About the Importance of Downsizing

I know I am going back and forth when it comes to those blogposts and the language I chose to write them in. I guess I will decide to translate – at least the more important ones – in time.

When you come into my studio to get pierced, I usually tell you to come back for a check up appointment after two weeks. Usually I also tell you, that there is the chance that we can downsize the piercing directly at that point.

“Wait, what do you mean by downsizing?”

Well, with most piercing it is common to add extra length when it comes to initial jewelry, as the pierced area tends to swell up. Although I use high polished jewelry, which reduces irritation while healing, the body still reacts to a fresh wound being applied to it and a foreign object being inserted into it. Thus it reacts by a phase of irritation and swelling. We pick jewelry that leaves extra space, so the swelling doesn’t “eat up” the jewelry. We also want to leave space so the wound can clean out itself and flush out all the dirt and bacteria trying to enter from the outside world.

After a week or two the swelling is usually down and soon we can change to a shorter size, maybe even the final one.

“But this will cost extra?”

Yes it will. We can put the top you decided on to the new backside and we also give a little discount with the first downsize. Even while still in the healing process, an early downsize is possible, as I use internal and threadless jewelry, which has a very smooth end. (Other than external threaded jewelry which has the razor sharp threads on the stem, thus exposing the healing skin constantly to its sharp edges.)

It is integral to insert fitting jewelry into a piercing channel, as jewelry that is too long tends to rotate and gets caught, leading to irritation. The movement as well as constant pressure on it (as can happen when being stuck or caught as well as if you sleep on it) can lead to the piercing migrating and ending up crooked. If you think of oral piercings, those can move a lot while eating and in the worst case chip your teeth when bitten.