How shocking, and maddening and unfair that on Saturday we celebrated her life. Her passionate, fragile, fleeting life. Find joy in each day my friends.
Polysporin and similar ointments are NOT for piercings
When I look at the search terms that have brought people to our website I see something to do with “Polysporin” ointment at least once a week, sometimes daily!
Polysporin says on the tube “not for puncture wounds”. An ointment is not water-based, so once it gets into the piercing channel it is very difficult to rinse it out in the shower. Instead the ointment can actually cover your new cells and smother them. Because your new cells will not be able to get oxygen they may die, and these dead cells may make it more likely to get an infection in your piercing. In this way, Polysporin could actually contribute to an infection in a piercing.
If you have a true infection, Polysporin will not cure it. Polysporin is properly used on topical wounds (not piercings) to prevent bacteria from entering the wound. Polysporin is a simply a barrier to bacteria. If you believe you have a true infection, please see your doctor and your piercer, and stay away from Polysporin!
For an excellent resource for identifying piercing problems please read : https://www.safepiercing.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Troubleshooting_Web.pdf
I’m a piercer, not a doctor. This information is comes from my experience piercing professionally for over 15 years. Please do not misinterpret my advice for medical advice!
15 years of Piercing
- I want to tell you about how I started piercing professionally 15 years ago this month, but I have to go back in time a bit further then 15 years.
- Back to 1987. In Nova Scotia you could get your nose pierced with a gun by a woman in a jewelry store in Scotia Square mall. This was all the “body piercing” there was. I wore safety pins in my ear piercings and I pierced my own ears and those of my friends, usually when we were intoxicated. I attempted to pierce my friend’s nose, but he passed out. I also made a friend’s ear bleed for a really long time. HIV was a new reality I didn’t quite understand. I decided to quit while I was ahead. It’s not like piercing was a career I’d ever heard of. It was more like an experiment.
Fast forward past a bad relationship and no small amount of hallucinogens to some point in 1995. I was visiting a friend when Merchant Marie phoned and asked if he’d come down for a navel piercing. She had a travelling piercer visiting from California who was going to pierce her and some other people so she could determine if she was interested in doing piercings or not. I’m so grateful I was there that day when his phone rang. Marie had tattooed me in 1991, but the atmosphere of her Dartmouth tattoo parlour, filled with skulls and brass and taxidermy, was completely not from my world as a university student. I watched while my friend had his navel pierced and Marie had her navel and nipples pierced. I was so excited. And concerned: Merchant Marie decided not to take up piercing. How would I ever get my own navel and nipples pierced?!