Tattoo After Care

Helpful Tips for Healing

• Always wash you hands before touching your piercing or aftercare products
• Do not touch your piercing or move it unnecessarily while it is healing
• Avoid contact wit other people’s bodily fluids
• Avoid pools lakes rivers hot tubs and bathtubs
• Smoking can affect the healing time of piercings; try to cut back
• Try not to sleep on your piercing.  Pt clean bedding and pillow cases on your bed
• For facial and ear piercings, wear long hair up off the healing piercing, this is especially important for cartilage piercings
• Vitamin supplements like zinc and vitamin c can help with healing
• Using clean hands check jewelry with balls that screw on/off, to make sure they are tight.  Right is tight, left is loose
• Avoid irritants like rubbing alcohol iodine hydrogen peroxide Listerine antibiotic ointments, antibacterial soaps, Gly-oxide and pierced ear solutions.  These item will not help your piercing heal instead they will prolong your healing time

Normal Healing

A normal piecing may:

• Be swollen (especially oral piercings)tender and have some redness
• Discharge a cloudy fluid called lymph.  This fluid will dry, for piercings outside the mouth, and become “crusties”
• Have a small amount of bleeding or bruising (especially genital piercings)

Not normal healing:

It is common for people to think they have an infection when the piercing is simply irritated.  The piercer is always available to help you with your piercing.  You can always go to a doctor if you are concerned, but keep in mind that the answer might be a very simple one with which we can help.  Common signs of infection are:

• Excessive redness
• Heat
• Excessive tenderness
• Dark discharge
• Streaks in the tissue

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have a question 903-868-2050

Cleaning your piercing

When it comes to healing a body piercing, it is important to remember that your body must do the healing.  To your body, a piercing is a very small wound that should be easy to heal if cared for appropriately.  In order to keep irritation to a minimum, and to keep the healing time as short as possible, we suggest cleaning your piercing with sterile saline.  This will aid your bod with healing and will ensure you are not using anything that will irritate your piercing and prolong the healing.

Cleaning Non-Oral Piercings

Clean your piercing with sterile saline.  This should be done once or twice per day using a Q-Tip wiping away any “crusties” use a clean gauze pad or Q-tip to dry your piercing after cleaning.

Cleaning oral piercings

Rinse your mouth with salt water (non-iodized sea salt) (¼ tsp salt to 1 cup of water) for 30 seconds after eating, smoking or drinking anything other than bottled water.  Swish the sea salt solution like mouthwash.  Rinsing with an alcohol free mouthwash such as Biotene, Rembrandt Natural or Listerine zero, 2-4 times per day, is suggested especially if you smoke.

A bottled of pre-mixed sea salt water can be used.  Distilled or bottle water is suggested for oral rinses.  DO NOT use Listerine or any other mouthwash containing alcohol.

DO NOT play with the piercing.  Try to cut back or stop smoking for 3 weeks

Mixing salt water

When mixing salt water, keep in mind that the ration of salt to water is important.  You are trying to make 0.9% salt water, just like the salt water (saline) in your body.  Since your body is mostly salt water, you can clean the piercing without causing irritation. Chemicals such as alcohol, peroxide, Listerine, etc. will only serve to irritate your piercing.

Some appropriate mixtures of salt to water are:

• ¼ tsp to 1 cup water
• 1/8th to ½ cup water
• 1 tsp to 32oz water

Healing times

Everyone heals at different rates and healing times can vary a lot from person to person.  To help avoid confusion, the following healing times are the suggested timelines to keep cleaning your piercing.  Please continue cleaning the piercing with saline for the amount of time listed for your piercing.  After this amount of tie as passed, if your piercing still does not appear or feel healed, continue the cleaning as suggested.

• Ear cartilage: 3-6 moths
• Ear lobe, eyebrow: 2-3 months
• Labret, lip, Monroe, medusa, vertical lip: 2-3 months
• Navel, nipple: 3-6 months
• Nostril, septum, bridge: 2-3 months
• Tongue, tongue web, lip frenulum: 3-6 weeks
• Changing you jewelry

A piercing heals on the outside first, so it may appear to be healed long before it actually is.  Changing or adjusting jewelry to soon can cause irritation, prolonging healing and increase the likelihood of rejection. Unless the jewelry you are waring is irritating your piercing, you should not change your jewelry or have it adjusted until the piercing is healed.  Even after a piercing is well healed, it could close or shrink when you remove the jewelry.  It is always suggested to have a professional change your jewelry for you, especially the first time.  Jewelry varies greatly in size and shape; therefore, a professional fitting may be necessary when changing style of jewelry.  Travis Street Tattoo is always happy to help you change your jewelry