Cartilage piercings include any place on the body that contains cartilage tissue. So nose, helix, snug, rook, conch, forward helix, industrial, tragus, daith etc
These piercings usually hurt more than soft tissue piercings during and after the piercing. You can expect them to swell and be quite tender for a week after the piercing. You can help relieve some of the swelling and pain by taking a damp cloth, put it in a plastic sandwich bag and throw it in your freezer till it's good and cold. Apply it as long as possible for as many times as possible. There's a few factors that matter when it comes to the length of time that it takes for these to heal.
1/ Keep it clean. Use a mild soap twice a day to get rid of the crusties. Use sea salts to help keep it clean and speed up the healing.
2/ Try not to sleep on it. Consider picking the side that you don't sleep on for your piercing.
3/ Changing your jewelry too soon will affect the healing time quite a bit. Make sure you are using quality jewelry. Your piercer should be using a piece of jewelry that is longer than you would normally wear so that it supports swelling.
4/ Playing with it. Hands off! This can easily lead to infections as well. Move it only to clean it. See our blog on "bumps" as well.
On average it's about 3 months to heal even though it may seem like it's healed after a few weeks....it isn't!!
Gauges
It's important to know what gauge you are pierced with. We can tell you what the industry standards are (meaning what your piercer is suppose to use) but it's always a good idea to ask your piercers.
Conch 16 or 14 gauge
Rook 16 gauge
Helix 16 or 14 gauge
Snug 16 gauge
Tragus 16 gauge
Industrial 14 gauge (pls don't let a piercer do it in 16 gauge. It's too thin and could rip from the pressure on the bar)
Daith 16 gauge
Forward Helix 16 gauge
Anti Tragus 16 gauge
Nose ...this is done in a few different gauges. If you want to make it easier on yourself to find jewelry then ask your piercer to do it in 20 gauge for studs and 18 gauge for hoops. You can go to a smaller gauge later if you want.
