4 Common Piercing Mistakes To Avoid While Your Piercing Is Healing

After an earlobe piercing, you can expect a healing period that lasts around 6 to 8 weeks. During this time, if you want to prevent infection, inflammation, or tenderness, it’s important to stick to a few golden rules. 

Avoid a painful healing experience by avoiding these 5 mistakes.

1 Don’t touch a new piercing with unsanitized hands

Our hands can be filled with bacteria and germs of all sorts. 

Touching new jewelry and playing with a newly pierced ear can introduce a lot of bacteria to that area. While the piercing is still healing it’s very important to keep that area clean of germs.

If your little one has just gotten a new piercing, it’s important that they know not to touch, tug or play with their new pretty jewelry. 

When they do touch the jewelry to clean it, their hands should be freshly sanitized. This will help to avoid a painful infection. 

2 Don’t sleep with long hair that is untied 

If your child has long beautiful hair, it’s best to tie their hair up and away from their face while they sleep with their new piercing. 

Our hair holds onto everything it comes in contact with including hair products, and day-to-day bacteria. Sleeping overtop long hair that is touching a new piercing could introduce bacteria. This might also cause the hair to get snagged in the new jewelry. 

It’s best for that 6-8 week healing period to keep the hair up in a ponytail or a bun while sleeping. 

3 Don’t change the piercing jewelry too soon 

Anyone with a new piercing is just itching to switch out the piercing studs for something new. But switching jewelry too soon would be a mistake. 

If you take your jewelry out to switch to a new piercing, it’s possible the holes could close up. Putting the jewelry back in could be painful or impossible. Forcing this piercing back open could also cause an unnecessary infection. 

Leaving the studs in for the 6-8 week healing period ensures when you do switch to a new look, your healed piercing remains open. 

4 Don't use rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide for cleansing 

When we think of sanitizing wound care, we might automatically think of rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide. While both of these agents do in fact sanitize, they are not recommended for extended periods of use during skin healing. 

Using rubbing alcohol on a new piercing would dry out the piercing and slow the healing process. 

It’s best to use either a mild soap with water or a saline solution. 

A new piercing should be cleaned 3 times a day, front and back, to ensure proper healing. 

Key Takeaways

While a new piercing is healing, proper piercing care is important. 

If you want to avoid infection, improper healing, or a painful healing process, try to avoid these mistakes: don’t touch your piercing with dirty hands, don't sleep with long hair untied, don't take your new earrings out too soon, and don't use harsh cleansers. 

If your child is quite young, you won't have to worry about most of this. But for toddlers and beyond, be aware of these common piercing care pitfalls.   

Author Bio

Lauren is a health and wellness content writer atstrutyours.com. Strut Health is an online health clinic offering cost-effective treatment for everyday health problems like hair loss, ED, and acne. We aim to treat and destigmatize health conditions so our patients can walk tall again.