This is for anyone who has had navel piercing problems and can't find answers on the internet.
So! I recently suffered from a very infected navel piercing. Not just "oh its red and swollen and has puss". NO. I'm talking about "holy fucking shit its bleeding and looks like a wound from hell, my belly button might fall off and get possessed by Satan" type shit.
Let me explain.
I had gone rock climbing a while back and the harness I wore irritated the hell out of my piercing. I went back to my piercer and they told me to continue with my salt soaking, like I was, so I did. A few weeks later I went to the beach and I assume I got sand in the piercing because the next day, POOF! It was VERY swollen, VERY red, and filled with fluid! What the hell?! So, not knowing what else to do, I still continued my soaks like normal, and visited my piercer a few days later when nothing seemed to be changing. He said it was just still irritated and to continue my soaks. Again. So I did what I was told.
Well, here's when the gross "infection from hell" thing came around. I was cleaning it (and somewhat messing around with it) and suddenly managed to drain the fluid. It was a nasty milky brown and just oozed over my fingers. Yuck. But then I noticed the more I dabbed at it to take away the puss, that a wound was beginning to form under the top hole. A few minutes later and the little bugger decided to start bleeding!
So here I am, with this new open sore, red as blood, disgusting as all get out, infected piercing, with no way of knowing if it was rejecting, no way of knowing what to do, and nothing on the internet was helping! I went to another local piercer and showed him the problem, explained what had happened previously and he suggested I use hydrogen peroxide and topical creams such as neosporin and possibly even get the bar changed to a different metal.
Off to walmart I went that night and got myself a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and neosporin.
That my friends is where I'm going to tell you that this stuff piercers say not to use (at least for me, I realize everyone is different) it actually works!
For about 3-4 days I put hydrogen peroxide on the piercing site and moved the bar up and down. I'd then clean it as I usually would with my salt solution and then finish up with a dab of neosporin on the open wound. After those days of putting the hydrogen peroxide on it, I noticed the puss going away. I then stopped the use of the hydrogen peroxide but continued everything else daily, once in the morning, and once at night.
Low and behold, it actually started healing! It scabbed up, healed over and now I'm able to put on cocoa butter oil to help with the scarring. It's almost good as new! (Besides it still being red, but I do believe that's due to the fact it's a re-piercing and not the original)
There you have it! Hydrogen peroxide, neosporin, and cocoa butter oil. My disaster piercing from hell is now healing and I can finally show my tummy again.
Friendly little tip: if you like to touch piercing like I do and can't seem to help yourself, try placing a bandaid over it after every time you clean it. It's a pain and hurts a bit pulling it off but throughout the day it will prevent you from touching it and at night if you tend to roll onto your stomach at night, it should prevent it from catching on anything while it heals.
I hope this was helpful!