piercing question

[obscurityme]

I got this for my birthday.

Just a quick question about piercing cleaning (I'm looking at you rhi):

Should I clean it with the studex stuff and leave it to like.. absorb in or should I dry it off with a clean cotton bud?

Comments

[anonymous]

Neither.
You should give it a warm salt water compress. Dissolve a quarter of a teaspoon of salt in a cup of boiling water, and let it cool. Then soak a cotton wool pad in the salt solution, and gently press the pad to both sides of the piercing, and hold it there for a minute or so. Continue doing it with fresh pads for 5 - 10 minutes. You might spot a little faintly coloured grime on the cotton wool pad... I usually compressed until I couldn't spot any more slime.

What's Studex? Is it an alcohol based cleanser? I've always been told never to use that stuff on my piercings because it can burn the wound.

[butt0ns]

Whoops... that was me!
If it helps, I've successfully healed a tragus piercing, and many other delicate sites. :)

[obscurityme]

Danke! I shall do me some salt compresses! I'd just been doing water compresses to clean the area before using the cleany stuff the piercer gave me. He said twice daily for 6 weeks. As far as I can tell the studex stuff is just an antiseptic lotion.

[ferlengheti]

as per the above advice, studex is nasty shit, and can promote keloid scarring. the salt compresses are the way to go, once every day or so, and for a twice-daily wash you can get hold of a nice gentle antibacterial handwash like health basics. just foam a wee bit up, and wash both sides.

one thing to be wary of - it looks like your tragus jewellery is the stud from a piercing gun. this would also explain why youve been given studex - pharmacies tend to endorse it. piercing studs can prove too short for tragus and other cartilage piercings, which are a bit tricksy to heal and can take a while. if theres some swelling, the back may start to be grown over. if you notice swelling thats making everything a bit too tight, get your jewellery changed by a pro.

apart from the tales of woe, it looks lovely - yay you!

[obscurityme]

Well that sucks. I had some nasty hypertrophic scarring resulting from incorrect jewellery from a helix piercing I had done at Illicit in Akld and I've just found them sub par as piercers but I had thought the piercer I've been seeing was really good. He helped me out heaps through healing my nose and sorting out my fucked helix (i.e. helping me take it out).

So I've def got the right tragus jewellery (tonnes of room in ze back) and I can change it to a shorter bar once it's healed. But I'm stumped as to why he would give me a studex antiseptic if it's not 'proper' and whatnot. GRRR Doh!

Tis going really well so far, barely any redness/swelling/gunk but I shall get on the salt compress buzz.

THANK YOU!

[obscurityme]

Turns out studex is just saline solution with a few mild antiseptic ingredients.

[anonymous]

Haha we obviously still aren't too different, I got both mine done now, just be careful sleeping on it too much because mine disappeared in the hole a few times!

[undonesoul]

ugh that was me by the way