Body Piercings will normally have redness, hurt, itch, and form crusties. Swelling should go down after a couple of days and it is important to heal your body piercing with the right aftercare. Infections can be healed without taking the jewelry out. Keloids can be healed if they are taken care of right away. Everybody's bodies are different and many healing problems are found to be allergic reactions to metals in the jewelry or placements of the body piercing. If you have a problem second opinions from a professional body piercer do help.
The basic steps in treating wound infection include cleaning the wound, draining infected material, andpplying heat to promote circulation and stimulate the body's immune response. Antibiotics are used depending on the location and severity of the infection. For an abscess, which make up the majority of secondary infections from piercing, antibiotics may not be necessary.
An abscess is a tender, easily pressed mass generally surrounded by a colored area from pink to deep red. The middle of an abscess is full of pus and debris.
Cleaning and drainage involve irrigating the piercing with a saline solution and removing debris such as dead tissue, pus, dirt or other foreign material. In the case of an infected piercing, this is occasionally interpreted by a health care provider to mean removing the jewelry. It is helpful if the piercee understands and is able to discuss with the physician that the jewelry should remain in place to act as a drain. If the jewelry is too large to allow adequate drainage, it could be replaced with a smaller size by a piercing professional. In the rare cases of severe infection, where there is a lot of destruction of tissue in the pierced area, the jewelry may need to be permanently removed and the dead material cut away for healing to occur. This should be clearly explained to the piercee if it appears to be necessary.
One special concern with infection is piercing through cartilage, such as a nose piercing or an upper ear piercing. Cartilage does not have its own blood supply--it depends on the surrounding tissues to provide oxygen and nutrients by diffusion. This makes it more susceptible to infection, and harder to treat when it does occur. Destruction of cartilage by an infection can also lead to deformity of the ear or nasal contours. While most of these infections still clear well with early use of antibiotics, it is a risk that clients should know about when getting a piercing.
A keloid is an overgrowth of dense fibrous tissue that usually develops after healing of a skin injury. The tissue extends beyond the borders of the original wound, does not usually regress spontaneously, and tends to recur after excision. Also, if you knock a piercing hard, during the healing process, you are more likely to get a keloid. Removing the jewellery at the start of keloid formation and allowing the piercing to heal will often get rid of the keloid but some of us do not want to take the piercing out. Removal of the jewellery is not always necessary.