• Wash your hands before touching it
• Clean with sterile saline while healing
• Dry gently with clean disposable products
• Do not twist, spin, or rotate the jewelry
• Avoid sleeping on that side
• Avoid pressure from headphones, helmets, hats, or phones when possible
• Don’t change the jewelry early
• Don’t use alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, ointments, or harsh cleansers
• Our bodies heal the piercings; saline just keeps it clean. Anything else can be irritating since it’s an open wound
  

During healing, it’s normal to have:

• Mild swelling
  
• Tenderness
  
• Some crusting
  
• Occasional redness after being bumped or cleaned
  
• A piercing that feels fine one day and slightly irritated the next
  

APP guidance notes that some bleeding, swelling, tenderness, bruising, itching, and whitish-yellow discharge that dries into crust can all be part of normal healing.

Reach out if you have:

• Increasing pain instead of gradual improvement
  
• Significant swelling that doesn’t settle
  
• Jewelry that feels too tight
  
• Embedding concerns
  
• Heat, spreading redness, or discharge that seems unusual
  
• A bump that keeps getting worse