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I got my belly button pierced almost 2 years ago. I've had the same belly button ring in since January (because it's medically graded and it was really expensive like a hundred bucks to make sure that I wasn't prone to an infection.) I've done my normal daily routines and habits but about four days ago, I woke up and I noticed my belly button ring (the top part where the screw is) was itchy. I thought that maybe I slept on it weird, and a couple of days later, it wouldn't continue to stop itching so I cleaned it extra good, but it's still itchy! I always use the same lanundry detergent so I know it's not my clothes and all the clothes I use are fresh and clean.
HELP! (link)
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Congratulations, your surface peircing is finally rejecting. You should be proud. Having it in for two years without it rejecting is actually fairly unusual.
Rejection is the body's natural defensive maneuver to prevent infections and such. Sometimes the body will "reject" a piece of jewelry after a few weeks. Sometimes it takes a year or more. It basically begins when your body realizes, "Whoa! There is something stuck in here that shouldn't be!" Once it begins though, there is no way in stopping it.
Your body has no idea that you WANTED to put a piece of metal in your skin. It thinks you've been wounded and it knows that infection may set in if the object stays in (because foreign objects have dirt/bacteria on them). The body knows it needs to get the object out as soon as possible so it does everything it can.
This means the flesh surrounding the piercing will actually sacrifice itself for your life. It will actually die off and the cells will fall off of you little by little. This causes deep scars usually. You can actually visually see the skin thinning when you look at the piercing.
Within the next weeks or months you will notice it becoming increasingly more irritated. It may become red, but not infected. You will slowly see the skin in front of the bar diminish--getting thinner and smaller.
Rejection usually only happens to surface piercings--eyebrows, bellyrings, hips, corset piercing, cleavage, nape, etc.
Rejection will ALWAYS happen with these piercings no matter what. The only way to reduce the scarring from rejection is to take the piercing out early when signs begin that the body is rejecting. Some bodies reject quicker than others--some people can go weeks with an eyebrow piercing before it starts to reject and some people can go months before it begins rejecting. It will always happen though.
The only thing you can do is try to slow down the rejection process. This means rinsing the jewelry off with saline solution twice a day and doing everything you can not to put pressure on the bar. Don't itch it. Don't touch it. With surface piercings, the more you mess with them, the quicker they will come out because the body is already irritated from it.
The skin usually begins to be itchy because the cells are dying off so you can live (body's perspective) and won't get a major infection. Again, the body doesn't know that the object has been sterilized and was wanted so there honestly is no way to stop rejection.
I also want to note that if your piercing begins to reject and you do not remove the jewelery, it WILL still come out. Your skin seriously just falls off of you little by little until the piercing comes out as well.
Here is an excellent photo sequence in which someone shows how their nape piercing rejected after a few months:
http://wiki.bmezine.com/images/a/a6/Surface_Piercing_Rejection-2.gif
You can see the scarring that is going to be there and how the flesh gets smaller and smaller around the piercing until the bar isn't able to stay in the flesh any longer.
Here are some photos of surface piercings that are rejecting (or have rejected and left some scarring):
http://modblog.bmezine.com/wp-content/uploads/200609201951-pix1.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3109/2402414667_42909c3499.jpg
http://tinypic.com/id6b06.jpg
http://poundedink.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/navel-piercing-rejection-infected-150x150.jpg
http://z.hubpages.com/u/105451_f248.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5006/5299038894_f96e19bfa1.jpg
http://i3.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/250/draft_lens2381222module29668592photo_1240781950corset_piercing_six_month_damaged.JPG
This one is actually of a bellybutton piercing that somebody actually let reject all the way:
http://0.tqn.com/w/experts/Ear-Body-Piercing-3189/2009/08/belly-button-split.jpg
I had a surface piercing a few years back. The scar is pretty deep and it really does itch periodically for no reason still. Mine started to reject a few weeks after I had it pierced and by a few months it was driving me crazy with itchiness. In total, I've had about 17 piercings, just a reference that I likely know what I'm talking about. ;)
It has nothing to do with it being dirty, your laundry detergent, the fabric of your clothes, or anything else. This is nature. This is your body's natural defense. This is what happens. Always. To everyone.
I tried to explain what rejection is but if I have been unclear then please let me know what I'm missing or what needs to be further explained so I can help you out.
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Rating: 4
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I just visited a dermatologist, and she told me it was not rejecting and gave me cream for it. And when you say "Congratulations" it gives off a sarcastic/bitchy vibe from you.
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