Proper aftercare is crucial for healing tattoos and belly button rings without complications like keloids. Learn how to drain piercing bumps, understand ear gauging rules, and identify the signs of a rejected body piercing.
Once the province of sailors, prisoners and rebellious, artistic types, tattoos have become a part of mainstream America. Like most things in life, tattoo ownership has its pros and cons. While the disadvantages are pretty concrete, the advantages are more varied.
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Getting your ears pierced is a rite of passage for many girls, and even some boys too. The words "ear piercing" may well conjure memories of a trip to the mall, where you sat in a chair in the jewelry shop trying to look brave, watching anxiously while a teenage girl swabbed a piercing gun with alcohol.
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Corkscrew nose rings are small studs that fit flush up against the side of your nose. The post of the stud is twisted, resembling a corkscrew, and keeps the jewelry from slipping out of the nostril hole. Inserting a new corkscrew nose ring can be tricky, especially if the piercing is relatively fresh.
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Laser tattoo removal treatments can leave you with a burn that you should treat like a sunburn, according to TattooHealth.org. You can control the general symptoms of the burn by applying 1 percent hydrocortisone cream, drinking plenty of water and taking ibuprofen.
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Navel piercings typically take four to 12 months to fully heal, but if you take proper care of your piercing, you can make the process go more quickly and painlessly. Cleaning and caring for a fresh belly button piercing prevents the irritation and infection that could otherwise slow down the healing process.
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Changing your pierced earrings doesn't have to be a challenge as long as you take measures to make the process safe and sanitary. If you are changing your pierced ears for the first time, don't be tempted to remove the studs, however, until your ears are completely healed.
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After getting your navel pierced, you need to make sure you keep the ring, as well as the area surrounding the piercing, clean and sanitized. Cleaning the jewelry and the piercing daily will help keep the hole from getting infected as it heals.
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As a piercing heals, scar tissue forms. In the process of forming scar tissue, your body sheds dead skin cells. Your piercings may also secrete blood and plasma. While a foul odor coming from a piercing can be a sign of infection, it may simply be a sign that your piercing is not clean enough.
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When you get your nostril pierced, you are making a puncture wound in a thick piece of cartilage. Cartilage piercings take significantly longer to heal than those that go through a flap of skin, like an earlobe.
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Regardless of the location of a piercing, several choices are available when it comes to jewelry. The circular barbell is constructed in the same way as a standard straight barbell – with a post and a threaded ball on each end – but as the name implies, it has a circular shape.
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If you haven't worn earrings in a long time, the holes in your earlobes may have closed. If you feel a small knot in the skin where the hole is, it is more than likely the fistula, or skin tunnel, created when your piercing healed.
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Bumps are common occurrences on nose piercings because they are easily bumped, and cartilage also takes longer to heal than the fleshy areas of the body such as the ear lobes. They often appear as red bumps right beside the piercing, and can be very hard to resolve.
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Body piercing uses a cannula, or hollow needle, to make a clean slice through skin. Because the needle enters the skin and comes out the other side, a piercing should be treated like any other puncture wound.
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Depending on geographical location, certain types of needles for body piercing procedures are illegal. Inexperienced or unprofessional piercers use sewing needles or piercing guns to pierce body parts not realizing the dangers of that practice.
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You can stretch an existing ear piercing into a large-diameter ear piercing. If you do not have pierced ears, you can pierce your ears at a large gauge. Typical ear piercings, from a piercing gun, are a small gauge, such as 20.
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While body piercings may be considered a fashion statement or an adornment, in some cultures body piercings are considered part of a spiritual journey. Believers of Hinduism or alternative medicine believe that piercing the belly button aligns or improves function of the third chakra, the solar plexus.
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Like any other injury to the skin, piercings can lead to scarring. Your body is just trying to repair the puncture wound by increasing the production of connective tissue. With nose piercings, the healing process can eventually lead to a small dimple on the skin. But a raised scar may also form.
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A natural dye derived from the leaves of the henna plant (Lawsonia inermis), henna ink seeps into the top layer of skin when applied, resulting in a semipermanent stain. Whether applied freehand or via a stencil, henna tattoos usually last 14 days.
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When you first get your belly button pierced, a silver hoop belly button ring is usually inserted. Additionally, some silver hoops can be purchased to wear after the piercing jewelry is removed.
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When your body rejects a belly button piercing, the jewelry moves to the surface of the skin and eventually comes out. This can be really frustrating after you've paid for a piercing and endured the discomfort of healing. There are some steps you can take to prevent your body from rejecting the navel piercing.
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