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Healing belly button piercing
I'm sure some of us around here have our navels pierced or work as piercers. I was just wondering how long it usually takes to heal. I know when I got my ears pierced years ago they said it would take a certain amount of time to heal (can't remember how long) but I remember my ears were too sensitive and took quite a while longer to heal (I don't think they were completely healed until at least 6 months later).
I got my belly button bedazzled in June of 2011; should I be concerned that is still isn't fully healed yet? I do my best to keep it clean after I shower, but it ends up drying/crusting into place later anyways, and if I accidentally tug it out of place it will start to bleed a bit. -
37 Replies
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I've been told that it can take up to a year minimum for a belly piercing to heal up. I briefly had mine done, but it kept rubbing on stuff and always looking this angry red. So ended up removing it. Maybe one day I will revisit it.
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Mine doesn't look red or swollen, so I think that's a good sign. It does however look like…an unhealed wound (how profound of me..) when I move it a little to clean it.
Hearing that it can take up to year minimum makes me feel a little better. I thought something was wrong since it hadn't healed yet. None of my friends have it done so I can't really ask their experiences with it
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Kitty, what do you mean by a crease line? Like slouching over so your stomach creases like a wrinkly worm that's doing crunches? LOL
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Body piercings take a lot longer to heal then your ears- 6 months is average. I have several and the best advice I have is to use baby soap every day in the shower. It is antibacterial but gentle and won't dry out skin. Even years later, when one of my piercings "flare up" – a few days of baby wash and I am good.
You can also ask your piercer for a "retainer" (after healing) – this is a smaller plastic curved barbell that can replace your piercing and stay out of your way.
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A friend of mine has her belly button pierced and she just wears a loop and it won't irritate when poling.
My body is strange and does not react very well to piercings. I've had my ear lobes take up to 6 months to heal up, and every now and then it flares up for no apparently reason. I baby it and clean it with salt and water and it usually gets better within the day. I would hate to know how it would take for my body to heal a belly button piercing https://www.studioveena.com/img/smilies/icon_eek.gif
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I had a piercing (the don’t triangle thingy in the center front part of the eat I can’t remember what’s the name of it) that seemed to not want to heal properly at all (it kept keloiding really big and I was afraid it would a: be ugly without the piercing and scar horribly out b: be ugly with it and scar horribly) so I went back to the Piercer who also happened to be a nurse. She told me to gently and lightly swab it with tea tree oil every night for a week, then every other night until healed. It finally worked but it took some time. It’s perfect now and no one would every know that it scarred so bad in the first place! So maybe talk to a doctor or nurse that may be familiar with tea tree oil and see if that might be an option?
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I got my belly ring about 6 months ago! The guy at the shop told me the only thing to clean it with is saline (contact solution) and do it atleast twice a day or more!
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I have had my belly button piercing since Sept 2000. I was pierced with a hoop. I was told it could take anywhere from 9mths to a yr to completely heal. I used witch hazel to clean mine as was recommended at the time and it has only been infected once this whole time. ( That was due to my own stupid actions-I was camping and got it dirty and forgot to bring my witch hazel to clean it. So over serveral days w/o being cleaned properly it got infected:( ) I know it can sometimes can longer for different people. My best friend got hers done at the same time as mine and hers was healed within 6mths. Mine however was almost a year to be fully healed and able to take it out to change jewerly. We did exactly the same thing…hope this is helpful:)
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It's been helpful to hear that everyone has different experiences with body piercings healing. I think I'll start using a saline soak with a shot glass a couple times per day and see if it gets better. If not, I'll go back to the place where I got the piercing and have them take a look at it.
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I had mine done about 5 years ago and it still bleeds every once in a while. Every day it is a little crusty, but I have this same problem with my ear piercings.
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It took about 9months for my to deal. As any piercer will stress this to you- keep it clean! The only problem i had with mine was i changed my ring and it got a little infection, like a large red bump. I took the new ring out and put the previous one in- took a cup and held warm salt water on it 2 times a day and the infection healed in 5 days. Havent had issues since and have had it for 6 years
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Mine to heal**** i type so fast on my phone that i mispell words- sorrry and good luck 🙂
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Belly button piercings are so dificult to heal because they are literally ina place on your body that moves so much – they're basically placed on your body's hinge.
So I wouldn't be worried that it's taken about a year, that's pretty normal. I think mine took about 7 months to heal completely, but in general I'm really good with healing piercings.
Just keep it clean with saline solution (dilute a bit of tea tree oil if you start to get scarring – this will help minimise it) and you should have no problems with it. It'll heal in it's own time. If your immune system is low, it might take longer to heal as well.
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Mine took over a year because I discovered I was allergic to any metal other than gold. What the piercer used was not gold so my belly button swole, was red, had green thick pus coming out, felt hot all the time, and I even had a keloid which is what azblanco described.
During this time I was advised to use glycerin soap or antibacterial, and wash with sea salt and water in a cup minimum 3x daily. I also had to take my ring out and clean it, or move it up and down while in my navel immediately AFTER doing a sea salt soak or a hot shower to help drain/break up the dried up crust and mucous inside and out. Then do a sea salt wash again to flush it out.
Once I discovered I had the metal allergy, I immediately switched to a clear plastic ring from Walmart until I could afford a gold one. That combined with just the sea salt rinses cleared it up immediately, and the sea salt helped dry out the wound as well so. A few months later I found out I was pregnant and I was able to leave my belly ring in throughout my pregnancy and delivery with no problem at all.
It gets a little tender at times after I catch it on things and it gets yanked by my inquiring neices and nephews (ouch!) but never that bad since. And I think the sea salt made a Major difference!
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I never thought about a metal allergy, I had my nose pierced years back and it never seemed to fully heal, was just like you're describing. I eventually gave up and took it out but I bet that's what it was…thanks for the insight I never thought of that, good to know.
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I haven't read the rest of teh comments, but let me tell you what happend to me with my belly button ring. Got it at age 17. The guy said to use tea tree oil instead of neosporin because the neosporin would cause "too much healing" and hole would try to close… whatever… But… after like a year it still kept getting infected and felt like it was trying to close up all the time. It would always be crusty. The skin kept getting thinner and thinner where it was pierced.. and then one ay I was at the pool with a guy I liked. He jumped in on me and ripped out the belly ring. It hurt, but not as much as I thought. The skinwas so thin by then. So after like another 8 months or something I decided to get it re-pierced. It was like all scar tissue by then. It stayed in for a few weeks and then literally just came out. The skin just grew out. Point being… anything foreign in your body you run the risk of your body rejecting it. This can happen to piercings or breast implants ( I don't have but I've heard that is a risk). So watch out with these belly rings.. it sucks mine would just not stay in … it looked really cute.
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I've had my belly button pierced twice. And sadly both times my body rejected it. The first time i blame on the piercer. they pierced it off centre and at a bad angle (my mistake at 16 for going to a place that does not have proffessionally trianed piercers) I had it for about a year before I took it out as it had pushed itself out to just a think layer of skin.
the second time I went to a professionally recognized piercer and sadly even though it was done properly my body rejected it again. I've now attributed it to a slighty metal allergy. I've had other body piercings and as long as i use higher quality metals(gold) I am ok.
all of this talk makes me want to go get it done again though…..maybe third times the charm??? I'm not worried about scar tissue as my belly button is now also scarred from surgery from gallstones.
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@silverlady: girl.. you bring ruin to my life! those are to die for!!! I'm so getting one even if its for christmas!
I did my piercing right after i turned 18 (my parents didnt allow it before), it took about 8 months to fully heal… but it was worth it! sometimes when I wear too tight clothes it gets "upset" but its just a matter of kipping it clean and all its fine. To avoid complications I often remove it when I practice, when I know i'm going to have to use my belly against the pole… to avoid hurting myself, cratching the pole and also because those tiny holes on x-pole dont make me feel too confortable… maybe i'm just over cautious, but.. better safe than sorry. I love my piercing, too bad there's only one belly botton or I'd do more 😛
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I have some piercing! The upper navel, the lip, I have a microdermal implant on the cheekbone, and a small piercing which nobody sees lollll except my lover I like them and I have never had problems
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My belly button healed within 2 weeks, but i put peroxide on it. they say not to however i find it does quicken the healing process and have quite a few piercings and have never had a problem with any of them on the pole except shortly after i got my nipples pierce, i hit the pole and yes that hurt. however im just being more careful now and no problems.
An LOOOOVEEE those belly rings !!!! ahhhhhhhh
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I had the exact same issue as PowerTwirl and Krissy! Had it done, took forever to heal (in fact, I don't think it was ever 'fully' healed). It was always red and moist with some sort of goo. Sorry if TMI but it's true. My skin got thinner and thinner and while I was at a concert it ripped out through my skin. I decided to have it repierced a year later and it never healed. Again my skin began to get thinner and I knew the bar was going to come out. The stinging and hotness just wasn't worth it. I think sometimes your body just rejects piercings and because of the location of the bellybar I don't think it's that surprising that this one is commonly rejected.
It just doesn't work with everyone's body. Such a shame because I did LOVE having it done. My tongue bar is my new baby though and *touch wood* it doesn't cause nearly as many problems as my bellybar did.
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Mine took at least one year to heal, however it became an issue when I started pole. One day it unscrewed itself and came undone. After that I decided to retire the piercing. It’s just too much maintanance.
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The thing that helped mine heal was taking a shot glass and filling it with warm water and epison salt and then put that on top of the piercing and just sit like that for 15 minutes or so. Worked very well. Hope that helps
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I was going to say almost exactly what daniandmoredani said. I healed my nipple piercing that way, and I didn't even have crusties (sorry to the squeamish). Perfect heal. I used sea salt though, instead of epsom, and I would warm it to as much as I could handle, put it in the shot glass and watch tv (or whatever) for 20 minutes. I did it twice a day for at least two weeks.
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While not a belly button, I had two cartilage ear piercings that attempted to reject. I had them for 5 years, and every 6 months or so, they'd get really upset and bleed. Constant crusties, and they swelled up pretty good all around the piercing. I couldn't move the rings at all, other than turning them, because the swelling hurt so much.
There are a lot of things I could have done, or that I could have been told, about having those piercings. To get one at a time, so I could sleep on one side and keep the other without pressure. To keep my hair back and away from them at all times. To not get them when I'm working a job where I have to wear a headset (I was working in a call centre).
I tried the salt, the oils and everything… I did a lot of research. By the end of 5 years, I decided that they would never heal, and I discarded them. Very little scar tissue, so that's good. They healed up perfectly fine with the rings out.
However, I wanted to say this: Using things like polysporin, or something oil based, is not recommended because it doesn't allow the wound to breathe. It's a very particular kind of thing you're trying to do, and suffocating your skin around the piercing may cause it to stop healing, reject entirely, or other nasty things.
Using salts (such as epsom salts or seasalt) can be very beneficial. I didn't find that it helped me, but there were a lot of people that I read about that found it amazing, so you can give that a try.
Otherwise, belly button piercings are, from what I've seen, just as bad as any surface piercing for being rejected. I've heard of them being rejected only to one side, so you end up with a piercing somewhere near your hipbone, and some just are rejected out. That's where the skin becomes smaller and smaller… till the piercing itself comes out.
Specifically, crusties are a fluid that our bodies use, created by the Lymph node, in order to flush out foreign objects- namely, the piece of metal you've shoved in there. They're normal, and natural for your body to be producing.
I'd say, leave the piercing in for a bit, try to be very careful of it (if it keeps wrenching or moving, perhaps put a bandage over it to keep it from doing so). Pulling or moving it when it's not healed, and discovering it bleeding, is a sure sign that whatever healing had been done was wrecked by the movement. It's a very delicate process!
And… some people heal differently than others. Some people take ages, some take days. Some don't heal up at all- such as myself.
I wish you luck!
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