So you have your fantastic new navel piercing and it looks so cool that you can’t help boasting of it to all your friends? Congrats! Now to enjoy it to the fullest, you need to let it heal properly. Belly piercing care is not complicated if one knows its rules and main principles – cleanness & dryness. Specialists don’t recommend to neglect them, since it’s fraught with infection. One not very optimistic thing about belly button piercing is that it takes on average 6-12 months to make well completely! If you have just had your navel pierced or are at the stage of considering to do so, this article will provide you with useful and interesting info. We’ll talk about normal healing symptoms of belly button piercing, signs of infection as well as necessary piercing care procedures and important recommendations.
Navel Piercing Care Tips & Recommendations
1. Make sure that you’ll have either a stainless steel or titanum jewelry inserted right after a piercer makes a hole. You will have to wear it unchanged through the rehabilitation process (6-12 months). Any acrylic, gold, dangling pieces won’t do.
2. The first 5 days after the procedure avoid rapid squatting or bending over, lifting weights or practicing active sports. Hip or abs workouts are also forbidden.
3. Be also careful during the next 6-12 months until the wound heals up completely. Be careful with clothes. Taking them off too fast may cause piecing jewelry to get intangles and traumatize the wound. Don’t wear synthetic fabrics or too tight clothes.
4. The wound should be processed with saline solution (sterile, no additives) at least 5 times a day. Forget about alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, Dial, Hibiciens, Betadine: they will only cause harm, failing to disinfect the wound properly. Try not to touch, move or pull at your jewelry.
5. The less touching to your piercing, the more good to it. Of course, you can’t stop washing for the next few months after piercing, however, initially they recommend to avoid swimming in swimming-pools, rivers or other natural ponds, especially those with fresh water.
6. Care for belly button piercing starts from proper washing. Opt for a shower instead of bath. Wash your belly button with soap no more than once-twice a day. Let soap stay on the piercing no longer than 30 seconds. Use delicate non-fragrance soap for shower (liquid anti-microbial or germicidal preferably). You may use Provon Medicated Soap, containing Chloroxylenol from a drugstore for your belly button. Gently massage the area with clean fingers around piercing holes and jewelry as well, avoid intense rubbing. Rinse off the soap thoroughly.
7. After washing, avoid drying your piercing with a towel, use a hair dryer with cool setting instead.
8. Keeping your navel clean and dry refer to top priorities of belly button piercing care, however, using some extra care solutions is very important as well to keep the infection off. These include navel soaking in table salt solution and applying H2Ocean spray with salt water that one can buy in almost any store, selling body jewelry. While soaking care can be done at home, the spray may be carried along and used whenever you are outside and can’t wash or soak your piercing.
9. Don’t sleep on your stomach. Make sure that your clothes and bed lining stay very clean. If you have pets, don’t allow them to get into your bed or contact with clothes.
Belly Button Piercing Care: How To Soak Your Navel In Sea Salt?
Now that’s an urgent question for many girls, so let’s see how you can do it practically. Experts offer two ways, so you can try them both at least out of curiosity.
- Simple. Dissolve ¼ teaspoon of sea salt non-iodized or table salt in 8 oz of previously boiled warm water. Pour the solution into a clean glass. Bend over the glass, to make your navel surrounded by its rim, press it tight against your stomach and lay down. Suction will prevent leakage, so you can easily do a quality care soak for your belly button during 5-10 minutes. Do at least twice a day.
- Very simple. Boil some water, let it cool a little and dissolve some table salt in it (¼ teaspoon in a cup of water). Do not try to make the solution more concentrated because it will irritate the wound. Soak a piece of cotton wool and place it on your belly button. Lay down for a while. Repeat this care procedure 2-3 times a day.
Possible After-Piercing Symptoms Within A Norm
- Light bleeding initially. It may occur right after the procedure or during the next few days. If it’s light, short-term, don’t worry about it.
- Itching, tenderness, some bruising initially. A couple of weeks after the procedure one may experience these symptoms as a norm.
- Some transparent, whitish or yellowish discharge without odor when healing. The next few days after piercing such discharge will make a crust over the pierced hole and jewelry. If it’s not abundant, thick, pus-like, you are dealing with healing, not infection.
- Crust. Don’t try to remove crust until it’s ready to separate or you’ll get the wound infected and end up with scarring.
After-Piercing Signs Of Infection
- Heavy reddening & swelling of skin around navel
- Yellow or green discharge
- Intense pain
- Fever
In case of these complications, especially if it has been weeks since the procedure, don’t try taking your jewelry out or applying any solutions, but see a doctor as soon as possible. If a healthcare professional confirms infection and the problem is minor, he or she will recommend you an antibiotic cream. In more serious cases antibiotics in tablets work good.
Well, you are certainly waiting when your care efforts bring you a final reward in terms of complete piercing healing. It may seem so a few months after the procedure yet the healing process in this case isn’t complete yet. Piercing actually heals from the outside to the inside: while the exterior looks absolutely fine, the interior is still vulnerable. So stay patient, and continue your care procedures. Good luck and fast healing!