Rejection and Migration: When Piercings Break Your Heart

What is rejection?

Sometimes, you can love your piercings but they just don't love you back. This is called rejection. Basically, this is when your body doesn't accept a piercing and slowly, over time, pushes the jewellery out.

Rejection is more common in surface piercings but it can happen with any kind of piercing. Rejection is similar to another problem known as migration, but they’re actually different.

To identify rejection, you should look for redness around the piercing that reaches from one side to the other. You might also notice the piercing becoming more shallow, and you will be able to see more of the bar. You might also be able to see the bar very faintly underneath the skin.

Rejection often doesn't hurt, so you might not notice a piercing is rejecting until it is too late.

Unfortunately, once a piercing has started to reject there is nothing you can do to re-stabilise it and the best course of action is to remove the jewellery, let the piercing heal, then potentially have the piercing redone at a later date. However, if a piercing has previously been rejected it is likely to reject again.

Bridge Piercing Rejecting. Not pierced at Athame Piercings.

Why is it important to remove a piece of jewellery from a piercing that is rejecting?

When jewellery is sitting close to the skin, it’s more likely to get caught on clothing, hair, combs, or other people. If it does get caught on something, it can get ripped out entirely, leaving a scar. However, even if the piercing doesn’t end up getting ripped out, you can still end up with a scar. Eventually, the piercing will reject completely and fall out, leaving scar tissue behind.

It’s especially important to be aware of rejection if you are looking for a surface piercing on the face, as you could be left with a permanent scar if it does reject.

What is Migration?

Migration is when a piercing moves away from the position it was originally pierced in. This can be caused by a few things, like sleeping on a fresh piercing or wearing heavy jewellery for an extended period of time. It can also happen naturally over the life of the piercing as the body grows and changes.

Migration is not necessarily dangerous, however, it can change the look of a piercing, and if the jewellery migrates towards the edge of t

he body then the piercing can end up being rejected.

Unfortunately, rejection and migrations are a fact of life when it comes to piercing. If you think your piercing might be rejecting or migrating, visit your piercing artist and ask for their advice.

Newly Pierced Eyebrow