Infected Piercing

Any form of body piercing requires care and maintenance from you. As long as you follow the protocol for cleanliness and hygiene, you would enjoy the attention and appreciation that your piercing gets from others. When you stop keeping the pierced skin and the inserted jewelry clean, you would move on the track of being a patient and visiting the doctor every now and then. The earliest and the most prominent problem of the piercing is its getting infected. The infection of the piercing occurs due to several reasons. Touching the pierced skin with dirty hands, inserting a jewelry whose material causes you allergy and wearing tight jewelry which hinders with the circulation of blood are some of the major factors. When you suffer from an infected piercing, a medical professional is the best person who can help you get rid of it. In case, the infection has just started, you can follow a home remedy to curb as well as treat it.

What are the Signs of an Infected Piercing
The infected piercing is sore and tender to the touch. Secondly, there is excessive redness around the jewelry in the piercing. Thirdly, the area around the piercing is either distended or swollen. Fourthly, it is very painful to move or rotate the jewelry. Lastly, if the infection is severe, there is a discharge of green bloody fluid or pus from the piercing. The discharge is more while moving the jewelry.

How to Treat an Infected Piercing
There is an easy-to-follow way to get the infection treated at a fast pace. You may or may not take the jewelry out from the piercing. The choice is completely yours. However, the home treatment will be easy if you remove the jewelry piece.

For treating the infection at home, you need to maintain a high level of hygiene. It starts with keeping your body and the environment neat and clean. You need to clean the piercing and the surrounding area with a salt solution at least once and not more than twice a day. You need salt solution and sterile cotton ball to carry the treatment.

Wash your hands thoroughly with an antiseptic soap. Take a cup of warm distilled water and add 1/8 teaspoon of a non-iodized salt to it. Epsom salt is believed to be the best for this purpose. Mix the ingredients well to make a solution. Soak the cotton ball into the solution, take it out and squeeze it over the piercing such that the solution falls on it. Do it 2-3 times. Allow the piercing to air dry. If comfortable, you may also apply light pressure on the piercing while it air dries. You may apply an over-the-counter antibiotic cream on the cleaned piercing. Do it once or twice everyday, preferably before bedtime.

After a couple of days, you may find that scab has appeared to form on the affected region. Remove it while cleaning. Formation of scab is a sign of healing of the infection. The treatment method described above gives positive results in majority of the cases. However, you need to use right materials and follow the instructions properly. Use this treatment method as recommended and only the allowable number of times. Or else, you may end up with further worsening of the infection. Some of the signs of worsened infection are burning sensation, irritation, and increase in the discharge and area under infection. If you find such aggravated symptoms of infected piercing in yourself, visit a doctor for necessary medical intervention. If you have faced this problem with each piercing, then may be you should consider using fake piercing seriously.