Navel piercing is inflamed

Introduction

Due to the fact that piercing is widespread nowadays and is considered a common piece of jewelry, it is often forgotten that it is a foreign body. This is located in an artificially pricked channel in the skin. Until the complete healing of this canal the piercing has direct contact to “open” tissue and blood. So pathogenic germs of any kind can penetrate and cause inflammations if not cared for correctly. Especially the belly button is a place of the body, where the risk for an inflammation is increased, because it is a badly supplied with blood, with a longer lasting healing tendency.

Causes for an inflamed navel piercing

In most cases a navel piercing gets inflamed in the immediate time after the stinging – that means in the healing phase. The healing phase of a navel piercing takes quite a long time, because the navel has little blood supply and therefore needs a long time for regeneration and healing of the canaliculus. During this time pathogens can easily penetrate the tissue and blood and cause an inflammatory reaction.

The most frequent causes of an infection directly after the pricking can be, on the one hand, an unclean working during the pricking process itself. But on the other hand also an insufficient cleaning and disinfection of the freshly stitched piercing. But also a lot of movement and too tight clothing can irritate the navel piercing in the sensitive healing time by friction and delay the healing.

Likewise it can also come to an allergic reaction of the body to the piercing material and lead to an inflammatory reaction. But only the choice of the wrong piercing size or length can irritate. If the navel piercing is too short the navel tissue can be irritated by a permanent pressure and by friction, so that pathogens can penetrate more easily.

Symptoms

If the belly button piercing becomes inflamed, this is usually noticed by the classic symptoms of inflammation: If the inflammation is mild and still localized, it is usually not accompanied by any other symptoms. If it spreads and becomes stronger, pus can also form and emerge from the canaliculus or, in the worse case, form an abscess (accumulation of pus in an encapsulated tissue space). If a fever also occurs, this is a sign that the inflammation has spread to the blood and the immune system is working at full speed to fight it.

Extreme caution is advisable here and a doctor should be consulted urgently at the very latest. – the skin area around the navel piercing becomes red,

Possibly warm, thick, hardening and
Hurts – either only when pressure and touch is applied, later possibly already at rest

The piercing is a foreign body to which pathogens can attach themselves and cause an inflammation. Pus is classically an indication of a bacterial inflammation.

The immune system fights the pathogens and destroys itself, in form of the white blood cells, as well as the surrounding tissue. This process then manifests itself in the form of pus. If one does not get the inflammation under control with the below mentioned tips, one should visit a doctor or the piercer, because in the worst case it can come to the carry-over of the pathogens and thus to blood poisoning.

Pain belongs to the five classical signs of inflammation. They are supplemented by redness, overheating, swelling and a restricted or suspended function. To react to injuries with pain is a sensible reaction of the body to protect the affected area from unnecessary touching.

To this end, an increased amount of messenger substances are released. One should therefore pay attention to the signals of the body and in no case play around with the piercing or press it. Furthermore we recommend to wear wide clothes or to cover the inflamed piercing loosely with a cosmetic tissue, so that the clothes donŽt get stuck at this place.