Getting an ear piercing can be a life-changing experience for some people. From having absolutely nothing on your ears, you can now adorn yourself with an unlimited variety of earrings from statement earrings to edgy barbells if you are getting special piercings around the ears. But then again, getting pierced is a process, and it does not end with merely visiting a studio and getting the piercings there.
Piercings are essentially wounds, and wounds require proper care and time to heal. There is no shortcut here, no way to skip the healing process. Minor pain is just something that you would have to deal with if you want to get your ears pierced. Luckily, ear piercing has been around for quite a long time, and professional artists know how to reduce the pain and scarring involved when performing piercings.
Today’s blog will center around the important aspects of healing piercings and aftercare, as well as some important details in between that you will surely be glad to know if you want to have an easier time of it.
Table of Contents
How Long Does an Ear Piercing Take to Heal?
The answer is: it depends on where you intend to get a piercing in the first place. The least painful of piercings and the fastest to heal, too, are ear lobe piercings. The soft, fleshy part of the ear is the starting point for most people, and it’s also the best if you are not up for a long recovery period. The full healing period for ear lobe piercings is thirty to sixty days. There is some confusion about this because some people report that their ears are fully healed after a week or two weeks.
While some piercings may appear dry and healed, inside the piercings is another thing altogether. This is why doctors recommend that you continue cleaning and observing piercings until after the average healing time for each piercing type.
What about cartilage piercings? These usually take the longest to heal completely. If you think of a tragus piercing or Medusa piercing, get ready for a healing period that can stretch on for six months to a year. In some cases, the healing period is eighteen months. Generally speaking, any piercing done on cartilage and other unusual spots will require more healing time.
The extended period of healing means you have to monitor your piercings the right way completely. If you don’t, the holes will easily close, and you may have to get new piercings again.
How to Care of Ear Piercing During the Healing Process?
What to Do
- Clean Your Piercing – Twenty-four hours after the piercing; it’s time to clean the area. Warm water and soap are all you need to clean the skin surrounding the piercing. You can also use a cleaning solution that is fit for piercings. These usually dry quickly and leave no residue on the skin. Feel free to gently pat dry the area with a paper towel or a very clean cloth.
- Clean After Showering or Bathing – This should be a priority step in aftercare. Many people get irritations and skin problems because shampoo or soap suds get into fresh piercings. This might not be easy to avoid because your ears are so close to your face and hair.
The only recourse is to clean your piercings after you shower. Rinse them well with warm water to make sure that there’s no more soap around. Even mild soap residues can be problematic because your piercings are open, giving access to impurities.
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What to Avoid
- Swimming – There is no body of water that is clean enough for a wound, especially a new piercing. They were swimming while your piercings are still fresh, and healing is an invitation to nasty infections. Be careful because the ears are so close to the brain, and infections that happen here can climb to your brain.
- Touching Your Jewelry or Piercing – Unless you wash your hands several times a day and constantly rub your palms and fingers with rubbing alcohol, consider your hands dirty and unfit to handle wounds. Avoid playing with your earrings. Please don’t fiddle with it either, no matter how painful or itchy it might feel.
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How To Care For An Ear Piercing After Healing
Ear piercing aftercare is essential for maintaining the quality and condition of your piercings. We highly recommend that you use the appropriate cleaning solution for your piercings. You can create one at home by combining one-fourth teaspoon of sea salt with 250 milliliters of warm water.
Please take note that the salt should not have any iodine in it. Also, seawater and saline solutions are not good alternatives because we’re after a mild salty solution to rinse and take care of the bacteria.
If the solution is too strong, you might get the antibacterial action that you want, but at the same time, there is going to be some rough irritation that can potentially delay the healing of your piercings. This warning applies to all kinds of piercings and no matter how many you have had in the past. The principles of aftercare do not change, no matter how many other piercings you have had in the past.
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Should You Rotate Jewelry After Ear Piercing?
Some professionals recommend the gentle rotation of earrings so the post will not stick to the healing skin. However, this is a tricky step because we don’t want the area to become contaminated. To solve this problem, we recommend that you gently rotate your earring only when you are about to clean the area with soap and water.
Rinsing the area with the salt solution, we described earlier will ensure that the area remains clean even after you have touched it. Regardless of this piece of advice, we still discourage people from always touching their earrings even if they feel that the posts are somehow sticking to the walls of the healing skin.
My wife is planning on purchasing a piercing kit so that she can pierce our daughter’s ears for the first time. It was really helpful when you talked about how there are cleaning solutions that can be used once the piercing is finished. These tips you shared will help us keep our daughter’s ear clean so that they don’t get infected while they are healing.