What should you expect from your healing piercing?
The fistula
This is the hole your jewelry is sitting in - it heals from the center outwards, with delicate new cells lining the tissue and creating a healed tunnel in your flesh. That is why it’s so important to listen to what your piercer tells you about healing times, and not changing your jewelry before then. All that jewelry moving in and out of the fistula can disrupt or damage those new cells and delay the healing process.
Itching & Scratching
Don’t scratch! Healing tissue is itchy. That’s normal. Yes, it’s annoying. Don’t scratch, don’t touch your piercing unless you are actually cleaning it, and NEVER touch a fresh piercing with unwashed hands. But yes, that itch is normal. See our blog on the LITHA method for healing piercings: https://www.bodycandy.com/blogs/news/piercing-aftercare-what-is-the-litha-method
Your Piercing is Leaking
You wake in the morning to find yellow crusties on your piercing and your jewelry. You’re worried about metal allergies, or maybe it’s infected? Clear yellow ooze and yellow crusties are all part of the healing process. It’s just lymph, a natural fluid the body secretes. If your ooze is opaque white, that could be pus. You should have the piercer take a look at what’s going on. If the discharge is green, you have an infection and you need to see a doctor. Pronto. Cleaning the piercing more often will not fix an established infection. Leave the jewelry in and go seek medical attention. If the discharge is red, you’re bleeding. Use a clean paper towel to clean up and then see what’s going on.
Your Piercing is Red
A piercing is an injury to the body. This is how the body heals. Since you are trying to heal a tunnel through your flesh instead of just the surface, it’s going to stay red a bit longer. Still normal. It should fade as your piercing heals. Don’t freak out and start putting tea tree oil on your piercing, redness is normal healing stuff.
Your Piercing Hurts
Of course it does! This just comes with the territory. There’s a new hole in your flesh that wasn’t there before. It’s going to be tender and if you got a cartilage piercing, it’s going to be tender for a while. Cartilage heals more slowly than skin.
