How To Clean An Irritated Belly Button

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While your navel piercing heals, it'south important to avoid physically irritating the area. Additionally, preventing infection is vital to minimizing the corporeality of irritation associated with your piercing. The almost important aspect of preventing and treating infection in a belly push piercing is thorough cleaning. You can also minimize the irritation associated with an infection by protecting and disinfecting your piercing.

1
Make clean the piercing daily. Regular cleaning is the best fashion to speed up the healing procedure after receiving a piercing. This will reduce the amount of time that your omphalos is tender and easily irritated. Regular cleaning volition also help prevent serious irritants such as infection.^[1]
- After washing your hands with soap and warm water,^[2] utilize a Q-tip or cotton ball dipped in saline solution or mild antibacterial lather to wash both holes made by the piercing, as well as your omphalus.
- Gently rotate your piercing nearly 4 times around later on washing.
- To brand your own saline solution, mix a half a teaspoon of salt into a cup of warm water.
- Proceed washing your piercing and the surrounding expanse once or twice daily until the redness, swelling, and discharge that normally follow a omphalos piercing subside.
ii
Wash the piercing every time y'all shower. In one case the abdomen button piercing has healed, it'south still important to wash it regularly. Showering is the recommended method of washing, every bit bathtubs tin harbor leaner that may infect your piercing.^[3]
- Do not use a washcloth or loofah to clean your belly button piercing. These can harbor bacteria and may pull or otherwise irritate your piercing.
- Utilise a gentle soap to launder both holes of your piercing, likewise as your belly button and the surrounding area.
- Allow water from the shower to only wash the lather away.
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iii
Do not allow body fluids to impact the piercing. One common irritant and potential source of infection for belly button piercings is bodily fluid. This includes your ain or other people's fluids. Avoid getting saliva, sweat, and any other bodily fluid on or around your omphalus piercing.^[4]
- When you sweat, be certain to wash your umbilicus piercing at your earliest convenience.
4

Stay out of bodies of water. Exercise non get in a pool, hot tub, or natural body or water while your bellybutton piercing is healing or infected. Even a clean, well-maintained, and chemically-treated pool may still contain bacteria that tin can cause an infection or prolong healing.^[5]
v
Follow cleaning directions. Afterward receiving your piercing, the professional that gave information technology to you volition directly you on how to properly clean the piercing and help it heal. Be sure to retrieve everything they tell you, and write their directions down if you may forget.
- If you lot experience unpleasant symptoms or an infection associated with your piercing, phone call the business where you received the piercing and ask what they recommend for treatment.
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one
Avoid contact sports for two weeks. Your bellybutton piercing will be especially susceptible to irritation for the first few weeks you lot accept it. During this critical healing catamenia, avert any activities that involve physical contact. More to the point, avoid any strenuous exercise that may disrupt the healing process.^[6]
- Do not play team sports, such as soccer or basketball, until your piercing is fully healed.
- Avoid activities that involve extensive stretching for ii weeks as well, such every bit climbing and yoga.
two

Wear loose shirts. Very small amounts of chafing or abrasion can irritate your belly button. Especially during healing periods after a new piercing or following an infection, wear loose-plumbing equipment wear that will not constantly rub or apply pressure to your piercing.^[vii]
iii

Try to sleep on your back. It'south of import to forestall irritating your umbilicus while yous sleep. While sleeping on your side is fine, sleeping on your dorsum is best. Most chiefly, avoid sleeping on your stomach.^[8]
4
Don't dabble with your piercing. Fiddling with your belly button can crusade it to become irritated, and may even contribute to an infection. In particular, avoid absent touching or tugging on your bellybutton piercing.^[nine]
- When yous desire to adjust your jewelry or touch the surface area for another reason, be certain to wash your hands before doing and so.
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1
Recognize signs of an infection. The area around a new piercing may be red, tender, and/or swollen for a few weeks. Notwithstanding, if these symptoms concluding more than than three weeks, they may indicate an infection. Similarly, yellow discharge is normal for nearly a calendar week after getting a omphalos piercing. If discharge continues, turns dark-green, or includes blood, this likely indicates an infection.^[10]
- Other indications of an infection include excess crust around 1 or both of the piercing's holes, persistent hurting or soreness to the bear on, peel sensitivity, the ability to run across the piercing through the pare, or whatever motion or loosening of the piercing itself.
- If whatsoever of these symptoms are nowadays, see you physician.
2
Disinfect the area with a saline compress. A saline press is another fashion to wash and disinfect your navel piercing that will as well reduce pain or other irritation from infection. Dissolve a quarter teaspoon of salt into a cup or so of h2o that is warm, but safe to touch. Use a cotton brawl of piece of clean gauze to soak up the solution. Lie on your back and gently agree the saturated material onto your omphalus expanse for x minutes.^[11]
- Repeat this process twice a day to assist kill bacteria and reduce irritation.
- Dry your belly push with a disposable paper product such as paper towel. A clean towel and gauze are other adept alternatives.
3

Do not remove your jewelry or use an antibacterial ointment. While these deportment may be tempting, they may actually prolong the healing process. In fact, removing your jewelry tin can pb to other health complications. Similarly, antibacterial ointment can inadvertently trap bacteria within the infected area.^[12]
4
Consider supplemental remedies. Tea tree oil,^[13] aloe vera,^[xiv] white vinegar, and chamomile tea^[xv] are all said to have infection-fighting properties as well. While saline solution is the recommended method of disinfecting your piercings, these may offer supplementary relief from irritation and other symptoms of an infection.^[16]
- Aloe vera gel can help soothe an irritated belly button and may even assist prevent scarring. Get aloe vera gel from your local pharmacy.
5
See a physician for a serious infection. Habitation handling may not be adequate to rid your piercing of a persistent infection. If you have an infection that lasts longer than a calendar week, set up up an appointment to run across your doctor.^[17]
- If your omphalos gets particularly swollen, is significantly painful, and/or continually bleeds or discharges fluid, see your doctor as shortly as possible.
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Article Summary Ten

The easiest manner to treat an irritated belly button piercing is to keep the area make clean. To clean your piercing, soak a q-tip or cotton ball with a saline solution and gently wash your piercing holes and belly push twice a day. After cleaning the surface area, rotate your piercing nearly four times. Avoid getting any body fluids, similar sweat or saliva, most your piercing or it might go infected. Whenever you work out, wash your bellybutton as soon as possible. If you desire to make extra certain your piercing doesn't get irritated, article of clothing loose clothing and endeavour to sleep on your back, which will reduce the corporeality of force per unit area on your skin. To larn more, like how to treat your piercing if it gets infected, gyre downwardly.

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