Nose piercing: a bold and beautiful way to express your beauty.
Spiritual, religious, aesthetic, or fashion – piercing always stands out, speaking your style. But we often ignore proper care after piercing, leading to infections. Therefore, you must know how to clean and care for and what foods to avoid after nose piercing.
Foods play a significant role in causing harm or healing after nose piercing. Avoid foods like spicy, chunky, or chewy food, hot drinks, and sour, acidic fruits. These foods cause infection, trauma, and delayed healing. Instead, eat nutritious foods rich in iron, zinc, vitamin C, and antioxidants.
Dig deeper for a detailed discussion on nose piercing: foods to avoid after piercing, foods to eat, care for, clean, and more.
Avoid acidic and sour foods and fruits if you want fast healing after a nose piercing. Foods containing too much acid, tomato, plum, high-sodium processed foods, may delay your heaping period and cause health issues.
Table of Content
Why Few Foods to Avoid After Nose Piercing?
Nose piercing makes you bold and beautiful. It may not be as delicate as mouth or tongue piercing, but it needs proper care. After all, you are piercing one crucial part of your face – the danger triangle, and carelessness can lead to infection, scars, and trauma.
So, while talking about aftercare, come foods. Your food can help you heal faster or cause scars and infections.
So, why should you avoid certain foods after a nose piercing? The reasons are several-
- It can lead to infection.
- Can trigger hypertrophic scars and traumas.
- Can delay your healing.
- Irritate your mucous membrane, causing discomfort.
- It can move and vibrate the nasal area, affecting your piercing site.
5 Foods To Avoid After Nose Piercing
Aftercare is crucial after any kind of piercing. Selecting the right food to help your healing is also a part of this process. So, what can you not eat after a nose piercing?
Let’s check them out.
1. Hot Drink
Hydration is essential for any healing process; however, a hot beverage is not ideal after a nose piercing.
Hot drinks like coffee, tea, and even steaming soup can slow down the healing period. The reason is that steam and moisture can enter your nasal area, affecting the wound. It may also cause bacterial infection.
Instead, try cold food – ice creams, smoothies, etc. – that can provide smoothness to your mouth and nose.
2. Oily and Spicy Food
Eating spicy food after nose piercing is also not recommended if you want a fast and quick wound recovery.
The oily and spicy food may cause discomfort by setting your mouth on fire. It eventually affects your mucus membrane, irritating your wound.
In addition, also avoid fast foods, which are unhealthy, leading to health issues and delayed healing. Therefore, eat less spicy food packed with nutrition.
3. Crunchy and Chunky Food
When you have to chew a big bite of food, not only your teeth, tongue, and mouth move, but your nasal area too. And when you have a wound on your risky triangle, moving that area now and then is not advantageous.
Therefore, avoid chunky and crunchy food that requires more chewing. You can eat your meal in small bites – fruits, vegetables, meat, all. Or you can try soft food to minimize movement and vibration in your nasal area.
4. Acidic and Sour Foods
Avoid acidic and sour foods and fruits if you want fast healing after a nose piercing. Foods containing too much acid, tomato, plum, high-sodium processed foods, may delay your heaping period and cause health issues.
5. Sugary Food
Foods high in sugar decrease your healing process immensely. Sugar increases the chance of degrading collagen and elastin, essential for wound healing.
In addition, it also increases the possibility of having a hypertrophic scar after a nose piercing.
Signs of infection After Nose Piercing
Piercing is not daunting if a professional does that. But the crucial thing that makes matters worse is ignorance and negligence.
If you have eaten any food causing discomfort, it’s essential to know if it’s inducing an infection. So, know the symptoms of infection after piercing to avoid pesky issues.
The infection may cause-
- Excessive pain and burning around the piercing area
- Throbbing
- Strange smell
- Green or yellow pus
- Excessive redness and itching
- Dry or thickened skin
- Swelling, bumps, or lumps
- Blistering
- Discoloration of skin around the piercing site.
If you notice these symptoms, seek medical attention ASAP instead of waiting or experimenting with home remedies. It may make your condition severe.
How Long Does a Nose Piercing Take to Heal?
How long nose piercing will take to heal mostly depends on you and the type of piercing.
Now, there are several kinds of piercing – nostril piercing, septum piercing, Septril piercing, Nasallang piercing, etc. While a septum piercing takes several weeks to heal, a nostril piercing takes several months.
Next, there comes care and cleaning. If you take proper aftercare and regularly clean as recommended, the healing period will be short. On the other hand, lack of care and cleaning will lead to delayed healing and infections.
Nevertheless, in most cases, you will need 6-8 weeks to heal after nose piercing.
What Foods Help You Heal Quickly After Nose Piercing?
Nutritious food is always a friend for healing. However, certain foods can interfere with your healing after a nose piercing; several foods can make it quicker.
So, if you want to know how to heal nose piercing quickly with foods – here’s the list.
Protein-Packed
Protein is crucial for quick wound healing. So, add more protein to your diet – chicken, beef, egg, fish, legumes, beans, etc.
However, remember that you are taking the foods in smaller bites.
High In Zinc
Adding zinc to your diet is a must after any wound or injury as it helps repair membrane, oxidative stress, inflammation, immune defense, etc. You can eat beef, liver, peanut butter, eggs, whole-grain foods, etc.
Rich in Iron
Foods rich in iron boost your immune system and enhance muscle contraction, supporting your healing. You can maximize iron by adding red meats, liver, eggs, fish, whole meal pasta, bread, legumes, oats, etc.
Vitamin C And Antioxidants
You must add these 2 to your diet if you want quick healing. Fresh fruits and vegetables are good sources of vitamin C and antioxidants – oranges, strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, bell peppers, broccoli, cabbage, ginger, red beans, etc.
Hydration
Hydration is always essential for healing. Make sure you are drinking enough water to keep your body well-hydrated.
How to Clean and Care for Your Nose Piercing?
Aftercare is vital after nose piercing. In fact, you may face unwanted issues if you neglect this part of your piercing.
After a nose piercing, cleaning it should be your priority – an everyday duty. You need to clean your nose twice a day for almost 2 weeks. After that, it’s 1 time a day.
Here’s how you need to clean your nose piercing-
- Before cleaning your nose, always wash your hands with soap and water. It will clean the harmful bacteria from your hand.
- Dry your hands with clean towels or paper towels.
- Now, take a mild antibacterial soap and cotton ball and gently clean the skin around the piercing area. If there are any lymph concretions, gently remove them with the cotton ball.
- Wash the nasal area with warm water and dry with a clean paper towel.
- Now, apply saline water to the outside area of the nose piercing and let it dry. Make sure the saline water is pure.
- For deep cleaning, gently remove the jewelry, and apply the saline water inside and outside your piercing area. Let it dry.
- Continue this cleaning method for 2 weeks after your nose piercing, twice a day.
Remember, aftercare, and proper cleaning are everything when it comes to safe, infection-free piercing. So, ensure the correct supervision of your nose piercing to be bold and beautiful without bumps and infection bothers.
What to Avoid After Nose Piercing?
Nose piercing is not delicate, but it’s a wound, after all. So, like every wound, you must follow some precautions during healing.
- Avoid touching your nose piercing frequently.
- Don’t touch your nose piercing with dirty, unclean hands. Always wash your hands before touching the spot.
- Avoid using over-the-counter antiseptics like Neosporin, hydrogen peroxide, or harsh chemicals, as they can affect your piercing area.
- Avoid smoking, drinking alcohol, or chewing tobacco as it can irritate the nasal area and cause infection.
- Avoid fiddling, twisting, or playing with your jewelry.
- Don’t change your nose jewelry frequently.
- Avoid sharing the jewelry with others.
- Don’t try to force your nose jewelry into the piercing hole as it can cause trauma.
- Avoid applying skincare and makeup products near nose piercing so they won’t enter the hole.
Signs of a Healing Nose Piercing
Healing varies from person to person. It may take from weeks to months. But how can you tell if your nose piercing has healed? Well, several signs can signify that.
- There will be no redness or swelling around the piercing area.
- No signs of discharge and pus will be visible, even after removing any crust.
- You will not feel severe pain or irritation while touching the piercing or jewelry.
- Most importantly, your piercing will look good, returning to its original form.
FAQs
Can I eat rice after nose piercing?
Yes, you can eat rice after a nose piercing. But make sure you are taking the bite in a smaller size as bigger bites can irritate your piercing area. Furthermore, avoid eating rice with any spicy item.
Can we eat chicken after nose piercing?
Chicken is full of protein that helps in fast healing. So, you should eat chicken. Don’t eat chunky meats that require more chewing. It may irritate your nose piercing.
How much does a nose piercing hurt on a scale of 1 to 10?
On a pain scale of 1 to 10, nose piercing stands on 5. However, it varies in individual. While some say it hurts more than lip piercing, many find it little to no pain, just a pinch or flick.
Take Away
Nose piercing is fun and a bold way to express your beauty. However, if you don’t maintain proper after-care – cleaning, caring, diet, hydration, etc., you may face issues like infection, bumps, etc.
So, if you ask what foods to avoid after nose piercing – there are 5 types of food you should stay away from. These foods include hot drinks, spicy foods, chunky or crunchy items, acidic foods and fruits, and sugary foods. Eating these foods may cause irritation, vibration, or moisture in your nasal area, leading to infections.
Instead, eat food that can help you a fast and perfect healing – foods rich in iron, zinc, protein, vitamin C, antioxidants, etc.
