Bumps around a piercing are common. You'll live, darling.
There are a few different types, and every single one has a cause and a fix. A properly trained piercer can look at it and tell you exactly what you're dealing with and what to do next. Here's the breakdown.
Keloid
A keloid is an overgrowth of scar tissue that doesn't stay within the boundaries of the original wound — it keeps spreading outward, sometimes for months or years.
This is different from a hypertrophic scar, which is also thickened scar tissue but stays confined to the original wound site. Think of scarification, or a surgical scar that's a bit raised but doesn't extend past the cut itself.
People with darker skin have a higher genetic risk of keloids, and it can run in families. The chance of developing one from a piercing is small, but it exists. A keloid feels hard and smooth, often with an irregular, lumpy shape, and it doesn't go away on its own — it needs to be removed surgically or treated with corticosteroid injections.
Infection
If a piercing gets infected, it usually happens in the first few weeks, while the wound is still raw or open. Causes range from poor hygiene during the piercing itself to something as small as a stray hair or pillow fluff getting into the open wound.
Once dirt or bacteria get in, there's a real risk of infection — even with a strong immune system. This is exactly why we tell you not to touch or mess with a healing piercing, and to always wash your hands before cleaning it.
As piercers, we're not medically trained, so we can't formally diagnose an infection. What we can do is recognise when something needs more than aftercare and refer you to a doctor.
And if there's any doubt about infection, we will never remove the jewelry ourselves — doing so risks the surface skin closing over and trapping the infection inside. That call is the doctor's to make, not ours.
Signs of an actual infection: yellow or green pus, warmth to the touch, real pain, redness and swelling that spreads rather than stays localised.
The piercing bump
This is what most people actually have. A normal irritation bump, and in the vast majority of cases, this is what's going on.
These bumps can contain clear fluid, a bit of blood, or a whitish discharge — and depending on which fluid shows up and where the bump sits, we can usually tell exactly what's causing it.
Step one: don't panic. Every bump has a cause, and removing the cause makes the bump go away. Finding that cause yourself can be frustrating, so come back in and we'll figure it out together.
Common causes include:
- A slightly crooked piercing — mistakes happen, we're human.
- Low quality jewelry — stainless or surgical steel often contains nickel, which a lot of people react to, and unpolished titanium can carry tiny scratches that irritate the channel. We only use implant grade titanium from verified suppliers, which rules this out.
- Sleeping on the piercing.
- Touching or fidgeting with it.
- The wrong aftercare — tea tree oil, alcohol, strong soap, shampoo or toothpaste residue.
- Not coming in on time to downsize.
- Switching jewelry styles too early, like swapping a bar for a ring before it's ready.
- A knock or snag — actual trauma to the area.
- Makeup or other skincare products getting near it.
- Over-cleaning.
- The wrong anatomy for that specific piercing.
- Being unwell, hormonal shifts, or still having anaesthetic from a recent surgery in your system — your immune system being off balance shows up fast in any healing piercings.
- Submerging it in pools, baths, or open water, which also raises infection risk.
There are more causes than this, but working it out together with your piercer is always the fastest route. Having a bump doesn't mean you had a bad piercing or a bad piercer. Any properly trained piercer wants to help you get back on track, so don't wait around — come in as soon as you notice something off. If you're not local to Brugge, the APP's piercer directory is the most reliable way to find someone qualified near you.
And please, don't trust Dr. Google or your well-meaning friend on this one. Sometimes a DIY remedy does seem to work, and the bump goes away — but it's almost never the remedy itself doing the healing. More often, whatever was actually causing the irritation happened to ease up on its own around the same time, and the timing gets credited to the wrong thing. The remedy didn't fix anything. The real cause did, by coincidence.
And it cuts both ways — that same product could just as easily have made things worse instead of better. You're rolling the dice either way. Find the actual cause with someone trained to spot it, and you don't need to gamble at all. I promise.
This is an irritation bump. Find the irritation, remove it, and the bump goes for good — together.
Book a check-up, or start with the right aftercare at home.
