Hi Elayne,
This is the second time I've noticed this. I've had a few piercings since I was young. I got a batch of piercings a while ago and the old, established piercings started to ache and ooze along with the new piercings. All seemed to be better and I got a few more piercings recently.  Now all of my piercings, including the last batch are sore and crusting. Can my new piercings cause my older piercings to be irritated? Thanks, S.

 

Hi S.,
Yes, your body is all connected and stress, whether in the form of emotional stress, or physical stress such as illness, surgery, or additional piercings, can cause old piercings to flare up. Studies show that stress can cause wounds to take up to 40% longer to heal!, too

What this says to me is that you should be very careful about scheduling of any future piercings (maybe one at a time), and that you must take excellent care of your health, as well as provide appropriate care for the piercings. This includes getting enough rest, not abusing substances such as alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine, and eating a healthful diet. You may want to consider taking a multivitamin with zinc and Vitamin c if you are not eating optimally. It is important to stay hydrated, too. If you're feeling very stressed out, you may want to look into meditation, guided imagery, yoga, or other forms of stress-reduction. These factors impact everyone's healing, and they are often underestimated.

This is the product I highly suggest for optimal aftercare and troubleshooting.

I'd definitely suggest you do saline soaks on any piercing that is acting up. There is very detailed information about them on that linked page.

Let me know if you have other questions.

Take care,

Elayne