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Jewelry Fell Out of a Healing Piercing? Here’s What to Do!

photo of woman with nose piercing

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Don’t panic! If your jewelry fell out of a fresh piercing that is still healing, you can probably still save the piercing. Sometimes piercings fall out – no big deal, you just put it back in. Unless it’s a healing piercing, then there’s a million things that can go wrong! (Or so it feels like.) Healing piercings will close up faster than you could believe, so it’s always a race against the clock when one falls out.

What to Do if Jewelry Fell Out While Asleep

Jewelry falling out while you’re asleep is one of the worst ways for jewelry to fall out of a healing piercing. You likely don’t know how long ago the jewelry fell out, so it might have even closed up by now! If you can find the jewelry (look through your sheets, pillows, hair, in your clothes, and on the floor), spray it down with your wound wash, then wash your hands and try to get it back in ASAP.

What to Do if You Lost your Jewelry

If you lost your actual post (or ring) and you don’t have any extra jewelry you can fit in your piercing, you’ll need to visit your piercer as soon as you can to get a replacement. If you still have your post, but you lost your end, luckily the post is enough to keep your piercing from closing until you can visit your piercer. You can put your post in and stick something soft, like an eraser, on the end so it doesn’t fall out until you can get real jewelry in.

What to Do if You Can’t Get Jewelry Back In

If your jewelry fell out and you can’t get it back in, all hope is not lost. Your piercer may be able to taper it back in for you. Even if your hole has visibly shrunk, a lot of piercers can work magic and get your jewelry back in for you. A lot of people will be unable to get their jewelry back in and then give up, believing that their piercing has already closed up. But when they return the next week to get re-pierced, their piercer is still able to taper open the hole instead of re-piercing.

If Jewelry Fell Out of a Healing Piercing, Should You Put it Back In?

While our general advice for healing piercings is to never ever touch them, that advice only stands if you have a piercing to heal. If you want to keep your piercing, you should absolutely put the jewelry back in. Take the time to thoroughly wash your hands and spray down the jewelry (give it a SSS if you wish) and then replace the jewelry back into its position. Over the next week or so, give your piercing two daily sprays with your wound wash, and you will be good to go. You’re very unlikely to pick up an infection from putting your jewelry back in.

Conclusion

When your jewelry falls out, wash your hands, spray it down, and put it back in. If you’ve lost your end, you can put in your post to keep your piercing from closing up and put something on the ends to keep it from falling out. If you are having a hard time getting your jewelry back in, visit your piercer. They may be able to taper your piercing back open for you. It’s worth keeping an extra piece of jewelry with you just for cases like this!