Can You Sleep On A Healed Piercing?

Hi, my name is Molly, an experienced piercer. Can you sleep on a healed piercing? It’s actually a trick question, but let’s get right into it. Chances are, if you have a piercing, you’ve probably slept on it already, and things are not looking too good. And I’m here to help confirm that things are going very badly for you. Just kidding! In today’s article, we’re going to be talking about whether it’s actually okay to sleep on your piercings after they are healed.

You Can Sleep On A Healed Piercing

Can you sleep on a healed piercing?

Point number one is: you can sleep on your piercings after they’re healed.

Of course, why would you get a piercing and not be able to sleep on it? That’s the craziest thing in the world. It’s like sacrificing sleep for a little piece of jewelry on the ear. Totally not worth it.

When Can I Sleep On My Piercing?

But yes, you can sleep on your piercings. There are just steps to get there.

Your Piercing Needs To Be Actually Healed

The first step is your piercing needs to be healed—actually healed.

What “actually healed” means is usually it takes about six to nine months for cartilage to fully heal. Sometimes it takes up to one year.

So, double-check and confirm that your piercings are actually fully healed. I highly suggest you visit a professional piercer, have them check it out, and have them give you the green light. Once they give you the green light that it is fully healed, then you’ll be more confident knowing that you can sleep on your piercings and everything will be OK.

Downsize Your Piercing

Whenever you sleep with piercings, ensure they’re downsized. This is a very important thing because a lot of times, piercers will put a long rod in your ear or wherever you’re getting a piercing, and they won’t tell you to downsize. You have no clue what downsizing even is.

What Is Downsizing A Piercing?

Let me give you a quick summary of what downsizing is.

When piercers do fresh piercings, they always give you a long bar, a long post—something that’s going to give you extra space for swelling. The reason they do that is because initially, you’re going to have a lot of swelling. A few months down the line, when your piercing starts calming down, they do a thing called downsizing.

A client comes in, and what they do is replace the long original post with a shorter one. So, once you have the downsized post, which ultimately means you have a jewel in the front, and a snug backing that’s flat in the back, and that way your piercing is not going to get snagged. It won’t get caught on anything, and you’ll comfortably sleep on it, and everything will be OK.

How To Sleep With Ear Piercing?

You need to make sure you downsize before you sleep on it. You need to make sure your piercing has been double-checked by a piercer before you sleep on it.

And yeah, try not to be too crazy because even though your piercings are fully healed, if you do get smacked in the ear, if you do sleep really hard on a hard surface, you could bump your ear and damage it, that could still be a problem down the line.

Just make sure you’re very gentle, even if you’re sleeping on your piercings. I do recommend maybe a silk pillow for those of you who are bougie. I personally own one, and let me tell you, they’re very comfortable and they stay cool throughout the night. So, get yourself a silk pillow.

How To Sleep On Piercings If They’re Not Healed

Even though this article is about healed piercings, I do gotta let you know that sometimes you can be sleeping on your piercings and they’re not fully healed yet. You might assume they are.

A lot of times, we have clients come in here, and we go through the list of problems that they may be having. Whenever we come up to the point where we ask them if they’re sleeping on their piercings, they say they don’t know.

A lot of times, people don’t know that they’re sleeping on their piercings, and that’s a big red flag. Because if you are constantly having problems with your piercings and you’re sleeping on them, that’s what’s going to cause the prolongation.

So please be aware that if you are sleeping on your piercings and you might not know, that could be the main reason why you’re having the problem in the first place.

Learn more here: My piercing refuses to heal what should I do

Don’t automatically cancel out some of the things that are happening because a lot of times, clients don’t want to admit or don’t believe that that’s something that’s happening to them, and that’s the only cause of their issues. So just please be mindful that when piercings are healing, you can be sleeping on them, and it’s totally okay. You just gotta make sure to prepare for that.

If you want to sleep on them, you can also get a pillow with a hole in it. You can also get a travel pillow, but you can put your ear in between two pillows and put it in between there. That’s another way you can not sleep on your piercings directly.

Just Be Honest And Open

Just please be mindful that if your piercer is trying to figure out if your piercings are having issues, you just gotta be very honest and open. Because a lot of times, people do lie, and they do say, “Oh yeah, I’m not sleeping on my piercings,” and I’m literally looking, and I’m like, “It’s the only other way. It’s the only other option. There’s nothing else that you can be doing but sleeping on them,” but they choose not to believe it or they don’t want to tell the truth.

I don’t know what it is, but just be mindful that this is something that could be happening and you’re not aware of, just because you’re sleeping at night. God knows what you’re doing. You’re probably sleepwalking for all I know, and it can be banging on your piercings. But that’s one of the top reasons why piercings don’t end up healing on time or whatnot.

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