them. You should only touch your new earrings when you are cleaning your ears.

You will need to clean the piercing site 2-3 times a day with either saline or salt-based solution, anti-bacterial soap, or an ear piercing solution. Spraying or squirting the pierced area directly will ensure the piercing site is soaked properly, but you may also saturate a cotton swab to clean the piercing site around the earring. We do not recommend using hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alcohol, or antibiotic ointment on the skin. While you are performing ear piercing aftercare, make sure to pull back your hair so it does not get caught in the earring!

While cleaning the piercing area, rotate the earring 360 degrees, or one full turn. Only turn the earring during aftercare, when the piercing site is wet. When the piercing site is dry, it may feel crusty or sticky and turning earrings at other times will lead to irritation and infection.

Always leave a space between the back of the ear and the earring back. Do not push earring backs up close to the back of the earlobe, as the piercing needs plenty of room to breathe and heal. For many starter earrings, the earring back will click into a notch towards the end of the post and should remain at this location.

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What Is An Infected Ear Piercing

An ear piercing is a hole through your earlobe or the cartilage in your middle or upper ear. An infected ear piercing may be red, swollen, sore, warm, itchy or tender. Sometimes the piercing oozes blood or white, yellow or greenish pus.

A new piercing is an open wound that can take several weeks to fully heal. During that time, any bacteria that enter the wound can lead to infection.

How To Clean A Cartilage Piercing

Next to ear piercings, cartilage piercings are some of the most popular ones around. Those upper ear, nose and septum piercings can easily bring a little edge to your look or be the perfect touch of daintiness and elegance. Pretty as they are, you have to be extra vigilant about cleaning cartilage piercings because they are riskier and take longer to heal . Infections to your cartilage piercing can easily cause serious conditions such as necrosis and tissue death in your cartilage wall, per WebMD.

As with your ear piercing, you want to make sure youre tending to your cartilage twice a day. Spray the area with a sterile saline wound wash like Arm & Hammers Saline Wound Wash. You can even spritz some on a piece of gauze and let your piercing soak. Unlike ear piercings, which should be rotated on occasion, steer clear of your cartilage piercings as much as possible because, again, they are a lot more sensitive. Those who have allergies or are prone to colds should consider getting a nose piercing of any sort when theyre least reactive because mucus can attract also staphylococcus bacteria, says WebMD.

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What To Avoid While Healing A Body Piercing

• Avoid touching your piercing, except when you are cleaning it.

• Avoid oral contact or contact with other peoples body fluids.

• Avoid using any aftercare products or ointments that were not suggested by your piercer.

• Avoid getting lotions and/or makeup in or around your piercing.

• Avoid pools, hot tubs, lakes, rivers, etc. Using a waterproof, breathable bandage is a viable option for some piercings.

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How You Can Get A Piercing Infection

A piercing is essentially an open wound. An earlobe piercing usually takes six to eight weeks to heal. Cartilage piercings, which take place on the harder part of your ear, generally take longer to heal and can be more prone to infection. There are several ways your ear piercing can get infected.

Any bacteria left to fester can quickly turn into an infection. If you touch your piercing with dirty hands or instruments, you can introduce an infection. If the earrings are on too tightly, not allowing room for the wound to breathe and heal, an infection can develop. A piercing can also get infected if theres too much handling of the piercing or the post of the earring is rough.

An infection can also occur if unsterile instruments were used, if the person piercing your ears didnt use gloves, or if the posts themselves werent sterile.

Its fairly easy to identify an infected ear piercing. Symptoms may include:

• yellow, pus-like discharge

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Acceptable Healing Aids And Products

If standard soap and water isn’t your thing and you’d rather turn the healing up a notch, these products can help keep your piercing nice and clean.

• Emu Oil: This oil is full of fatty acids meant to help reduce inflammation and pain. It’s known by piercers as a universal healing product that produces exceptional results when healing a piercing.
• H2Ocean: This sea salt saline solution is often used by piercers to help clean the piercing area.
• Saline Solution: Less expensive and more readily available than most other products, saline solution is very effective in soothing and healing a new piercing. It’s also an acceptable substitute for sea salt soaks which is when you submerge your piercing into salt water to help clean it.
• Ointments: Ointments are usually the number one most-recommended therapy post-injury and piercing to stimulate wound healing. Just avoid antibacterial products, which are typically unnecessary unless the piercing is infected.

Before Having Their Ears Pierced:

If your child is old enough, when getting ears pierced for the first time, discuss with them beforehand the aftercare that will be required. Be sure that they understand that they will not be able to change their new earrings for quite some time and that playing with their earrings when their hands arent clean can lead to infection.

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How To Clean A Tongue Piercing

Tongue piercings are not for the faint of heart, and honestly, kudos to anyone who gets them. The first concern, of course, is how you eat after you get the piercing. But dont worry, you dont have to get on any special soup diet while your piercing heals. You should, however, opt for colder foods and beverages, since they can help keep the swelling down and refrain from eating spicy food. Infinite Body Piercing also urges you to keep the alcoholic beverages at bay while your tongue heals.

To keep your tongue piercing clean, Infinite Body recommends you make a saltwater rinse by mixing ¼ teaspoon of sea salt with one cup of bottled or distilled water. Swish the solution in your mouth for 30 to 60 seconds after every meal. You can also use an alcohol-free mouth rinse such as Colgate Peroxyl Antiseptic Mouth Sore Rinse. You should also consider using a new, soft-bristled toothbrush when you first get the piercing, so you dont introduce new bacteria into the fresh wound.

How To Shower With New Ear Piercing

You will take a shower just as you normally do just make sure to tuck away any hair strands that might be prone to tug at your earring.

Sometimes these piercings get itchy but you know you shouldnt touch them because doing that will only make them flare up.

So, the only option you have at that point is to hold onto your earrings crown and slowly twist is clockwise and anticlockwise.

You will find it very soothing and if you do it while you clean with the saline solution, it has a momentary cooling effect. You could try this earring twisting in the hot shower as well, when your pores are all opened up and relaxed. It is far less painful.

After your shower, remember to clean your piercing with an ear saline solution to keep the area sanitized.

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For a cartilage piercing which is higher up and more at risk of hair strands latching onto the piercing, you will need to exercise great precision and patience. You may have only one cartilage piercing or two but the way in which you avoid contact of your hair and the piercing is the same.

You need to, ever so slowly, and carefully comb or brush your hair away from the piercing. One very terrible pain is experienced if you hit your fresh piercing so ensure you are paying attention and taking your sweet time.

So, if you have one piercing on your left ear, you would need brush all your hair to the right side making sure there are no loose strands on the side of the piercing.

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How Can I Make My Piercing Heal Faster

USE WARM SEA SALT WATER SOAKS MORNING AND EVENING

it will also help prevent infection, reduce the risk of scarring, and speed the healing of your piercing. Do not touch your piercing without first washing your hands and leave your jewelry in at all times! Wash your hands thoroughly.

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Don’t Use A Piercing Gun

Avoid getting your ears pierced with a piercing gun.

Don’t get your ear pierced with a gun. By doing so, you are quickly forcing a blunt post through your flesh, and this could result in scarring. Make sure your piercer uses a very sharp, hollow needle that is discarded after use. Cartilage piercings should NEVER be pierced with a gun.

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How Long Do Ear Piercings Take To Heal

The original piercing stud should remain in the ear for 6 weeks or more, even at night. Removing the starter earrings too early may cause the earring hole to close. After this time, it is safe to change the earring, but continue to wear lightweight earrings, including to sleep, until the ears have healed completely. We recommend wearing earrings consistently for one year after piercing. If you are physically active or playing sports, it is recommended to wear small studs instead of hoops or dangly earrings which can get caught or tangled.

It is generally a good idea to wait 2-3 weeks after the piercing is done to go swimming, as the bacteria in pool water may cause an infection and the chlorine may cause irritation.Also, make sure to avoid additional trauma to the piercing site. Many irritations occur from snagging an earring on clothing such as a tight-fitting top, sweater, turtleneck, or a fuzzy scarf.

Taking care of your new piercings is simple and will not take up much time once you get into a good routine. It may be tempting to skip one of your cleanings now and then, but remember that proper care will promote healing and reduce your chance of an infection.

Check out all of the hypoallergenic earring options Rowan has to offer. The Rowan earring club provides a new earring every month, celebrating milestones both big and small!

Seattle Children’s Urgent Care Locations

If your childs illness or injury is life-threatening, call 911.

Minor Infection in Newly Pierced Ear in Last 6 Weeks

Minor Infection in Ear Pierced More Than 6 Weeks Ago and Healed

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Can You Prevent An Ear Infection

Are all piercings bound to end up getting infected? The answer is no. Look at the causes of infection. As you can see, they’re all preventable. Here are some to help prevent infection.

How Do I Know If Somethings Gone Wrong After A Piercing

Infection is rare and is frequently confused with inflammation. Signs of infection include redness, discharge, inflammation, and an area that is hot to the touch. Just having redness may be down to using aftercare products that are too harsh, or because the jewellery metal isnt hypoallergenic.

Claires Accessories: Claires have just celebrated 40 years of piercing ears, and have pierced over 100 million ears, including those of Rihanna and Harrison Ford, so youre in safe hands.

: Current IT jeweller Tashs staff pride themselves on picking just the right placement for piercings to flatter a face.

Metal Morphosis in Topshop: This handy spot means that you can get your piercing done and shop for new jeans all under the one roof. Handy.

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How To Treat An Infected Ear Piercing

We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is possible for your piercings to become infected. Here are three common signs of infection to look out for.

1. Redness. According to the AAD, the metals in some jewelry can bother your skin, leading to an allergic reaction. The AAD recommends looking for a piercing place that uses nickel-free earrings.

2. Pus. If you notice a yellowish liquid or pus coming out of your piercing, you likely have an infection. Be sure to consult your doctor.

3. Bumps. Bumps, also known as keloids, can form on your piercing. Wondering how to get rid of piercing bumps? According to the AAD, these bumps are hard to get rid of completely, but surgery, medicine, and freezing them with a special chemical can help reduce them in size.

Editors note: If you are still curious about whether getting a piercing is right for you, speak to your doctor.

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How Often Should I Clean My Piercing

The soap cleaning should be done once per day and salt soaks one to two times per day. As important as it is to clean piercings, you dont want to overdo it.

Cleaning your piercing means touching your piercing, and too much touching will irritate it. This is especially true during the first couple of weeks of healing.

Some piercers even recommend sea salt sprays, so you can avoid touching the piercing during cleaning. However, the topic has some debate. Some say sprays should be used in addition to saline soaks, and others advise against them entirely. Ask your piercer for a recommendation.

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Caring For Pierced Ears

How to care for pierced ears

Although ear piercings are more common and can be less risky than other body piercings, they can still cause complications if not handled safely. For anyone thinking about getting their ears pierced, dermatologists urge people to follow these steps to avoid infection.

Although ear piercings are more common and can be less risky than other body piercings, they can still cause complications if not handled safely. For anyone thinking about getting their ears pierced, dermatologists urge people to follow these steps to avoid infection:

After piercing your ears, keep an eye on them to make sure they dont get sore, red or puffy and that the holes dont ooze yellowish liquid. If any of this occurs and doesnt go away quickly, see a board-certified dermatologist, as you may have an infection.

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