How Long do Nipple Piercings Take to Heal?

If you’re beginning on your journey towards getting your nipple pierced, or looking into whether or not, you want to get your nipples pierced, this is going to be a fantastic article that goes into detail on the healing process. Specifically, we will look at a couple of things with the healing process. So how long do nipple piercings take to heal?

Before we move in to how long it takes for nipple piercings to heal, we should first talk about the procedure itself. Make sure that your piercer is sanitary with the entirety of their process. Everything that they use should be in sanitary packaging, and they should have gloves. Once this is taken into consideration, you then have to be aware of the availability for you, your self to make the healing process be shorter or longer. If you take proper care of the piercing location after it is done, you can enable a speedy healing process. If, however, you do not take proper care of the piercing. It can easily be irritated for long periods of time and/or become infected. Becoming infected, and being irritated for long periods of time can both lend them selves to increasing the overall amount of time for a complete healing process. The shorter answer to this more nuanced topic is that the healing process for a nipple piercing is around 9 to 12 months long on average.

As we said, above, there is much more to think about than simply this 9 to 12 month average period. In the following portions of the article, we will visit these topics in further detail.

 The Actual Piercing Process

Generally, the size of piercing used for nipples is 14 gauge. This place is the needle right around 5/8 to 3/4. In a similar fashion, the other piercings on the body are done, the actual piercing location is marked and checked for straightness and proper placement before the actual piercing takes place. Before this is done, the piercer cleans the areola entirely with an alcohol pad to make sure sanitation is kept properly. The piercer should make sure that you are standing upright and not sitting down or leaning back in a chair. This will ensure that your breasts are naturally even where they will be throughout your average day. The piercer will then look to make a marking as close to the base of the nipple as he can, without fully reaching the actual base of the nipple.

Once these steps are done properly, the actual piercing portion will begin. The piercer will place the forceps in the proper place, and pierce the nipple. A cork should be placed on the end of the needle to ensure neither you, nor the piercer gets poked by the needle. Nipple piercings are generally an easy and quick process with a low to medium pain feeling.

 Inverted Nipples

If you have inverted nipples, and you are choosing to get your nipples pierced, make sure you vet your piercer, because there are specific processes and tools that are supposed to be used to pierce inverted nipples. The entire piercing process for inverted nipples is a bit different than a non-inverted nipple.

 Proper Aftercare of Nipple Piercings

As we mentioned earlier, in this article, the proper aftercare of your nipple piercing will determine how painful it may be and how long the healing process will take. If you do all of the correct things for your aftercare process, the time span to a complete heal, should be shorter than it would be without that proper care.

The piercer will most likely put gauze on the nipple piercings directly afterwards. This is to ensure that the following hours of the actual piercing itself is not accompanied by over, irritation, and rubbing on any bras or shirts. Manny piercers recommend dove sensitive soap for aftercare of piercings of this nature. It is important to find a very mild soap for piercings such as this. Normal anti-bacterial soap is too strong for this particular occasion. It is recommended that you wash these piercings once every day. Attempt, to the best of your ability, to avoid getting your normal soaps and shampoos on these piercings, while you are in the shower bathing. Cleaning your nipple piercings with your specific mild soap should be one of if not the final process in your cleaning routine and the shower.

H2O ocean is an amazing product that is said to be perfect for this particular type of piercing by many piercers. This product or a regular salt spray will be great for this type of piercing. This can, and should be, used on your piercing around 2 to 3 times every day. Doing this will help the healing process and decrease the overall time it takes for a complete heal.

 Things that You Should Avoid During the Aftercare and Healing Process

Alcohol

Bacitracin

Bactine

Other things of this nature

The reason for avoiding these particular things during your aftercare process, and healing, is due to the effects it can have on increasing the time it takes to heal completely.

 Time to Fully Heal

While some piercers consider the average healing time for a nipple piercing to be around six months, other piercer is consider a full heel for the average nipple piercing to be upwards of 12 months. Taking this into consideration, you have a lot of authority whether the full timeframe may take six months or 12 months to heal properly. If you do all of the things mentioned in this article for your aftercare process, it may take you only six months. If, on the other hand, you do not do the proper aftercare procedures, and take good care of your piercing. It may very well take the full year for you to heal and recover from this nipple piercing.

 Recap

So, how long do nipple piercings take to heal? The short answer is anywhere from 6 to 12 months for nipple piercings to fully heal. You found out in this article that there is a longer more nuanced answer to this specific question. It largely relies on your aftercare procedures, and what you do with your piercing over this time frame. If you do all of the proper things mentioned in this article and take good care of your piercing, it can very well take as short as six months to fully heal from this nipple piercing. not following these instructions, may lead to a longer healing process of up to a year on average. Hopefully everything goes well for you and your nipple piercing looks amazing.