Belly Button Piercing Aftercare Tips and The Best Products

Follow these tips and your navel will heal quickly!

Proper belly button piercing aftercare is needed to heal your “brand new” navel piercing. The faster your new piercing heals, the sooner you can try new belly rings!

There are three stages in the healing process:

Stage One: The Inflammatory Stage. Your new piercing is an open wound. Bleeding, swelling and tenderness are all expected.

Stage Two: The Growth phase. This can last several months when you get a Belly Piercing. In this phase, your body reacts to heal the wound. ‘Crusties’ are common to this phase. Crusties are formed when some discharge from your new piercing dries and forms a crust on your jewelry. Never pick at crusties with dirty fingernails. During phase two, your body seals the channel of the piercing. Your piercing is considered healed at the end of this phase but may still be quite tender and will still need care.

Stage Three: The Maturation Phase. The channel of the piercing matures and becomes scar tissue. You may find that your piercing moves from stage two to three and back again many times before it heals fully. If a piercing is mistreated it can regress very quickly and you may find yourself back at square one.

As discussed, crusties, formed by a clear discharge from your piercing, are common. But do not confuse this clear discharge with pus, which is a thick, colored(yellowish-white) and foul-smelling substance. Pus is often indicative of infection.

One other normal piercing secretion is called sebum. This is often mistaken for pus but is recognizable by the fact that it is more solid, or cheese-like. It too, is foul-smelling. It is naturally produced by the body and is not a sign of infection.

BASIC PIERCING AFTERCARE

There are many things to consider with a new piercing. You must be committed to your piercing and follow the instructions given to the best of your ability.

1. Hygiene
2. Good health
3. Avoid trauma
4. Soaking in saline
5. Cleaning your piercing

HYGIENE

• wash your hands before touching jewelry
• change bedding and towels at least once a week
• don’t sleep with your pets
• avoid exchange of body fluids in the affected area
• use disposable paper products to dry piercings
• your own sweat won’t affect the piercing as long as you clean it correctly

GOOD HEALTH

• get plenty of rest
• eat a healthy, balanced diet
• drink lots of water
• avoid emotional stress where possible
• avoid excessive alcohol or caffeine
• don’t use recreational drugs
• don’t smoke – smoking causes narrowing of the blood vessels, which inhibits oxygen circulation in the blood, and lengthens healing times considerably.

AVOID TRAUMA

• do not play with your new piercing
• do not change the piercing too quickly or unnecessarily
• handle your piercing very lightly when cleaning
• try to wear clothes and underwear that will reduce or minimize friction
• take care of your piercing during physical activity such as exercise.
• Do not expose your piercing to hot tubs, pools, oceans or lakes – they are a breeding ground for infection. A Nexcare Waterproof Bandage or Tegaderm Tranparent Dressing can be used to protect the piercing.

SOAKING IN SALINE

Apply salt solution on your fresh navel piercing every day. Just soak some cotton wool with saline solution and place over your navel for 5 to 10 minutes once or twice a day. If there’s some crusting on the belly ring, remove it gently.

You can make saline solution at home – dilute about 1/4  teaspoon of non iodized sea salt to 1 cup of clean, warm water and apply on your piercing twice a day. Or you can buy a saline solution at a drugstore or on the Net.

Don’t forget to soak your piercing with saline solution after your piercing seems to be well healed and there’s no puss coming out and crusting doesn’t form.

CLEANING YOUR PIERCING

• Do not use alcohol, bactine or hydrogen peroxide to clean the piercing under any circumstances. Stick to the following, proven, inexpensive methods and you will be fine.
• Use a mild, antibacterial soap to clean the piercing once or twice a day, preferably in the shower. Clean your hands and the rest of your body before cleaning your piercing. This will also loosen any crusties or other dirt around the piercing. Use cotton swabs or gauze pads to remove any stubborn matter – try to avoid using fingernails.

Belly ring materials that improve aftercare

Your piercing will secrete fluids for some time and they will crust on your belly ring. You’ll clean it with belly button piercing aftercare sticks or saline solution, of course. But it may become infected anyway and you should choose a belly button ring that can reduce the likelihood of infection. Bioplast is a material proven to possess such qualities and you can get bioplast navel ring in great colors and styles.

Another option for the first time belly button ring is PTFE material. This material has a non-stick surface, in other words, body fluids don’t stick to it, thus improving the quality of belly button piercing aftercare.

PTFE is a white material and doesn’t come in colors, unlikely flexible plastic that cannot be used for initial piercings. Some sellers mistakenly sell flexible plastic as PTFE, so watch out – real PTFE doesn’t come in colors! PTFE material is used for piercings for pregnant women because of its flexibility and you can buy the shaft separately and choose the endings that you like.

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Taking The Plunge

My name is Melissa and I am 24 years old, and I recently got my navel pierced – three weeks ago, to be exact. How I came to actually doing it was rather funny!

I’m a student in Ukraine and about a month back, I found out by accident that my classmate had a belly piercing. There was only one other person I knew that had one, so I was obviously curious about the process. She explained everything to me and my boyfriend got worried that I was really going to get one as well! At that point in time, I was merely interested, but I got thinking about it and was teetering on the edge about whether I wanted a navel piercing.

Being the obsessive person I am, I scoured the Internet for articles on piercings and did ample research on the process, complications, healing procedures and different types of belly rings. I got freaked out and completely paranoid about keloids, rejection, migration and infections but once I got over them, I decided to do it.

My boyfriend didn’t want to come with me because he wanted to be surprised and my friend couldn’t follow because she had other things to do. I went on my own to the piercing parlour that I had previously visited to ensure that everything was clean – the same one that many of my friends went to and handed the piercer a belly ring that I had bought prior to the first visit.

She made me lie down and I insisted on seeing her open the sterile packaging in front of me and she did exactly that. Although she didn’t use gloves, she washed her hands with soap and I think she rinsed with alcohol as well. I can’t exactly remember. After applying some cream on my belly and she marked the spot with a pen and clamped my abdomen. The needle went through and in a moment, the belly ring was in place. And it was done! She brought me a mirror so I could look at it while she wrote out the things I needed to buy and what I would have to do to clean it.

I didn’t use hydrogen peroxide as was told by the piercer so I soaked the piercing with saline twice a day. I used to clean it with antibacterial soap as well, but I found it was doing more harm than good because it irritated the piercing and it killed the good bacteria along with the bad. At one point I also soaked it with an antiseptic solution but I also stopped that. Now it’s just plain saline solution twice a day. It’s healing nicely and I’ve had no problems, although I had a bad dream one night about the piercing getting rejected!

So now, I’m taking good care of it and I can’t wait for it to heal completely so I can change the belly ring. I’ve gone through many online shops and my wish list has grown so long – about 90% of the items are belly rings!

None of my family know about it back home and it makes me wonder how my mother will react when she finds out!

Last week I sent a photo of my navel piercing to a friend of mine who’s in Malaysia and he was so surprised!! He then said that I had mentioned to him before that I wanted my navel pierced, probably about 4-5 years ago. Funny thing is, I don’t remember telling him that… or ever wanting it before!