How to Clean a Helix Piercing: Aftercare Guide

How Long Does a Helix Piercing Take to Heal?

Cartilage piercings take a bit longer to heal than piercings on fleshy areas, like the earlobes. You can expect 3 to 6 months before your helix piercing is fully healed. Your care schedule should look like this:

• 2 cleanings a day for the first two weeks.
• 1 cleaning a day after the first two weeks.

It really depends on your own healing process, because everyone's body works a little differently. If you tend to heal slowly when you have a wound, count on at least 6 months before you can consider it healed. Having an estimate matters, because you cannot tell just by looking: these piercings heal on the outer flesh first.

The cartilage inside may still be healing even though you cannot see it. It is a good idea to keep cleaning your helix piercing daily for a year after getting it done.

What to Do on the Day of Your Helix Piercing

In general, it is what you do after your piercing that determines how well it heals. Still, before getting pierced, there are a few things you can do to speed up the healing process.

Eat before you go

Having a snack or a light meal before a new piercing not only helps you handle the pain better, it also prepares your body to start healing. Good nutrition lets your body produce the antibodies and extra blood flow it needs for healing. This matters especially for a helix piercing, which gets less blood than other parts of the body.

Bring someone with you

It is not a must, but if you feel anxious, bringing a friend can help you cope with the pain of being pierced.

Have ibuprofen on hand

You should not take any oral painkiller before a helix piercing, because ibuprofen, aspirin, and naproxen are blood thinners, which can make you bleed more. You can, however, keep one of these anti-inflammatory pain relievers for afterward. They will help reduce swelling.

Stay hydrated and avoid alcohol

Drinking enough water helps regulate your blood pressure so you are less likely to faint during the piercing. It also helps circulation and the healing process. Drinking alcohol can dehydrate you and make you bleed more during your helix piercing.

Follow the aftercare instructions

After piercing your cartilage, the piercer will give you instructions for taking care of your new piercing. It should be something like this:

• Do not touch the piercing.
• Always wash your hands before handling the jewelry or cleaning.
• Do not sleep on your piercing.
• Clean the piercing daily with a saline solution (salt water).

Keep an eye on your piercing

Watch your new helix piercing heal day by day. It may be a little red and irritated at first, but once healed, everything settles back to normal.

How to Care for a Helix Piercing

Aftercare is one of the most important parts of a cartilage piercing. In fact, caring for your helix piercing is the deciding step that determines whether it stays in good shape and infection-free, or whether it gets infected. And do not worry, it is very simple.

1. Soak the piercing in salt water (or in a saline solution made for piercings) once or twice a day.
2. Clean the piercing with a saline spray now and then throughout the day.
3. Wash your helix piercing with water and soap every day, rinsing thoroughly, but do not let soap get into the piercing.

You should follow this routine for at least three months, or until you are sure your helix piercing is completely healed.

Note that bumps are common around cartilage piercings and are not always caused by an infection. These bumps are commonly known as keloids and are mainly caused by the rapid formation of scar tissue and collagen.

What Not to Do While It Heals

Of course, on top of knowing what to do to keep your piercing clean and healing well, there are a few things to avoid.

Avoid the pool

You need to wait until your helix piercing is no longer an open wound before going in the sea or the pool (anything other than a shower). For cartilage piercings, it is best to wait about a month before swimming, to prevent infections from bacteria in the water. If your piercing bleeds, is swollen, or is leaking pus, do not swim until the symptoms are gone.

Avoid fiddling with your piercing

Some piercers used to recommend rotating or twisting ear jewelry to help the piercing heal properly. That is no longer advised at all today. You should keep your hands away from your new helix piercing to prevent bacterial infection. That also means you should not twist or move the jewelry. Moving jewelry is more likely to damage your cartilage piercing and stop it from healing well.

Do not sleep on the helix piercing

Sleeping on your piercing means it will be pressed against your pillow, your sheets, or your head. That exposes your piercing to bacteria and sweat, and leads to irritation. Instead, let your piercing breathe and get good blood flow by not pressing it against anything while you sleep.

Do not pick at any scabs

Your cartilage piercing will likely leak a clear to yellowish fluid that dries into a crust around it. The fluid is a normal part of healing and does not mean you have an infection. Do not try to peel the crust off with your fingers or nails. Instead, wipe it away with a cotton swab dipped in saline solution.

How to Clean a Helix Piercing

You know you need to clean your helix piercing with a saline solution. But how exactly do you do that? It is simple, and you have three options:

• Use a ready-made saline solution for piercings.
• Make your own saline solution.
• Buy post-piercing care products designed for new piercings.

Cleaning the cartilage piercing with saline

1. First, wash your hands before cleaning your piercing. Starting with clean hands keeps you from spreading bacteria onto it.
2. Next, pour the saline solution into a clean, shallow glass big enough to dip the pierced part of your ear into. Keep the piercing submerged for about 5 minutes.
3. Use a clean cloth or a cotton swab dipped in saline to remove any crust that has loosened around the piercing during the soak. Finally, rinse the piercing with clean water and dry it.

How to make your own saline solution

Saline solution is just a mix of salt and water. However, you should not use table salt (iodized salt) to clean piercings. Take a quarter teaspoon of kosher or sea salt and mix it into 1 cup of warm distilled water. You can buy distilled water at most stores. The distillation process removes impurities and minerals from the water. The water does not need to be too hot, just warm enough for the salt to dissolve.

When Can I Stop Cleaning It?

There is no exact moment to stop cleaning your cartilage piercing, because everyone heals at a different pace. What stays the same for everyone is that the inside of the piercing is not fully healed at the same time as the flesh on the outside of a cartilage piercing. That means you should keep cleaning your helix piercing for at least a month after it looks completely healed.

Signs that the piercing is fully healed include:

• The piercing area is a normal color and not red, swollen, or sore.
• No clear or yellowish fluid draining.
• No pain when the area is touched.

Your piercing will be healed no sooner than 3 months after getting it. That said, it is not a bad idea to keep cleaning the ear with a saline solution for a year.

Conclusion