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Can You Flip Your Septum Piercing Up When You First Get It?

a braided hair woman with nose piercing

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While you shouldn’t flip your septum piercing while it’s healing, you can have it placed flipped up and heal completely while flipped. When you get your septum pierced, your piercer will likely ask if you want to heal with it flipped up or flipped down. If you will need to flip your septum piercing up daily for work, you should heal with it flipped up. While it sucks to not be able to see your new piercing for the months until it completely heals, it’s much safer than flipping your septum piercing on the daily. That would cause irritation bumps and prolong your healing, not to mention possible infection if you ever forgot to wash your hands first.

How To Hide a Septum Piercing When You First Get It

Septum piercings are one of the easiest piercings to hide while they are healing. Most people find it sufficient enough that they can simply ask their piercer to flip their piercing for them. In some cases though, you may have someone looking up your nose. While most bosses would let a glimpse of something shiny inside your nostril slide, we all have experience with those that must control everything. In these cases, you can ask your piercer to replace your jewelry with a glass retainer, which is completely safe for healing and in a septum will be literally invisible, even if someone is looking up your nose.

Troubleshooting For When You Can’t Flip Your Septum Piercing Up

Once your septum piercing is fully healed, you can flip your septum piercing as you please. You may find though that it feels a little stuck. This could be because you have crust around your piercing (completely natural and safe). You can fix this by making a sea salt soak and blowing bubbles into it with your nose. This should loosen up any crusties and allow you to flip your septum.

If it’s not crust causing the issue, it may be your jewelry. If your septum is wider than the ends of your curved barbell, you won’t be able to flip your jewelry. You can either swap your jewelry yourself for a larger diameter piece or you can visit your piercer and they will swap it for you. Sometimes your piercer may even be able to bend your existing jewelry so it is wider and will be able to be flipped.

Can You Sleep With Your Septum Piercing Flipped Up?

It is completely safe to sleep with your septum piercing flipped up. In fact, you can wear your septum ring flipped up for however long you want. You can keep your septum piercing flipped up forever and it will never be an issue for you. Of course every few weeks you may want to check to make sure your ball ends are still tight, but aside from that – however you want to wear your septum piercing is fine.

How Long Does a Septum Piercing Take to Heal?

Septum piercings tend to take 3 months to heal. This is very short compared to a lot of piercings because, while some people believe septum piercings go through cartilage, a perfectly placed septum piercing actually goes through the “sweet spot”, which doesn’t have any cartilage. Keep in mind though that your healing time will take longer if you flip your septum back and forth. So just decide if you want to heal it flipped down or flipped up and then keep that decision for the next three months.

Conclusion

It’s perfectly safe to wear your septum piercing flipped up while it is still healing. If you’ll need to be able to hide your septum piercing while it’s still healing, make sure to let your piercer know so they can flip it up for you. Don’t flip your septum piercing back and forth while you are still healing as this will elongate the healing process and cause irritation bumps. In three months when your septum is fully healed, you can flip your piercing up and down as you please.