Sub Q

What To Expect

A facial/oral piercing will almost always swell to a mild degree. The swelling is usually short lived, about a week to 3 weeks. The swelling is usually concentrated around the opening of the hole and a mild redness or pinkness will be present. 01 the outside, there will be a buildup of lymph fluid (basically a scab) on the edges. On the inside the tissue will be slightly swollen and may have whiteness to the edges and in the near surrounding tissues. Back to Top

Do's and Dont's

It is very important that you follow other instructions than just the aftercare that we give you. The things that you do or don't do will make all the difference in the world to how your piercing will heal. If you don't follow these do's and don'ts your piercing will probably take longer to heal or may never heal due to prolonged infections.

Do:
1. Call Sub-Q If you have any questions. But '.f you're worried about your piercing, come in.
2. Follow the aftercare instructions that we have outlined.
3. Eat food on a regular basis. if you don't, your healing time could be prolonged.
4. Take lbuprofin based medications if you feel too uncomfortable when you eat.
S. Chew gum if you want to. The saliva can help the healing process.
6. Take your time when you chew gum or eat. Biting down on jewelry is not only painful, but it can chip your teeth.
7. Brush your teeth on a regular basis. Not only is it common sense, but a clean mouth will help the healing process.

Don't:
1. Forget to follow the aftercare instructions that we have outlined.
2. Exchange body fluids with other people, on or In the piercing while it is healing. Other people's body fluids contain things that are harmful to the healing process and cause infections, inflammations, and sometimes diseases (yikesl).
3. Overdo your Intake of lbuprofen. Too much can cause stomach issues and even liver or kidney problems. The recommended dosage on the package is the amount you should take.
4. Forget to eat. Your immunities could be affected by not eating. If your immunities drop, yolr piercing could take longer to heal or you could more easily contract an infection or disease.
S. Touch your piercing with your fingers unless you're cleaning it. Hands carry germs. Germs mean Infections.
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How to Care for a Facial/Oral Piercing

There are too many ways to list to take care of a facial/oral piercing, but these steps work great, and if you follow the Instructions that we recommend your piercing will usually heal between two and four months.
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Care for the Inside

A facial/oral piercing will usually take about 8 to 16 weeks to heal. And the care that we recommend is pretty simple. There are two different processes to follow. One process is for the inside and one process is for the outside. As a rule the closer you follow these instructions, the faster end more smoothly your piercing will heal, Get some mouthwash. We recommend Listerine and the favorites most people have are the cool mint or the fresh burst. The old Listerine is pretty harsh to the taste but it works too. Other mouthwashes work fine but you should never use mouthwash of any kind in full strength.

Dilute the mouthwash with water in a ratio of 3 parts water to I part mouthwash. If you don't know how to do a 3 to I ratio, this lesson will help, Get a container that you can carry around with you. Bottled water bottles like Arrow, or Crystal geyser, do great. Fill the water bottle three quarters full and the rest with the mouthwash that you like. That's a 3:1 ratio.

If you don't dilute the mouthwash before You rinse, you m(ill slowly destroy a helpful, natural laver on your tcnque and In your mouth, called Lingual Anti-microbiel Peptide. This layer is a nacural defense in your mouth that naturally kills bacteria and other pathogens. If you destroy that layer, then you leave yourself susceptible to bacterial infections, Rinse your mouth with the solution for 30 to 45 seconds after you do anything orally . Rinse after you eat, after you drink anything but water, and if you smoke, after each cigarette, You can consume alcoholic beverages, but you should make sure to rinse after each full drink.

You can also use salty water. Take a coffee cup and fill it with fairly warm tap water. Add one half teaspoon of regular table salt to the water and stir It into solution, Rinse with the saltwater like you would wil.h the mouthwash solution, for 30 to 45 seconds. Some find the saltwater to be soothing. If the salt burns the piercincl, try using less salt or more water.
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Care for the Outside

The outside of your facial/oral piercing has a 3-step process for the first 3 days, Once the third day is over, then one of the steps will be dropped, After the first 3day time period, you will still follow the other 2 steps. We supply Dr. Bronners liquid soap, E.R.1 ear piercing care solution and a small tube of Bacitracin zinc ointment with each facial/oral piercing that we perform at Sub-Q. Each of the 3 steps will involve one of those things. Every day, twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening you'll want to follow all of the steps for the first 3 days. One of the steps will be done approximately every 3 or 4 hours, about 2 or 3 times a day.

Twice a day, both morning and evening:
Wash your piercing with a small amount of the Dr. Bronners soap by putting a few drops of soap in your hand and a few drops of water. Take a Q-tip and swirl it around in the soapy water and wash the outside of the piercing. Move the jewelry through the hole making sure that you get soap in the hole. Rinse the piercing off with clear tap water. Again, making sure that you move the jewelry through the hole to get the soap out of the piercing. Immediately after you wash the piercing, apply a small amount of the antibiotic ointment to the outside of the piercing. This is the step that you only do for the first 3 days. After the 3rd day, you discontinue this step. You should only do this step 6 times.

In between the morning and evening washings, about 2 or 3 times daily.
Clean your piercing on the outside with the E.R.1 ear piercing solution or Bactine. Follow the same directions as with the soap, but don't use the soap. You'll want to do this step about 2 or 3 times a day, approximately every 3 or 4 hours works great. You may want to bring the E.R.1 or Bactine and some 0-tips with you. Keeping them in a plastic bag helps in case the liquid spills out of the container.
Make sure to rinse off the E.R.I., The active ingredient, benzalkonium chloride, can be irritating to some peoples skin.
Keep in mind not to over clean your piercing, if you clean your piercing too much you may cause a reaction that looks and feels much like an infection.
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Healing times

All 3 of the piercings outlined in this pamphlet usually take about 2 to 4 months to heal, providing that you take proper care of them.
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How to Know Your Piercing is Healed

Keep in mind that each person is different for how they heal for each piercing one may get. And with different people there can be different indications for healing. What we give you for information is a general idea of what most people go through. You may not show the same types of indications written below. In the inside of the mouth it's sometimes a bit difficult to know for sure if a facial/oral piercing is healed. But if you pay attention to how the piercing looks and feels during the healing process, then you usually can tell fairly easily when the piercing is healed.

The outside
The outside of a facial/oral piercing after it is healed is very similar to the rest of the surrounding tissue. The edges of the piercing will have no irritation, redness or crusty buildup on or around it. The color is usually almost identical to the surrounding tissue, but in some cases there is a slightly darker hue to the edge and sometimes it's a bit lighter on the inside. But for the most part, there's very little difference to the color. The texture of the edge is almost identical to the surrounding skin as well. The inside texture is a little different most of the time. The edges will usually be turned into the hole and as the hole deepens, the inside will usually take on a slightly wrinkled appearance, Since the piercing actually forms new skin inside the hole, the skin has many of the same qualities as the rest of your skin. The skin makes new skin cells like the rest of your body. But unlike the rest of your skin, it's difficult for the body to slough off the dead skin. Consequently, the dead skin will start to build up once the piercing is healed. The buildup of dead skin ' (smegma) will look kind of like white cheese and may take on a distinct odor, The odor smells kind of like the inside of a belly button that hasn't been washed in a while. At Sub-Q we call that smell 'the fun ". Once it's healed, you can avoid the funk by washing the outside of the piercing and the jewelry, once a day with soap and water.

The inside
Usually the piercing will show no signs of irritation, redness or swelling. The edges of the piercing will almost always look like the surrounding tissue and sometimes will pull away from the jewelry, leaving a hole that looks larger than it started. In some cases, the shape of the jewelry will be taken on by the surrounding tissue, and there may be some whiteness on the edges of the opening.

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Your Rights

At Sub-Q we believe that your rights as our customer and as a consumer are important. And since the services that we offer are a bit out of the norm, it's important that we define those rights.

We believe that all of our customers have the same types of rights as they would have at a typical retail establishment, but we want to take it the extra mile for our industry. Typically in the body piercing industry, some of the rights that you would have as a consumer would be eliminated. Most places that perform body piercing don't allow for things like 'trade-ins" forjewelry or refunds of any kind. Sub-Q offers both. And we go the extra step of putting it in writing. Our refund and return policies are simple and direct, Within the first 4 days, if you don't like your new piercing for any reason, simply return with the jewelry still in, and we'll refund your money, minus the cost of the aftercare products that we supplied.

Jewelry purchase is a bit different. If you purchase jewelry, have opened the package and wish to return it, we offer only 25% credit. Since we have to put the jewelry through a remanufacturing process, we can't offer a full price refund. But if the jewelry is still in its original, sterile packaging, we can refund your full purchase price. All refunds and trade-ins, are strictly at the discretion of Sub-Q employee's.
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Your Responsibilities

Your responsibilities, like your rights, are also direct and simple. The aftercare of your new piercing is strictly up to you. The closer that you follow the instructions that we give to care for your new piercing, the faster and more smoothly your piercing will heal. There are different ways to care for a piercing and many work well. Some ways may not work so well, and some may be outright bad. But from the experience of the staff at Sub-Q the aftercare instructions that we give work very well, It's also your responsibility to contact us for your needs. We want to help you in any way that we can, but we can't help you if you don't contact us. Even if you think it's trivial, your concern could be important. Please let us know how we can help you. Back to Top

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