McNelis.biz

Barbara Brotman has a column on her daughters belly-button piercing experience over at the Trib.

I must say Barbara, for a reporter you obviously did not really do a whole lot of research into piercings. I, obviously, am a piercing novice, my wife on the other hand is not. From her, and Scott at Progressive Piercing, a part of the Alley on Clark in Chicago. By the way, the Progressive Piercing website has tons of great information on piercings and their aftercare.

One of the things that I’ve learned, is that the belly button piercing is one of the most difficult to heal. This is specifically because it is in an area of the body that is never really still. Sure, you could keep your clothes as far from rubbing it as possible, but the skin still moves an awful lot, especially if you are practicing, say, Belly-dancing….which, it turns out is something Barbara’s daughter is definitely into.

Barbara also propagated some myths about piercing, particularly that piercings of the mouth are especially prone to infection. This is a common misconception, and one that I’ll try now to eradicate. The mouth is an amazing part of the body, it actually works to clean itself. Saliva and the enzymes that naturally occur in your mouth help fight bacteria and infection. Sure, you need to brush your teeth to make sure you maintain good oral health, I’m not suggesting you don’t. People hear about those whose tongues have gotten infected post-piercing. What you don’t hear is that this is an incredibly small percentage of tongue piercings result in infection. Some sources will point to fatal diseases that can arise from oral piercings…but if this work as likely as those sources would have you believe, there would be a lot more press coverage and you can also bet people would have introduced legislation to ban the practice.

This is not to say any piercing is not without risk. All piercings carry risks, from rejection of the jewelry to infection. But the key here is that most of the time that bad things happen it is due to improper aftercare.

Which is another thing that Barbara got wrong. The anti-bacterial soap will irritate the new piercing and slow the healing. The proper thing to do would to soak the piercing with a salt-water solution. This can be done by filling a glass or shot-glass with saltwater over the piercing. I’m not saying don’t wash with soap in the shower, wash as you normally would. But there should not be a need to wash it with the anti-bacterial 2 or more times a day.

On the one hand, I applaud Barbara and her husband for attempting to do things right when their daughter wanted to experiment with body modification. But I also want to chastise them for not completely and thoroughly researching it on their own. Even more-so, to I want to chastise Barbara for an ill-informed column about piercing.