In light of the recent incident where a mother neglected to take her daughter to the doctor when her bellybutton piercing got infected it is perhaps a good thing to know how to care for a body piercing.
When you first get the piercing you should receive instructions from the piercer about how to care for your new piercing. As a general rule do not apply rubbing alcohol or peroxide to the piercing. Those products dry out the piercing, even if they do kill bacteria. Don’t apply an antibiotic ointment either because your body will try to “heal” the hole.
These are all things I knew when I got my ears pierced and again when I got my second hole. With my ears I had used the solution you could buy at the store especially for ears. With my bellybutton that was not the case. I purposely went to a well-known place in Cambridge because I knew it would be safe and clean. It was. I went into a room that looked like a Doctor’s office, laid down, a mark was drawn, and the barbell poked through in a second. It was so quick and painless I was pleased. I only felt pain when I laid down on my stomach, which I was not supposed to do in the first place. I was told to get spray-on contact solution, or use antibacterial soap. However, what I was not told was to dilute them with water. The soap directly on the piercing is too strong and caused it to get very red and irritated.
Apparently these types of piercing do ooze a white fluid, that was minimized when I used peroxide. Then my piercing would get dried out and itchy. I knew I wasn’t supposed to use peroxide, but it seemed to be less irritated when I did. When I stopped using the soap it began to heal. But after almost a year it was still not completely healed. I was beginning to wonder if my body would just never accept it, but I had a couple friends whose piercing took almost two years to heal. It did not help that I was a dancer; wearing leotards often, doing lifts, and moving my stomach in weird positions did not help. When it got to be almost like a scab I put some antibiotic ointment over it which healed up the red in a couple days, but I knew I could not use that much longer or the hole would want to close. It did not hurt; it just did not look pretty. My doctor did look at it and said it wasn’t infected, if it had been oozing yellow or green puss then it would be infected she said. That never happened, and she said it looked like it was buildup of scar tissue because it was trying to heal.
I began using the saline contact solution again, which made it itch really badly because of the salt. I tried putting just plain salt and water in an eye cup over my navel for about five minutes after reading about that somewhere. I also read that lavender oil helps, but who has lavender oil lying around their house? The salt and warm water seemed to be the most effective method I tried. To prevent itching I rinsed it with water. I didn’t have the patience to perform this tedious process every day, so in the shower I would use a little contact solution that was very diluted and rinsed right off. This seemed to do the trick and after about a month my navel was finally free of redness, yellowness and oozing. The piercing is completely healed now, two years later, but I still have a small scar above the top hole where it was red for so long. The hole is much shorter and shallower than it was when it was pierced. I cannot wear cheap jewelry or it becomes irritated, but it looks pretty now and it’s hard to tell it was ever infected.
So what is my advice to someone getting a navel pierced? Take good care of it from the beginning. Dilute the antibacterial soap or saline solution with water when cleaning it. I really think the soap was too strong and caused the initial irritation. Be careful when dancing, wearing tight clothes, or sleeping on your stomach. Don’t use rubbing alcohol, peroxide, or antibiotic ointments consistently. They do too much damage in the long run. Be patient because it will eventually heal and will be worth it.
