Top 5 Things You Need to Know About Piercings

 It’ll be a common theme throughout this video… but it can’t be said enough: keeping your piercing clean is an absolute must. This is never more apparent than when you get a piercing in a low blood flow area of the body. You see, places like earlobes and lips tend to heal faster because they experience a greater amount of blood flow than say the nose or upper ear. More blood means better healing times. If you choose to get pierced on the latter however, you will have to be extra diligent about keeping it clean. Less blood flow means longer healing time… and that means more risk of infection.

 Before you freak out, we should mention that such complications are almost always minor. A 1998 University of Minnesota study responsible for these statistics further stated that only 1% of participants reported major complications due to a piercing. Furthermore, the issues that arise are typically easily treatable. The primary cause? Infection resulting from improper aftercare. It is very important to ask the person giving you your piercing for proper cleaning instructions. Additionally, you should always provide your piercing professional with a brief medical history, as certain types of jewelry can sometimes cause allergic reactions. Ultimately getting pierced should be fun - and being prepared is the best way to ensure that it is.

 It’s important to research any form of body modification and the inherent risks before walking in the door. While getting pierced is a relatively safe procedure, there are certain areas of the body more prone to issues than others. For the same reason cartilage is prone to infection, it is also known for becoming more severely infected, should infection occur. Damn low blood flow! Other common body parts, such as the eyebrow and bellybutton have higher risks of rejection. In such cases, the skin heals behind the piercing and steadily pushes it towards the surface of the skin. Should it happen, it’s recommended you remove the piercing to diminish scarring and avoid worsened infection.

Think about it: you’re cutting a hole in your skin and sticking a foreign object in it – scars are an inherent risk. While a scar isn’t necessarily dangerous, they tend to itch and can be unsightly. If you are someone who has had scars in the past that didn’t heal well, you may want to reconsider getting pierced. Additionally, people with darker skin and those between the ages of 10 and 20 are more likely to develop keloid scars. These can be very unpleasant to look at given their characteristic lumpy texture and discoloration. Unlike most scars, keloids don’t typically fade with time either.

 Despite the fact that countless women had their ears pierced as children using this method, it has fallen out of fashion, and with good reason - sterilization. You can disinfect a piercing gun but you cannot sterilize one; and sterilization is the only way to ensure that every single dangerous microorganism gets eliminated. The problem is the plastic casing that the guns are made of; they simply can’t withstand the heat. Hollow needles are the modern recommended method. They allow for more precision and will cause less trauma to the area. Skip the gun and head straight for the needle – a sentence that is completely inappropriate in any other context.