My Navel Piercing: 3 years on

It's been 3 years since I had my navel pierced and thankfully I've never experienced any navel piercing infections. I have to be honest that after the first 3 months of detailed care, I got lazy and stopped with any sprays or salt water soaks and it all turned out okay.

I promise the worry and panic when you first got your navels pierced is normal.

But I do feel it is important to invest in a good navel ring, rather than purchasing navel rings made of cheap metal. My skin is extremely sensitive, so I'm wearing a navel ring of high grade metal. I believe surgical steels are fine and if I remember correctly, I am wearing a titanium one.

Here's a quick picture update, I apologise for the low quality as I zoomed and cropped my images:

Personally, the belly ring serves absolutely NO inconvenience, I wear it when I lift (with a lifting belt) and there's no discomfort or pain. Even when doing abs exercises which involves a hell lot of crunching, there's absolutely no discomfort at all! Oh yes I've gone swimming too in usual pools and the sea, and it has got no effect on the piercing. Simply just bathe as per usual and you're good.

So if you need any help deciding whether or not to get it because you're worried it might pose as an inconvenience when doing any sorts of sports, trust me and just go ahead with it! If anything, it's a beautiful accessory to have on your body. I've never once regretted this piercing, it's my favourite out of all my 7 piercings!

on injuring your piercing

I can't stress this enough, but always always be super careful with your piercing! Especially when it's still in the healing phase, any rough movement will delay the healing process.

When showering, I accidentally bumped into my piercing and it hurt pretty bad. I still carried on with my anti-bacterial wash and don't worry, it won't sting or make it any more painful than it already is.

It isn't really obvious in this photo, but immediately after showering, the swelling and redness started. It began to pus a little at the bottom as well. 

I'm no expert at piercing injuries, but what I would recommend is properly drying the piercing site with a CLEAN cotton bud. If there're any signs of blood or pus, don't freak out! Gently try to remove all these from the piercing site.

You may wash the piercing with saline solution to further clean your wound as well, but that isn't necessary unless you've bled. That's standard first aid! 

Spray it with the H2Ocean Spray and let it air dry! H2Ocean Spray is known to contain enzymes, elements and minerals essential for living cells and will aid in the healing process of your piercing. So logically, this would be the best way to go about dealing with a slightly injured piercing :> 

navel piercing cleaning procedure

You may have read up a lot on how to proper piercing aftercare. Some may say antibacterial soap is needed in your aftercare kit while some say that’s too strong and it will hinder healing. Salt soaks have proven to be miraculous when it comes to healing your navel piercing but there are so many variations to the ratio of salt to warm water. 

While this may work for some and not others, here’s how I cleaned my piercing and it has worked really well for me so far! :)

1. Every morning when I wake up for school, I spray it once with my H2Ocean Spray (4Oz) which I bought from a local tattoo supply store. Just one spray at the piercing site is enough, there is no need to soak your piecing in it!

2. When I take a shower, I lather the antibacterial wash on my palm and gently apply it to the my piercing site without excessively moving my piercing up and down or turning it. I realized the redness and swelling went down after I stopped trying to ensure the soap enters my piercing by moving it! I wash my Helix piercing with this as well :) If Dial Soap is available, you may want to try that too!

3. I do salt soaks at least once a day. I realized some slight pus coming out from my lower hole when I stopped the salt soaks, yikes. So yes salt soaks are miraculous!! The ratio of 100% SEA SALT to hot water is ¼ teaspoon to 250ml of water. I’ve stuck to this ratio ever since I’ve started salt soaks and it has worked well for me so far. No signs of infection and the redness and swelling is going down after 5 days!!

The trick is to use the salt water solution as hot as you can take it. Don’t wait till it has cooled. Make sure you use 100% Sea Salt! You can buy them from any grocery stores. 

Soak your piercings for 15 minutes.

4. After 15 minutes, rinse your piercing site with Saline Solution.

5. Spray it with H2Ocean Spray again before you go to bed. 

 And you’re done!! If you’re a paranoid person like me, you’ll want to keep cleaning your piercing to prevent an infection. But the thing is, over-cleaning or under-cleaning your piercing is not advisable. 

I found that this way of cleaning my piercing works the best for me, not too little or too much :> My piercing is healing really well now and I hope yours will too!

the healing process of my navel piercing

First we've got to understand that everybody's body is different. The healing process will differ from person to person but generally the signs and symptoms of a healing navel and an infected navel are pretty much common!

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an infection up till this point (the first few weeks is when your healing navel is most prone to infection) so I can’t help much with symptoms of an infected navel. I would think the most obvious sign of an infection would be yellowish-green pus and of course, more severe pain. 

You may refer to this website for more details: http://www.healcure.org/navel/button-belly-piercing/infected-belly-button-piercing-signs-bump-treatment-pictures-ring/

It is most important that you do not mix up signs of a healing navel piercing with signs of infection.

DAY 1 AND 2

So the first few days after I’ve got my piercing, my piercing seemed fine, not much redness, swelling or flaking. Of course it would be slightly sore to the touch since it’s a new piercing :)

Everyday, I do salt soaks at least once a day and then wash my piercing with NaCl 0.9% solution (20ml) bought from a local drugstore to wash off any remaining salt. I also spray it with H2Ocean Spray twice a day. The detailed steps will be up in my next post!

Word of caution: my belly area seems pretty hairy so excuse me hahah!

WEEK 1

Week 1, slight redness a the site of needle entry and exit. It’s a new wound after all!

Week 1, still no signs of pus or crusties!

Week 1: slightly red around the piercing site

WEEK 2

Week 2: The swelling and soreness kicked in! I’ve done a lot of research as I’m honestly pretty paranoid about getting an infection or rejection. I’ve done cross references and yes, a few days after your initial piercing, your piercing site is bound to become red and slightly swollen, so don’t mistake that for an infection.

I still wash my piercing regularly with saline solution after salt soaks and spray it with H2Ocean Spray. but I was afraid that wasn’t enough. 

Usually youtubers or piercers would recommend washing the piercing with antibacterial soap(usually Dial Soap which is not sold in drugstores in Singapore). I was afraid unscented Dettol body wash would be too strong. 

I tried Dettol body wash anyway, but it made the swelling and redness worse for me. I chanced upon this antibacterial foaming wash by a local company called ICM PHARMA. It helps treat and prevent acne and other skin infections. It was definitely milder than Dettol so I continued to wash my piercing with it.

Week 2: Still red and sore, but no sign of pus or severe pain.

Week 2: Getting better! Redness and soreness is going down slowly.

Week 2: Redness and soreness is continuing to go down! Up till this point, I am cleaning my piercing regularly with antibacterial soap (ICM PHARMA) whenever I bathe, saline solution after I do my salt soaks and H2Ocean Spray.

Check out my other post for the detailed steps on cleaning!

getting prepared - my personal navel piercing experience

Now you're contemplating getting your navel pierced but you're so nervous about the procedure - having a needle stuck through a layer of skin?? How painful would that be?

source: http://fashionbyvamp-night.tumblr.com/post/114322023790

Naturally, you would try to put a estimation to the pain - googling the pain from a scale of 1 to 10 or the pain of it compared to other regular ear lobe or cartilage piercings you've got.

As intimidating as it may look, from personal experience, the pain from a navel piercing is nothing as compared to the pain I felt when i got my helix pierced. Now a word of caution, I do have extremely low pain tolerance! A tiny paper cut, splinter and normal flu jabs can make me cry :(

You may have heard that the pain from the clamping is the worst part of the entire process. That is somewhat true because the clamping really helps in numbing the area that will be pierced. The clamping feels just like a small pinch, there is barely any pain at all. 

I was totally freaking out while my piercer was getting all her equipment ready. I kept asking how painful it would be and if it would be worse than a helix piercing, cause that was really, really painful for me. (My helix piercing was more than just a throbbing / warm sensation, it was painful and extremely sensitive). She assured the clamping would help in the numbing so the procedure wouldn't be that much of a discomfort. I was honestly mentally ready to feel like I've just been stabbed in my stomach. 

Now your piercer will instruct you to take a deep breath and exhale. At this point in time, you will feel the needle very quickly being shoved through your skin but all you feel is a tiny, tiny pinch! I was really amazed at how fast the procedure was and how little pain I felt. I was expecting it to be more painful than a flu jab and equivalent to my helix piercing, but it was much less.

Putting in the jewelry wasn't painful - you can definitely feel something in your skin but it wasn't that painful. The entire procedure took less than a minute for me and after some cleaning I was ready to show off my new navel piercing!! 

This is what my piercing looked like the morning after and
there's hardly any swelling or redness immediately after

My piercer taught me how to take care of my new piercing, basically the usual stuffs like don't go swimming in a pool or the sea, avoid exercises that will move your piercing and not to change my piercing within 3 months.

I honestly do not think these advice are enough for thorough piercing aftercare, and I will teach you how I do my regular cleaning in my next post :) 

Hope this gave you enough courage to get your navel piercing!

FYI: I got my navel pierced at Exotic Tattoo at Far East Plaza, Singapore. My piercer's Nicol.