need help ASAP with belly button piercing

Okay so, a few weeks ago i got my belly button pierced. It was all going well, for the first few days i was mixing up 1/4 of a tea spoon of sea salt to a 3/4 pint of boiled water and using cotton buds to clean it (what my piercer recommended). However, i’m not sure if it’s because of my size, but when i sit down my stomach rolls go over the piercing and even though it doesn’t hurt, it might put pressure on it that i don’t notice, causing possible irritation? So, anyway, after a few days it was getting irritated and i felt that maybe it was the salt solution, so i searched up better ways to clean belly button piercings, and a lot of people were recommended saline solution sprays. So, i purchased one which is like a wound wash (i cant remember the name but the bottle is navy blue), and was using that 3 times a day and patting it dry with clean/unused towels, which is what i saw people recommending. However, i notice it was drying out my skin a lot (i have eczema prone skin), so i limited it to once a day, however, overnight it had 2 little bumps where the big ball of the jewellery is and the top. So, i stopped using the saline solution and used a salt water hot compress which was soothing my piercing a lot but obviously not enough since the bumps are getting worse they’re really red and big and now it’s starting to hurt to move my body because if i move the wrong way there’s pressure. I need help with this ASAP because i have no idea what to do, and i know if i go to my piercer he’ll tell me to take it out, but i really don’t want to, i wanna see if there’s a way i can fix it myself at home first.

Reply 1

Admit-One

Universities Forum Helper

Not much you can do at home to remedy this I'm afraid. Piercer wil be very familiar with this and might be able to give general aftercare advice, but otherwise it's going to be a trip to your GP for antibiotics.