Can you Swim After Getting Ears Pierced?
After getting a piercing, you shouldn’t swim for at least 24 hours, and ideally until it’s fully healed. It’s important to keep the piercing dry while it’s still healing because it could get infected.
How long until it gets better?
For a few weeks, a new piercing may be red and hurt. How long it takes for a body piercing to heal depends on where it is on your body and how well you take care of it.
As a general rule, the most common body piercings can take between:
- ear lobe – 6 to 8 weeks\stop of the ear – 6 to 8 weeks\ belly button (navel) – 6 months to 1 year \ nose – up to 6 months \ tongue – 2 to 4 weeks
Swimming
Any body of water can give you an infection, so while your piercing heals, you shouldn’t swim in:
- pools, lakes, rivers, and streams to swim in the sea
- Also, you shouldn’t use hot tubs.
- Signs of a sickness
Your piercing may be infected if:
Signs of infection
Your piercing may be infected if:
- it’s red, hot, painful, swollen, or dark (depending on your skin color)
- there’s blood or pus coming from the piercing, which may be white, yellow, or green and foul-smelling
If you have any signs of infection, see a GP.
How to take care of your piercing
It’s important to keep the area clean and dry after getting pierced.
Before you touch or wash your piercing, wash your hands with warm water and antibacterial soap and dry them with a paper towel.
You might be told to clean the area gently with a sterile solution of salt and water. The labels say that these can be used to wash and clean wounds.
- Do not put contact lens saline, eye drops, or other saline solutions in a body piercing.
- Do not make your own saltwater solution, as it will be too salty and strong and could slow down the healing process.
- Do not use alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, antibacterial soaps, iodine, or any other harsh product, as these can hurt cells.
The piercing should only be cleaned as much as is needed to keep it clean. Cleaning it too much can irritate the skin and slow the healing process. Most of the time, you don’t need to move or take off a piece of jewelry.
Rinse the area with saline solution to clean the piercing. You could also soak a clean cloth in the solution and put it on the spot. Once any discharge has softened, you can clean it with a cotton bud or a piece of gauze.
Make sure that all of the clothes and bedding that could touch the area around the piercing are clean.
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